From a hilltop,
farmland stretches
to the horizon:
parceled into rectangles
of brown, beige, and oh
so many shades of green.
It must be the tropics,
for ripe grain to
coexist with verdant
& fallow patches.
So different from the farmland
of my youth
where all the rectangles
were one of two colors -
because everyone had to
pack into the same tight
growing season.
a plump heron
walks on lily pads: my own
Personal Jesus.
I have a daily practice of FEELING gratitude for this awesome life and all that contributes to said awesomeness. I don’t place much emphasis on EXPRESSING emotion beyond the usual social protocols and niceties. Quite frankly, I think expression of gratitude is overrated. It binds the process up with ego and desire for reciprocity, and the next thing you know you’ve lost all touch with the experience of gratitude and the powerful influence it has on fostering a positive outlook.
Furthermore, when one emphasizes expression, one tends to develop a blind-spot, thinking that the only entities worthy of consideration of gratefulness are other intelligent beings (or constructs attributed intelligence — e.g. gods.) I begin (though do not end) my practice of gratitude with my body (/ mind) and its systems. I’ve been told many people have trouble fostering gratitude when they focus on their body, but I don’t think one really understands gratitude if one can’t feel deep gratitude for one’s body and mind (literal warts and all.) For the body is the means by which one experiences everything, and one can only be unconditionally grateful for it. [For those who have trouble being grateful for body and mind, I’d recommend the book, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominique Bauby. It’s a short read because it was dictated using eye-blinks by a man who developed “Locked-in Syndrome,” a condition that left its author only with conscious control of an eyelid.]
Passiflora looks like space-age technology. it seems like it should pick up signals from the far reaches of space... but I doubt it does.
As far as humanity’s future goes, nothing worries me. This despite the fact that I believe the odds are good that we’ll destroy the species before spreading to other planetary bodies. (Spreading so as to make humanity more robust in the face of extinction.) Even achieving colonization of other planetary bodies probably cannot be done by humanity as we know it but will require moving beyond biology — i.e. being able to carry consciousness into a sturdier vehicle. Everything is impermanent. We are no different.
Yes, in time, AI and robotics may be able to do every productive task more effectively than humans, but I’m confident I’ll outrun that. Besides if they can, they deserve to do so. I don’t want to be one of those participation trophy speciesists who believe we should be granted a victory even if we’re outperformed — all while whining about unfair advantage.
As for my personal future, the only thing that worries me is losing the ability to go out on my terms — i.e. losing command of mind and / or body with my body still being able to function enough to remain “alive.” Everything that lives will certainly die, so fearing death seems futile.
a jungle walk yields an unexpected scene: decrepit ruins
honey bee at work on flowers still dripping from Spring showers.
