Simply Me (continued)

Topic #1 - Philosophy (continued)

Chapter 2

“One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.” – Robert A. Heinlein

belief [bih-leef]   Noun:               1.  an opinion or conviction;
                                                             2.  confidence in the truth or existence of something 
                                                                   not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof;

                                                             3.  confidence; faith; trust;

                                                             4.  a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith;

faith [feyth]   Noun:                      1.  confidence or trust in a person or thing;

                                                             2.  belief that is not based on proof;

                                                             3.  belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of 

                                                                  religion;

                                                             4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of 

                                                                  merit, etc.;

religion [ri-lij-uh n]   Noun:      1.  a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and 
                                                                  purpose of the universe, especially when 
                                                                  considered as the creation of a superhuman 
                                                                  agency or agencies, usually involving devotional 
                                                                  and ritual observances, and often containing a 
                                                                  moral code governing the conduct of human 
                                                                  affairs;

                                                             2.  a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices 

                                                                   generally agreed upon by a number of persons or 

                                                                   sects;

                                                             3.    the body of persons adhering to a particular set of 

                                                                   beliefs and practices; 

spirituality [spir-i-choo-al-i-tee]  Noun:  

                                                              1.  the quality or fact of relating to, or consisting of 

                                                                   spirit; incorporeal;

                                                              2.  incorporeal or immaterial nature;

                                                              3.  predominantly spiritual character as shown in 

                                                                    thought, life, etc.; spiritual tendency or tone;

theology [thee-ol-uh-jee]   Noun:  

                                                              1.  The field of study and analysis concerned with 
                                                                   God and God’s attributes and relations to the 
                                                                   Universe; the study of divine things or religious 
                                                                   truth; divinity;

When most erudite citizens of a cosmopolitan society of the twenty-first century think of “Religion,” they, are usually considering five inter-woven concepts under that one capital “R”: belief, faith, religion, spirituality, and theology. 

Looking at the dictionary definitions at the beginning of this post, you can see that, while ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ are synonyms, they aren’t exactly the same.  It is possible for one to have belief without faith, but not faith without belief.  In other words, you can have a belief in something whether or not you’ve seen evidence of its veracity; while ‘faith’ is believing in something without any sort of evidence, just because something inside you says, “This I Believe.” 

‘Spirituality,’ on the other hand, can be addressed by either faith or belief, as it is concerned with the concept of the immaterial Spirit or Soul.  It has even been applied to situations where there is an absence of belief or faith, i.e. when atheists use either “The Spirit of Man” or “The Human Spirit” to define one or more of the intangibles of the Human mind, such as: the drive to overcome and survive insurmountable odds, the ability to use intuitive reasoning to come to an accurate conclusion from what appears to be insufficient data, and the ability of the subconscious to complete a puzzle from a few disparate pieces.  Then there is the spirituality aspect of ‘religion,’ with a little “r.”

Small “r” religion is the application and practice of the various systems of belief and faith, once they’ve been codified, chronicled, and consecrated.  It is the collected trappings in which we enshroud our intangible beliefs; the “garment of faith,’ as it was defined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  It can include something as large, old, and ritualized as the worship services of the Roman Catholic Church, or something as small, recent, and casual as the tradition a collegiate athletic team has of touching a specific item for luck before a game.  But, no matter the age, complexity, or size, many, if not all, religions have some sort of spiritual aspect or consideration, be it the one shot at Salvation of an Immortal Soul, the continued Reincarnation of a Soul in the Search for Enlightenment, or the temporary inhabitation of a ‘meat puppet’ by some Great Celestial Being.  There are, however, four hallmarks shared by all religions: that only certain beliefs and practices are sanctioned; that engaging in anything taboo results in the transgressor being chastened, often severely; that some, if not all, sanctioned practices are ceremonially engaged in at very specific places and times; and that all beliefs and practices, both prescribed and proscribed, are passed down to successive generations in such a way as to enshrine said beliefs and practices as necessary cultural habits, and ensure their accurate and faithful preservation and adherence. 

Finally, theology is a sub-category of Philosophy that is part Ethics and part Metaphysics.  It’s the study of the divinity and truth of religion in general, or of a specific religion.  As such, it can cover the belief and faith of the adherents of religion, any divinely required moral codes and their relationship to the spirit, how the tenets of religion correlate with Truth, how divinity figures into the creation and management of the Universe, and the nature and scope of divine revelation in a faith-based belief system.  As you can see, theology touches on all aspects of capital “R” Religion.

So, I imagine that, by now, if your eyes aren’t starting to glaze over, you’re asking yourself, “Where’s the conflict?  Where’s the heresy?  Where does he start a Jihad?”  Well, reach not for the new Bourne story (Spoiler Alert: David comes out of hiding and is forced to do violence on shadowy types in order to save someone close to him; the movie version will contain lots of car chases and shaky cameras.) nor grab the newest George R. R. Martin novel (Spoiler Alert: he kills off half of the main characters about three fifths of the way through the book.), because here’s where the discussion gets interesting.

Next time, we look at the God of Abraham.  Until then, Be Well...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2016

Simply Me (continued)

Topic #1 - Philosophy (continued)

"Philosophy is a walk on slippery rocks..." - Edie Brickell

      Hello again, friends and family!  As I mentioned last time, the topic of 'Philosophy' is much, much more than an individual’s Core Personal Philosophy.  In fact, it is such a voluminous subject that pretty much everything I plan to discuss about "Simply Me" fits into one of the three traditional branches of Philosophy: Natural Philosophy; Moral Philosophy; or Metaphysical Philosophy (or simply Metaphysics).

Natural Philosophy, or Natural Science, as it’s known these days, is the aggregate of the various sciences that deal with all the objects and processes in the Universe that can be observed, described, predicted, empirically tested, and understood.  The hallmark of these various fields of Natural Science is that accuracy, quality, and validity of the empirical evidence is confirmed by the repeatability of the findings.  This branch of Philosophy is further divided into two principle branches: life sciences and physical sciences; with life sciences comprising the fields that involve the study of living organisms (such as anatomy, botany, genetics, molecular biology, and zoology), and physical sciences comprising the fields that study non-living systems (such as astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, and physics).  Human history is replete with men and women who applied their Human Reasoning to ascertain bits and pieces of the fundamentals of nature; intellectual heroes such as Leucippus, Pythagoras, Euclid, Aristotle, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Hypatia of Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemy, Jabir ibn Hayyan, Harun al-Rashid, Abu Nasr Mansur, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Galileo Galilei, Maria Winkelmann, Tyco Brahe, Maria Sybilla Merian, John Locke, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Jefferson, Antoine Lavoisier, Caroline Herschel, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, Maria Mitchell, Arthur Rudolph, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Inge Lehmann, Emmy Noether, Wernher von Braun, Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Chien-Shiung Wu, Arthur C. Clarke, Tikvah Alper, Isaac Asimov, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein, Jane Goodall, Steve Wozniak, Robert Metcalf, and Robert Jarvik.  This may seem like a series of ‘begats’ out of the Old Testament, but each of these individuals, and many more like them, should be mentioned, and often, for the contributions they each made to promote the advancement of Human Knowledge; oft times at the expense of their own lives as they shook up the hide-bound beliefs of their respective times. 

The second Branch of Philosophy is Moral Philosophy, more commonly known as Ethics.  It’s the Branch of Philosophy that focuses on codifying, defending, and recommending the concepts of Right and Wrong conduct; seeking to resolve questions of Human Morality by defining such concepts as Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Vice, and Justice and Crime.  The three major fields of Moral Philosophy are Applied Ethics (the study of an individual’s obligated actions in any given situation), Meta Ethics (the theoretical study of the meaning and reference points of a hypothesis of morality, and the relation of said hypothesis to Truth), and Normative Ethics (the study of how a person determines the moral course of action in any given situation encountered in that person’s daily life).  Like Natural Philosophy, Moral Philosophy has had great Human thinkers over the last three millennia: Ptahhotep, Vyasa, Hammurabi, Rishi Narayana, Rishabha Dev, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Kanada, Thales, Ezekiel, Siddhartha Gautama, Nahum, Cyrus the Great, Pythagoras, Leucippus, Euclid, Confucius, Plato, Boethius, Diogenes of Sinope, Aristotle, Mo Tzu, Epicurus, Han Fei, Archimedes, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine of Hippo, al-Kindi, Johannes Eriugena, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldun, Anselm of Canterbury, William of Ockham, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolo Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, Francis Bacon, Rene` Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ayn Rand, and so many more.  Each of these Philosophers, within their various cultures, have tried to use their Reason to analyze and define the morality of every facet of everyday life, as well as the ethical ramifications of the practical application in the real world of the theoretical research of any of the fields of Natural Philosophy, often finding themselves opposing conventional wisdom.

The final branch of Philosophy is Metaphysics.  This particular branch of Philosophy is a bit more difficult to define as it deals with intangibles, concerned as it is with explaining the fundamental nature of Being and the various elements in the Universe that influence that Being; e.g., the dimensions of space and time, objects that occupy said space and time, cause and effect, possibility, uncertainty, and even existence itself.  The three principle categories of Metaphysical Philosophy are: Cosmology (the study of the origin, evolution, structure, dynamics, and eventual end of the physical and spiritual Universe); Epistemology (the study of the nature and scope of knowledge and justified belief, sometimes referred to as the “Theory of Knowledge”); and Ontology (the study of all the states and categories of Being and their relations, or, to put it more plainly, it basically deals with the what, how, and where of existence).  Unfortunately, because Metaphysics deals with so much that is intangible, the various metaphysical fields tend to be fraught with charlatans and grifters, preying on the desperate, the gullible, and the ignorant.  But, frauds aside, many of history’s great thinkers have tackled the Metaphysics of the Universe: Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell, Aristotle, Plato, Jean-Paul Sartre, Rene’ Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Leucippus, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William of Ockham, Al-Ghazali, Friedrich Nietzsche, Werner Heisenberg, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Albert Einstein, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Martin Heidegger, just to name a few.

You may have noticed that a number of the Great Philosophers are listed in more than one branch of Philosophy.  It’s because every field of Philosophy is intertwined; each field of study leading to questions in another.  The interdisciplinary overlap had (and still has) Astronomers studying Epistemology, Biologists looking into Ethics, Computer Programmers considering Ontology. 

As you can see from my little summary of the topic, to say, “Let’s talk Philosophy,” can mean just about anything.  Therefore, to help things along, I’m going to break up the subjects I discuss into chew-able bites.  Going forward, most of these subjects will be addressed within their respective sub-categories.  For now, as I continue to delve into ‘Philosophy’, I’ll be discussing two things: my own Core Personal Philosophy, and what, beyond Personal Philosophy, the Average Jane and Joe in our culture thinks of when he, or she, hears the “P” word; namely Belief, Faith, Religion, and Spirituality.  Yep, next time I’m going to jump right in and lay out my positions on the quartet of subjects that has alternately caused both, the greatest comfort, and the greatest misery, in the history of Humanity.

Until then, Be Well...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2016

Simply Me (continued)

In which out hero engages in some serious navel-gazing...

Topic #1 - Philosphy

“I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam!” – Popeye the Sailor

philosophy [fi-los-uh-fee] Noun:   1.  the rational investigation of the truths 

                                                       and principles of being, knowledge, or 

                                                       conduct;

2.  a particular system of thought based on such study or investigation;

I promised some serious navel-gazing, so what better place to start our journey than in the Land of Navel-Gazing, Philosophy.

When looking at what makes a person what he, or she, is at the moment, this is a good place to start.  There really isn’t anything more personal than an individual’s personal philosophy.  It’s the summary of the Sum of all those myriad physical and metaphysical parts in the calculus statement of the Self that I mentioned in the previous post.

A person’s core philosophy is the foundation on which is built the structure of their Being.  In computer terms, it is to the individual what the Registry is to the Windows operating system: i.e. it contains all the configuration information that tells that person how to behave within certain parameters.  To use a business concept, it is their Mission Statement.  Even before you get into the meat and potatoes of someone’s core philosophy, just it’s general nature and structure can tell you quite a bit about that individual: is their philosophy ambiguous and unfocused, subject to a variety of interpretations or frequent revisions; or is it clear and concise, orderly, succinctly defined, and as difficult to modify as something engraved on a steel plate?  Without knowing any of the details of their personal philosophies, the first person I described would probably be viewed as capricious and flighty, possibly an air-head, and most likely prone to practicing ‘situational ethics’; while the second would most likely be viewed as focused, precise, maybe a little OCD (or CDO: those of us who have it understand), rigid and unyielding, most likely unwilling to compromise.

That, however, would be the epitome of ‘judging a book by its cover’.  Things aren’t always what they seem at first glance.  Look at it this way: the body of the car may have some dents, dings, and scratches in it.  There may even be a few patches of Bondo and primer.  But that doesn’t mean that, when you pop the hood, you won’t find a clean, carefully-maintained beauty of a supercharged V-8 purring like a kitten and ready to chew the rubber off the wheels when the throttle is opened up.  While your first impressions of Personal Philosophy 1 and Personal Philosophy 2 may be correct, the same two philosophies could be described by someone else thusly: the first person is open-minded and willing to embrace new cultures, experiences, and ideas; while the second person is concise, organized, and firm in their convictions.  In other words, the personal philosophy of the Observer often colors the lens through which the personal philosophy of the Observed is viewed.

So, where am I going with this?  Simple.  This is the introduction to me proffering my own personal philosophy for your perusal.  I briefly touched on some of it in the Prologue, but now, I’d like to provide to you my core programming.  So, without further ado, I present to you, dear reader, my Foundational Principles (in no particular order):

1.    I am a Christian in that I believe in YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses; and that the Lord came to Earth in the form of a mortal man; to live among the people and become the Sacrifice to seal a new Covenant with Humanity.  I’ve seen too many Wonders and Miracles in my life to not believe, particularly the two Miracles that were the births of my daughters.  We’ll get more into this later;

2.    I try my hardest to live my life by the Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish them to treat you, not necessarily as they actually treat you.  I don’t always succeed, but I do always try;

3.    I believe that Life is Sacred.  All Life.  Except cockroaches.  And spiders.  And mosquitos.  This may seem odd, even a bit hypocritical (except the creepy-crawly part), to those who know I support the Death Penalty and that I’m an unrepentant carnivore (okay, omnivore with carnivorous leanings).  I’ll also go into more detail in future posts regarding my stances on Life and Death;

4.    I love most people to some extent or another, but I have a completely Unconditional Love for my family and some very select, special friends.  I may not like some of the things they do, I may completely disagree with them politically, and I may even get angry with some of their actions from time to time, but it never diminishes my Unconditional Love for them.  You’ll notice I said “most people.”  This is because there are a handful of people sprinkled throughout my life who have earned my animosity.  This animosity has usually been rooted in feelings of pity and disappointment for that person, rather than hatred.  I have rarely felt true Hatred in my life, even though I have said, “I hate you!” in anger.  I must admit, though, that I have experienced a few times that burning, unbridled Hatred for another Human Being.  Thankfully, though, those instances have been extremely few and far between;

5.    My Loyalty is hard won, but even harder lost.  It’s been pointed out to me that I’m loyal to a fault; that I will often continue to stand by someone or something long past when I should have walked away;

6.    I believe that the primary thing that sets Human Beings apart from, and above, the animals on this planet is the gift of Free Will bestowed upon us by our Creator.  Free Will gives good ol’ H. Sapiens the ability to choose to act against his instinctual nature.  No matter how smart your favorite critter is, with the very few exceptions that prove the rule, animals cannot act against their instincts;

7.    I believe that we each have a Purpose in Life, and that it is our responsibility to discover it, set ourselves upon that path, and kick and scratch and claw to fulfill that Purpose.  As Aristotle put it, “where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.” 

8.    I do not believe in predestination; that little Free Will thing makes it impossible.  But our Free Will means that we can actually choose to turn our backs upon our “First, Best Destiny,” as Mr. Spock put it, at any time and tread upon a different path;

9.    Again, because of Free Will, I believe that everyone, no matter how low they sink or how far down the path of Evil they go, experiences critical “pivot points” in their lives, to co-opt a term I first heard used in this way by Glenn Beck.  These are moments that present a person with choices they can make to turn their lives around, to grow and make themselves a better person, and to redeem themselves;

10.  I believe that, in addition to Free Will, we have another characteristic that differentiates us from the animals: the ability to Reason.  Our Creator granted us with the acumen to look at the Universe around us and gradually discern its inner workings;

11.  I believe in personal Honor; that an individual is only as good as his word.  I strive every day of my life to uphold this principle, so that those who have dealings with me know that they can count on me to always honor my commitments, even if those commitments leave me holding the short end of the stick.  People of ill will and intent can take away a person’s property, freedom, or even his life, but the only way a person can lose his integrity is to willingly surrender it;

12.  I believe that all people, but especially children, must live with the consequences of their actions; though the consequences can be somewhat mitigated for children.  Even if they apologize and are honestly contrite, everyone must learn that they can’t make the consequences of a poor choice just go away by saying, “I’m sorry”;

13.  I believe that Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong and never the twain shall meet.  Many people today place great stock in the concept of compromise in every situation; the philosophy that everything is shades of gray … that there are no absolutes of Right and Wrong.  There are two old adages that describe how I feel about the via media: “If you sit in the middle of the road, all that’ll happen is you’ll get run over;” and, “Anyone who won’t stand for something will fall for anything.”

14.  Further, I believe that it is just as important to do the Right Thing when no one is looking as it is to do it when being observed, maybe even more so;

15.  I also believe in the dichotomy of Good and Evil.  The Universe abhors a vacuum; for Good to exist, it must be balanced by Evil, and vice-versa.  The problem is that this is another area where our modern society has blurred the boundaries; painting every conflict in the gray shades of compromise, if not completely reversing the roles of these ancient adversaries.  Ayn Rand expressed it best when she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win.  In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”

16.  I believe that most people are born with an equal propensity for Good and Evil, and that, with the exception of an extremely rare few, the environment in which a child is raised is what ultimately determines how Good or how Evil that child will become;

17.  I firmly believe in Soul Mates.  I should, I married mine.  I believe that, somewhere out there, in the big, wide world, there is a special someone for everyone.  A partner with whom you will create a special synergistic spark that, without your specific pairing, the world will lack; 

18.  I do not believe that marriage is a 50-50 endeavor.  I believe that it is a 100-100 endeavor.  Both parties in the marriage must give 100% to their partner.  Any marriage where both people are only half-way trying is doomed to failure;

19.  I also believe that, in addition to your Soul Mate, there are several people out there that I like to call, “Soul Buddies.”  These are people you meet with whom you have a special connection … people with whom, for no known reason, you just hit it off from the start.  After meeting, you may not even see your Soul Buddy for years at a time, but when you do, it’s as if no time at all has passed;

20.  I do not believe that the end ever justifies the means.  If something is morally or ethically wrong in one situation, then it is wrong in all situations.  Claiming a noble motive for ignoble actions is just an attempt to legitimize bad, lazy behavior;

21.  I believe that the United States of America, warts and all, is the best thing to ever happen to the Human Race.  We may have hit some bumps and taken some wrong turns along the way, but our Constitutional Republic has provided more Freedom and created more general prosperity than any other system of government in Human History.  I’ll get into how I came by this conviction in future posts;

      So, there you have it: me, in a very large nut shell.  Or is it?  We actually have quite a bit more to cover; this is just the Foundation of the Structure-That-is-Me.  Why, in the subject of Philosophy alone, we’ve barely scratched the surface.  It is much, much more than an individual’s Core Personal Philosophy.

      Next time, we'll start looking at the three traditional branches of Philosophy: Natural Philosophy; Moral Philosophy; or Metaphysical Philosophy (or simply Metaphysics).  Until then, Be Well...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2016

Simply Me

     Hello, friends and family!
     So, it seems as if it's been almost two years since my last post in this blog.  At the encouragement of several people, I am going to start it up again.  In the past, I have been told that a 'successful' blog usually keeps it's posts to between 400 and 500 words.  With my previous posts, I found that the 500-word Limit often led to topics being broken up over multiple posts.  As I move forward, I will try to stay under the 500-word mark, but I'll warn you right now, in order to keep the 'partitioning' of topics to a minimum, there will be some wordy posts this time around.  So, let's get back to the beginning...

“I am neither Democrat nor Republican.  For those of you who love little pigeonholes, you may call me an Independent American Individual who believes in the Constitution as our Founding Fathers intended it.  I am also an ordained Christian minister who is not affiliated with any particular denomination because of my disgust with the dogma and politics in which most denominations are embroiled.  I believe in Right and Wrong.  I believe in Good and Evil.  I believe that the Universe is a logical, merciless, unforgiving place where A is A; that ignoring this and wishing otherwise is a form of suicide.  I believe in self-sufficiency.  I believe in Free Will.  Above all, I believe in Consequences, Forgiveness, and Redemption.  I love my Family, my God, and my Country.  Basically, I am a Traditional American.”

This is how I describe myself in my various social media accounts.  You know: those text boxes that ask you to sum up an entire Human Being in two hundred words or less. (One hundred thirty-four.  Not bad, eh?)  But just what does this little blurb actually tell you about that biological entity named “James?”  Well, from it, you may learn:

Ø  That I believe that neither of the major American political parties represents my views;

Ø  That I’m not fond of being categorized;

Ø  That I believe the majority of America’s leaders during the birth of our Republic got it right when they crafted the Constitution of the United States of America;

Ø  That I am a Christian in that I believe in God, and try to follow and pass on the teachings of the Christ; but that I have had some negative experiences with organized religion;

Ø  That I believe in the Universal Balance, the Yin and Yang of Existence;

Ø  That I believe I view all of Creation with a rational, scientific mind;

Ø  That I believe that everyone is responsible for their own actions, and that everyone is capable of changing and growing as a Human Being;

Ø  That I hold an affectionate allegiance for my relatives, spirituality, and my neighbors in this great nation;

Ø  And that, while I am a unique individual, I come from a culture of Unique Individuals; and that makes me just one of the folks.

At least those are the ideas I was trying to communicate.  For some people, though, my brief description seems to create more questions than it answers.

Therefore, I have decided, in an attempt to clarify any ambiguity or misconceptions, to embark upon the ultimate navel-gazing journey and de-mystify the complex individual that is me.  I plan to give each topic it’s full due.  Some of the topics, those that to me are self-evident, will be short, sweet, and to the point; not much more than dipping my toes into the water.  But many of the concepts that make up my make-up are complex and took many years and much research for me to embrace.  Into the brew of these more convoluted concepts I shall dive deeply, but I am going to try to keep it entertaining so as to make it as painless as possible for you, the reader.  As I lay bare my soul, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Ø  I fancy myself something of a wordsmith, so, yes, I do tend to speak like this;

Ø  If you question the way I am using a word, keep in mind that, since Junior High (middle school for readers under 35), I have almost exclusively used various editions of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary as my go-to reference on the English language.  Feel free to grab a copy to verify the definition I am using;

Ø  I will do my best to cite the source of any facts I quote and will list the citations as I go along.  However, the source of many of the facts I learned in my youth may be hidden somewhere in the cluttered recesses of my mind.  In these instances, I will qualify the fact with identifiers to let you, the reader, know that I remember finding confirmation for the fact at some point in the dim past, but I can neither remember nor confirm the source of the fact;

Ø  Each unique Human Being, beyond being a biological entity of the planet I like to call, “Earth,” is a living, breathing example of synergy.  The person you are right now is the culmination of: the abilities endowed by your genetic heritage; your formal education; every personal relationship, good or bad, you have ever had; in fact, every experience (also good or bad) you have ever had; every choice you have ever made; the environment in which you were raised; and an indeterminate number of additional variables.  This (possibly) astronomical number of variables still don’t quite add up to You.  There is an elusive, indefinable Human Quality that makes the Whole of You greater than the sum of your myriad physical and metaphysical parts.  I point this out so you can keep it in mind as I relate the things that shaped the Whole of Me.  It is very possible that you would have reacted differently or learned a different lesson than I did with each event or incident;

Ø  I am, by nature, a very visual person.  Because of this, I really like various figures of speech and tend to use them vigorously.  For me, it doesn’t matter if it’s an allegory, metaphor, parable, or simile; just as long as the words paint pictures on the canvas of my mind; And

Ø  I am also fond of quotations.  My feelings on the subject are simple: if someone before me has expressed a concept in an eloquent, succinct manner, why should I try to change it?  Attributions for quotations will be included.

Basically, the blog you are reading is nothing more nor less than an open letter to my family, friends, and acquaintances…a letter written in my own casual, inimitable (in my humble opinion) voice.  So, dear neighbor, sit back and enjoy the ride.  I’m not so vain to think that my life is so amazing that people are going to hang on my every word; I’m just hoping to clarify a few (dozen or so) things in my mind, provide some understanding for the people in my life, and possibly provide a cautionary tale or two to help others avoid the pot holes and speedbumps I’ve hit as I’ve traveled along this little road called Life.  If I stop and tip a few sacred cows along the way … shake up a few preconceived notions about who I am … then so much the better.  This epistle isn’t about some world-renowned celebrity or historical figure, it is about simply me.