Tag Archives: Mars Curiosity

Kindly confine the excess salivation to the spittoon…..

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Ffolkes,

“Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.”

(It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.)

~~ Horace ~~

from Ars Poetica

mars-rover-selfie


The above picture is from NASA, the US Space agency; it’s a self-portrait of the Mars Rover, Curiosity, taken in 2014, after a year of exploring Mars. I have included it today, simply because it makes me proud to be human. We have a robot on Mars, dammit! Not only were we able to send it there, let it touch down without crashing itself into small pieces, with computers, and all its delicate equipment intact, using an incredibly complex method of landing from orbit, once it had traversed the hundreds of millions of miles just to get to where it could orbit the planet….

Not only did we get it there, safely down to the surface, it is advanced enough it can communicate with us, here on Earth, well enough for us to be capable of receiving high resolution, LIVE pictures, such as this self-portrait, composed of a panoramic collage of photos taken by the robot’s camera arm…. I cannot express, loudly, or long enough, the importance of the simple fact that WE HAVE REACHED ANOTHER PLANET!

Perhaps we are not yet there in person, but, to have a representative there, a functioning explorer/ambassador of our culture, in constant touch with the home planet, is enough of a wonder to give me the shivers when I consider it…. It’s not a big step, in terms of the total distances involved in space, but it is one more significant step on the only path I can see saving us form our own foolishness, to wit; the path to the stars….

When I was a child, I read a lot of Science Fiction, along with all I was learning in school; over the years, up to high school, and into college, I became convinced that exploring the stars is the only purpose I can think of worthy of Mankind’s ultimate attention, as a goal for the entire species to reach… There is so much out there to learn, and we’ve had so little time, compared to all there is, or will be; we can never, individually, learn all there is to learn, see all there is to see, for what we know now tells us, without doubt, there is no end in sight to the sheer variety and diversity of the Universe, in all its ancient glory, all the way to the ends of the visible space, over a BILLION light years away, in space, and, in time for it takes that long, a billion years, just for the light of those distant galaxies to reach our eyes….

At my tender age, I didn’t know how foolish most men are, or how stupidity, and the cupidity of men with no honor, would place all of us, every single human alive, in the direst of jeopardy, before the end of my life here on Earth…. but, that is what has happened…. The cumulative effects of the actions of just a few dishonorable, selfish, violently insane men, who, unfortunately, are in control of most of society’s resources, have reached a critical point, where the choice of the wrong path, in the next few years, may well determine whether we live long enough, as a species, to have the chance to even reach the limits of our own solar system, much less travel to the nearest stars, a bit over 4 light years distant…

What I didn’t realize when I was young, is that the path to Alpha Centauri, or it’s twin, the closest star system to ours, and beyond, would be the ONLY path upon which we humans will have any real chance to survive. If we do NOT leave our planet soon, the internal pressures in society are going to explode, and the damage we have caused to our own planet is going to reach a point from which there is no retreat…. We need to start a solid, self-supporting colony on another planet, or three, or four, or we are not going survive past the end of the current century…. It’s harsh, but, I don’t see any way around this…. it’s simple math, and simple logic….

If we, as a species, cannot get our act together, stop killing each other, and quit fucking with the environment through our ignorance and avarice, then, for sure and for certain, we are ALL going to die, along with most of the other mammalian life on this planet…. The insects, and some of the lower orders of plants and microbes (lichen, fungus, viruses, etc…) may last a while, but, not in the form they are in now…. Life, as we know it on this planet, will cease, and never be missed by an indifferent Universe…. This, ffolkes, I’m sorry to say, is NOT speculation, and NOT a guess. If we don’t quit our bullshit, NOW, it will be too late….

I’m sure you’ve heard of, or seen, the reports from various points around the globe about sinkholes that are showing up where none were ever seen before, both in remote areas, and in settled ones… These holes are not completely understood, but one thing is clear; they are most likely a result of the melting of the permafrost, which exists under the first layers of ice in the poles, and, under the ground, all over the world… In this permafrost is a chemical substance, a gas, which, though natural to nature, is toxic in large amounts, and acts as one of the most powerful catalysts to climate and environmental changes ever discovered….

Introducing large amounts of the gas trapped in the permafrost is scientifically certain to cause changes in the chemical balance of the atmosphere, and can be shown to happen at a hyperbolic rate once begun, increasingly faster with each molecule added to the air…. This gas, once reaching a certain percentage amount in the air, will alter the percentages of gases in the air we breathe, making it toxic, poisonous for us to breathe…. AND, there are two things to note about the process we are seeing in the formation of the sinkholes….

First, once begun, there is no known way to stop the catalytic changes from continuing…. we haven’t a clue how to stop what it will do. The second item of note is this…. all these sinkholes show an intense concentration of the pertinent substance to which I referred, inside, as well as coming out, of the air in the holes, mixing with the general atmosphere, meaning the permafrost below the hole is melting, at a rate we cannot halt….

We may already be dead, and not even know it…. How ’bout them apples, eh?

I am unsure of how to view this news…. It’s all true; everything I wrote in the above paragraphs can be found in the daily news, with a bit of minor digging…. Hell, I’m not entirely cognizant of either how I got started on this, or why I didn’t stop myself…. I started off with a positive outlook, but, reality set in, I suppose, and the rest just flowed from there…. I guess this is one way to get my ranting out of the way….

I’ll leave this here, since I’ve said all that can be said on the matter; at this point, it all boils down to one question, to wit: Will we have time to find our way out of the damn near insoluble situation in which we’ve placed ourselves, live up to our promise, and beat a path to the stars? or, will we continue to allow our own worst qualities determine our fate, thus putting the first, and most likely, the last nail in our own coffin?

Sadly, your guess is as good as mine, and, I don’t have a clue; all I have left is a little bit of hope, and it has a hard time manifesting at all….. SIGH… I guess we should get on with the rest of this; I’ve made it hard on myself today, by insisting on dealing with such a depressing subject, first thing…. Perhaps it will have a good effect on the rest of this one… One can never tell, can one?…. I can’t, and, here, that’s all that matters, in the final analysis…. On that singularly obvious note, let’s be off….

Shall we Pearl?…..

While I pondered on this dangerous pastime…
I took a heavenly ride through our silence…
I knew at that the moment had arrived…
For killing the past and coming back to life.

 ~~ Pink Floyd ~~

Coming Back To Life

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I really don’t know what came over me up there…. I’m getting pretty unpredictable when it comes to this ranting stuff; I might have to just give it a rest for a time, though I don’t know what I’d do with all the build-up of internal pressure liable to happen if I do that; it’s been known to cause problems for NASA when it gets to be too much….. not that I really know how that works, but, when you get Federal Marshals at your door enough times, it gets old fast….

Now I’m falling into silly mode, and it’s still a bit early for that….. Well, perhaps not. Why don’t I see if Smart Bee can help out a bit? I’ll put together an old-school pearl, with random parameters set to silly, & see what happens, okay? Okay…. Let’s dive into the world wide web, & find us some oysters…. the metaphorical kind….

“Cthulhu! You’ve been SPOKEN to about biting the readers!” — Smart Bee

“First prepare the soup of your choice and pour it into a bowl. Then, take the bowl and quickly turn it upside down on the cookie tray. Lift the bowl ever so gently so that the soup retains the shape of the bowl. Gently is the key word here. Then, with the knife cut the soup down the middle into halves, then quarters, and gently reassemble the soup into a cube. Some of the soup will run off onto the cookie tray. Lift this soup up by the corners and fold slowly into a cylindrical soup staff. Square off the cube by stuffing the cracks with this cylindrical soup staff. Place the packet in your purse or inside coat pocket, and pack off to work.” — Steve Martin

“A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possible be alive.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” — Smart Bee

“Courtroom: A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds in favor of Judas.” — H.L. Mencken

“I find more and more, as I grow older, that I prefer women to men, children to adults, animals to humans… And rocks to living things? No, I’m not that old yet.” — Edward Abbey

“Now that I have my “APPLE,” I comprehend COST ACCOUNTING!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

As is usual when we go random, it ended up a bit eclectic…. Silly, but, eclectic…. Hmm, not a bad combination, for a throw-together concept… Well, onward…..

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I’m in the mood for Keats, so, that’s what you get today…. So be it, gigoid has spoken….

Ode To A Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

~~ John Keats ~~


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For this section, since I ranted already, and created a pearl above (a strange one, admittedly, but, fresh as can be….), I’m going to dip into the archives for this section…. This is not a rant, per se, but, more of a discussion, with rant-like qualities…. I enjoyed it, so, I suggest you do to….

Just kidding, it’s worth a look, if only to check out how little things have changed in the last eight months of history on this sad old ball of mud…. At least, little about humanity has changed; the universe is rolling merrily along, as always….

From 1/13/2014:

Perception is, perhaps, the most elementally intricate quality we possess as living creatures. Through the five-plus senses we bring to the process, we receive information from the universe that gives us what we require, in order to be able to interact with Reality, (another term for the Universe… for the purposes of this discussion, anyway….)  in some sort of way that is meaningful to us.

This information comes to us in a variety of forms, and our minds must utilize the complex, yet subtle qualities of imagination, reason, logic, and all those mental functions that our minds have discovered to organize the information, functions whose etiology are basically unknown to us, as part of our basic nature. We don’t think about, or feel in any way, the process of seeing, or smelling, or touching, except in the context of the sense itself…. We just DO it….

Yet each sense is such that it works WITH all the others, in ways we don’t really understand, to give us the pictures in our heads that show us how our minds perceive the world outside us…. We, being the imaginative creatures we are, have evolved all sorts of ways to organize and utilize our perceptions, all of which are again connected (remember that complexity part…) to another facet of Reality, which is our motivation for what we do, an outgrowth of our judgments of what we perceive…. We perceive, we judge, we act on that judgment, all according to our basic outlook on life, and how we choose to accept, and use, what we perceive….

This subject, I know, is a  bit esoteric for such a venue, but, I’m leading up to a point, which is this…. We all perceive the world differently, but, that doesn’t mean the world takes that into any account…. It’s one of our hardest lessons to accept when we are forced to admit that the Universe, in all its majestic glory, couldn’t give a tiny little crap for us, or for what we think of the way things are…. If we choose to interact with it in such a way that we are breaking the basic rules that everything works by, then we will have to pay the price, in the only way that the Universe uses to exact payment, to wit: extinction….

Now, given that, it seems to me that my ranting about all of this*** is a bit like that ant crawling up the elephant’s leg, with belligerent intentions…. In short, it’s not really a productive way to achieve whatever it is I’m trying to do, as I can see only one possible outcome, which, the odds, and logic, would tend to dictate doesn’t include any need for any worry on the part of the elephant…. All that is a long winded, pedantic way of saying that my rants, while satisfying on a personal level for the release they provide, are mostly a waste of breath, in a practical sense…. Nothing will change because I rant, in spite of the need for change being the whole purpose behind the rant…

The major part of that reason, I think, lies in the fact that I’m preaching to the choir…. None of the ffolkes, or folks, who read my blog, (with the possible exception of any bored NSA drones who may be assigned to do so merely because of my anti-government stance, shown by the  use of key phrases indicating my opposition….), are in any position to make any of the changes themselves, even though many of them would be willing to do so, I think…. But, the people who inhabit the halls of our government in Washington, and in other capitols around the world, DON’T read my blog, nor do they agree with most of the things about which I rant….

Why is that, do you think? Why don’t the people who govern us agree with any of what I say in my rants? It’s all stuff that can be proven, and is certainly important enough to all of us to warrant discussion… But, they don’t agree… They have their own agendas, which don’t look like anything that anyone in the great unwashed masses could come up with, even though they supposedly represent US…. These are our representatives, ffolkes…. I found this short comment in an old Pearl, which I think sums up most of my point pretty well…..

(From May 12, 2012):

“Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?” — John Milton (1608-1674) — The History of England, Book iv

Did you ever wonder why a group of crows is called a congress? I didn’t. It makes perfect sense to me…. Dark, sinister looking creatures who act in odd ways, even for birds. Their behaviors tend to lean toward stealing shiny objects from wherever, or stealing the food of people or other animals and birds. When they speak, it is in a voice that grates on the ear like fingernails on a slate. In groups, they mill around, cackling and grumbling and jostling each other, until they all fly off to different areas to carry out whatever nefarious schemes they have hatched among themselves.

No, I have no problem envisioning a congress of crows; in fact, I believe they are in session, now, in Washington, D.C. …. Why, look! Here’s a list of them now!…..

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/01/10/congress-is-mostly-full-of-millionaires-but-who-are-the-richest/#19551101=0

Them’s some affluent crows, ain’t they?…. That’s what happens when any politician is given the keys to the treasury….. One last query…. Who gets to say how much money members of Congress get paid? Answer: They are authorized to set that themselves…. Okay, one more… Who authorized them? Why, they authorized that themselves, of course….

I’m tired now…. I’ve managed to spout off now about the Asininnies, or, at least, about the 545 of them who inhabit the top levels of OUR democratic bureaucracy, for a good, oh, thousand words or so, and once again, it will end up being read by those who mostly agree… (I’m making the assumption, reluctantly, but, with confidence, that if they DIDN’T agree, they’d leave a comment to say so…. I know MY Gentle Readers would do so….), so, I’m perfectly aware that no changes will happen because of what I’ve written….

I don’t feel any better, either, damn it!…..      😦

***  It must be noted that “all of this” should be understood to include: global warming, and the impending ecological disaster, overpopulation, criminality of the Asininnies, most especially the egregiously selfish actions of the Beloved Ruling Class, the Shadowy Corporate Masters, Snakeheads in general, (human predators…. pimps, slavers, pedophiles, and the ilk…), and the Priestly Hierarchies….. Oh, yes, and, on the rare occasion,  exposing Pooh’s evil twin….

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It definitely feels good to be able to get back to my routine, I must say…. Dealing with changes has me feeling rather cattish; cats get pretty upset when their routines get altered. Guess I must need to get out & about more, so I don’t get so crusty…. And, since I’ve probably rambled & blathered enough for 3 blogs already today, I should no doubt hit the road for the day…. I’ll be nice, and do that…. I will, however, give you fair warning…. I’ll be back tomorrow, ffolkes, so, set your watches, so you can be elsewhere at that time….. Hah!….. See ya…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
   and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

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In the wake of a fashion faux pas….

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Ffolkes,
Very odd, very odd indeed…. endings first, cut and pasting before 0700, relating personal dreams…. what am I thinking? On the whole, though, it promises to be, if nothing else, an interesting day, and I mean that in a good sense, at least hopefully….. I’m kind of dealing with some unknown factors here, so I’m not entirely certain of what I am up to….. or whether or not it will fit seamlessly into my morning routine….. well, seamless isn’t essential, just appreciated when it happens….

If I were at all sure about what I was speaking, I’d most likely get on with it, but, since I’m not, I’m dithering, if you couldn’t tell already. I guess I don’t deal well with this much uncertainty about my writing. Though it IS an energetically unregulated process, for the most part, I do like to have a clear idea of what I’m saying, or speaking about, before beginning. It just seems to work better that way…. and it throws me off when the process gets this far over toward the unlimited lane, and things start rushing along before I have a handle on just where they are rushing off to….. But, that’s reality for you…. always a bit different than expected. Murphy wouldn’t want us to get too comfortable, now, would he?…. No, he wouldn’t….

Keeping Murphy’s ubiquitous presence in mind is good policy. One cannot possibly plan for all of his little machinations; he is, after all, Murphy, and unplanned disasters are what he is all about….. But, keeping in mind what he can do does make it possible to prepare one’s attitude to accept whatever crap he ladles out as our portion for the day, and get on with business afterward, without undue distress over something that is going to happen anyway….. it’s just good sense. Not that I’ve ever been accused of having too much of that; I WAS married for over 20 years, so I’ve been made fully aware of all my faults….  🙂

My faults notwithstanding, we’d best get on with the regularly scheduled activities…. with the way it’s all begun, there is no telling where we could end up, or how much damage we could conceivably cause if we’re not careful. With that in mind, shall we Pearl?…..
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“The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.” — Steven Weinberg

In the past year and some time, I’ve written many words… more than I care to think about just now, and a number that some would say deserves the term “interminable”….. None of them comes closer to summarizing how I feel about life in general than this…. I’ve never seen it before, to my knowledge, which detracts in no way from its deep resonance with my core beliefs.

I spend a lot of time discussing those parts of life that lean toward the direction of farce, with no little outrage at the depth of human cupidity and well, bozoid tendencies. In my own way, I suppose, this could be construed as my own effort to try to understand the universe, and our place in it…. I hope so, anyway…. because understanding life has been my only quest for the greatest part of it that I remember, reaching back to when I was five or six, and desperately trying to blend in with all the orange monkeys, while secretly wearing my own coat of blue…. For the two years after beginning school, and being exposed all day to the world outside my family, the gap between myself and my peer group seemed to be unpredictable, in terms of what they perceived, and what I could see and understand.

This isn’t to imply I was an outcast; merely an “egghead”, or other such complimentary terminology, as I found the actual school part of it all quite simple. This did, on the positive side, give me enough time to learn to adapt, and make myself likable for other reasons… sports being one, and applying the principle of “to have friends, be a friend”; I was always generous with helping others in school, with whatever I could do. Plus, I do LIKE people, as a rule…. they often disappoint, but, if one pays attention, they also never fail to amaze, in so many ways.

This study of my peer group from my first memories has persisted throughout my life, and remains today my primary focus of self-directed education, so to speak. I love to sit in public places and watch crowds; I don’t much like being IN crowds, so much as watching them interact with each other, all according to the dancing rules we all learn, from kindergarten onward…. From the first time I ever attended a county fair, my favorite activity at each, was to race through all there was to see, spend all my disposable income, and then spend the remainder of my time sitting near the front gate plaza, watching the people as they came to the fair….. endless entertainment, and still is…. only now, I walk the streets when I’m able,  or sit in the public parks, libraries, and coffee shops, wherever I live….

“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

One of the things I’ve learned about people is that human nature is just that… a force of nature. It has not changed much, if at all, since we humans were living in grass huts at the junction of a river; there are still good people, and bad people, and they are most often the same person…. because we all have our own unique view of the world, and our own feelings about what we see and believe we understand. We don’t always have all the information we need at critical times in our lives, and so make decisions that affect our behavior or outlook, decisions which become habits, leading us to believe these habits are justifiable because they work to keep us comfortable…. until they don’t. Life always changes, there is nothing that can stop it from doing so; if we do not learn to change ourselves, to adapt to the changes in the universe around us, it will end up destroying us.

The universe has no mercy, no pity; these are human concepts, and not a part of reality at all. But, being human, we crave justice, for things to be fair…. we bend our efforts to changing the universe to meet our wishes, never realizing that it is folly, that reality does not work that way, and there is nothing at all we can do to alter that reality according to our wishes without suffering the consequences. How quickly those consequences will result in our demise as a species is, of course, a matter of some debate. I tend to believe that we are nearing a breaking point, and the universe is going to be submitting a bill for payment to us, for the damages to our living domicile for which we are responsible, in the very near future…..

It must be noted that most of what I write about, whether I write well, or merely a lot, lends itself equally well to tragedy as it does to farce. In fact, it should also be noted that this is a good metaphor, for human nature. We are contradictory creatures, you, and your Uncle Bob, your Aunt Shirley, and I, and everyone else who makes up human society, filled with warring impulses, and wildly differing viewpoints. The expression of our nature in the real world reflects all of that, in all its tragic, farcical, gloriously foolish splendor…. We inspire and disgust each other on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, especially if one watches a lot of TV, with its completely distorted approximation of reality…. I have pretty much given up on TV completely, as it merely serves to fuel my outrage, and that, as you may have noted already, needs no further encouragement….

Well, a thousand or so words should be enough for a retrospective musing on human nature….. especially when they flow out as smoothly as these. I’ll leave this here, and most likely come back to it another day…. I will leave you with this fine observation from Mssr. Darwin, of The Origin of Species fame…. a book which gave birth to perhaps the finest scientific advance of the millennium, the since-proven Theory of Evolution….. surely a magnificent creation of the human spirit that encompasses both of the  elements, farce and tragedy, we explored above….

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin
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I would have like to have included here a poem of my own…. but, nothing remotely acceptable is ready to be offered up for approval. Since the first and last pearls are introspectively oriented, one of mine in this spot would be the perfect addition to maintain balance. But, it’s not happening, so we’ll just have to settle for a real poet…. SIGH…. ah well, can’t have everything…. and this should be an acceptable alternative, if a bit longer than is comfortable for some….. enjoy!

Epistle To Augusta

I.
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same­
A loved regret which I would not resign,
There yet are two things in my des­tiny, –
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

II.
The first were nothing-had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore,
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

III.
If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen,
I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

IV.
Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d
The gift,- a fate, or will, that walk’d astray;
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.

V.
Kingdoms and empires in my little day
I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
And when I look on this, the petty spray
Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away
Something-I know not what-does still uphold
A spirit of slight patience; not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

VI.
Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me – or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.

VII.
I feel almost at times as I have felt
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love-but none like thee.

VIII.
Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;- to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;
But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
Here to be lonely is not desolate’
For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

IX.
Oh that thou wert but with me! – but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter’d eye.

X.
I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman’s is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved they are
Resign ‘d For ever, or divided far.

XI.
The world is all before me; I but ask
Of Nature that with which she will comply
It is but in her summer’s sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister – till I look again on thee.

XII.
I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not; for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest – even the only paths for me –
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be;
The passions which have torn me would have slept;
I had not suffer’d, and thou hadst not wept.

XIII.
With false Ambition what had I to do?
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make -a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over – I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.

XIV.
And for the future, this world’s future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill’d a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass’d me by.

XV.
And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,
And for the present, I would not benumb
My feelings further. – Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around,
And worship Nature with a thought profound.

XVI.
For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
We were and are – I am, even as thou art
Beings who ne’er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,
From life’s commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined-let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!

George Gordon Lord Byron
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“We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth.- There is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will spread out before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows, will stay in our presence forever.” — Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

Here is precisely what I meant the other day when I said that people often disappoint, but just as often will delight and amaze us with their brilliance…. This is the same Bulwer-Lytton who penned the famous beginning line “It was a dark and stormy night….”, which went on to become the inspiration for a yearly contest to find the example of the worst possible beginning paragraph of a book, the Annual Bulwer-Lytton Award, now worth many thousands of dollars to the winner…..

In this short statement, in direct contrast to his famous opening lines, he gives us a quite beautiful expression of the hopes of mankind, to explore our universe, from one end to the other, in order to appreciate the full extent of the grandeur that exists…. Of course, it’s a bit optimistic, considering we have yet to make it further than Mars, but, I suppose that is what groundless hope means…. and it has been said that is the only kind of hope there is, really….. I’m not completely certain that is true, in every case; the universe is strange indeed, and the one thing you can count on is that it will always surprise us……

I like the idea proposed here, if only because it was a dream of mine in my youth to not accept dying until I had at least traveled to one other planet (or Moon, if necessary….). I had little hope of achieving it once I discovered I didn’t have the required excellent vision to get into the astronaut program; at the time, you had to be a pilot to get in, and jet pilots don’t wear glasses…. SIGH…. It was a tough dream to give up on, and I still hoard a secret desire to fulfill the dream, should it happen to become tenable while I still live…. given my age, there is not a lot of time left, but, hey, there’s that groundless hope again, eh?…..

I was greatly impressed with the recent NASA triumph of successfully landing the Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars, intact, and apparently with all systems functional; it is indeed the pinnacle of all the technological progress our species has made in all our history. The engineering involved was incredibly complex, and required a long series of complicated maneuvers, all at specific times, each of which was essential to the successful completion of the next item. The fact that all of them worked perfectly was a true technological miracle of major proportions, especially given that all this took place many millions of miles into space, rushing at incredible speed toward Mars. Now, the full color pictures and spectroscopic data it is sending back will provide us with a huge amount of new information to correlate and explain.

It almost gives me hope that I could still see the surface of the Moon as a tourist before I am too old to get there…. Once I’m there, I really won’t mind dying much, especially if I get a chance to see a bit of its wonders before I go…. Ah me, the dreams of our youth never really die, do they?…..  And this is a dream that I will hold onto right up to the very moment I go on to the next dimension…..
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Today’s Pearl turned into a personal perspective, which is fine, if a bit unusual…. I don’t hide much, personally, but I don’t parade it much either, so today’s effort was somewhat out of the normal…. an attribute we approve of highly around here…… Besides, it all must have needed to be said, especially the first section, all of which rolled out of my head onto the screen in just a few minutes; it was all ready to go, so it must have been percolating for a bit…. Any who, it’s all good, and no major secrets were given away….. I can call that a moral victory, without fear of being wrong…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!