Unexpected twists and werewolves

Life it seems is constantly throwing unexpected twists at me recently. Sort of annoying because they were not totally unexpected, but I couldn't really do much about them. First off I was demoted at work, while kind of negative thing in the career world, it's sort of a relief because I'm not as stressed now, plus my pay won't be cut to bad. Most annoying however is that my power supply on my desktop decided to kick the bucket, so I'm writing this from my wife's laptop which I have issues with (likes to trick me with it's keyboard). Worst part is that do to a freak accident with gamma radiation, I turn into frothing werewolf when it pisses me off...

Ok...so I'm not really some Incredible Hulk werewolf, but between seeing Twilight New Moon with my wife recently and also Monsterquest's most recent episode (about werewolves as well), I've formulated an idea about paranormal creatures. It's sort of a play on the idea of thoughtforms (physical manifestations of thoughts), or Tulpas (for those more familiar with that term).

This isn't really an original idea, but the theory that Fortean objects or phenomenon, be it animals or UFOs are physical manifestations of thought is actually quite common (heck some believe the world/universe is basically a gigantic thoughtform). However I found myself wondering how many paranormal creatures exist because of a community belief in them, not just from an individual's. Basically the communities themselves believe these to be real, so they become real.

Sadly this post is almost a repeat of one I wrote around year or more ago about gods existing because of belief. Actually it somewhat makes sense. Both the Bible and Koran make it a point to try and make one's beliefs in other gods (besides Allah/Jehovah) falter or be flat out eliminated. It's almost as if the writers of those ancient texts knew that the existence of these gods depended on the amount of belief in them, sort of like in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods in a way.

Anyways expect more on this idea the near future. Also if things fall into place expect to hear about a crazy plan of mine soon as well...something involving a road trip and of course...strangeness...

A time for change?

Part of the reason I haven't been blogging as much is because I've been assisting my wife with her barn chores (gotta keep horse board low). Recently I've been doing more of the chores on my own and so have been listening to esoteric themed podcasts while cleaning horse stalls. Yesterday happened to be a chore day for me, so I loaded up my MP3 player with an episode of the excellent, Paratopia (hosted by Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzmann). The episode was an interview with Gregory Sams, author of a book called Sun of gOd, which makes a case that everything may be alive.

There were many interesting conversations throughout the show, many revolving around how science now at days (at least in the western world) is driven by need (or greed) for funding, which prevents many scientists researching more "out there" subjects. This is something I've pondered before, particularly how it effects us as a society. I can't tell you how often I wonder where we'd be now if we just eliminated the "need" for money. Sincerely I believe that it's keeping us from truly "progressing" as a society and I feel we need to strive to get away from it.

Another thing they covered was the interesting relationship between science and religion over the centuries. Sort of a love hate relationship from the start, with religion oppressing science, then vice versa. Related was the subject about how when science begins to find stuff (such as some quantum mechanics theories) that began to almost transcend the "science/religion" barrier, they are often avoided (although not necessarily by choice), largely in part do to fear of loosing funding. That of course brings everything back round to stuff mentioned in the paragraph above.

This whole idea that money is standing in the way (not because of a lack of it) of things is one I've had for awhile now, even before listening to the podcast yesterday. I've noticed as I watch the way our society works, money is pretty much necessary to live. It drives everything. Basically it comes down to, either you have money, or you don't deserve to be happy. At least that's the feeling I get from our current consumer driven world.

The problem itself extends far beyond happiness however. Our health care system here in the US for example, is well, crap. Sure we have good doctors and can do a lot more then most countries can, but if you don't have much money, you're screwed. If faced with a life threatening event (illness or injury) you're forced to either basically choose death or massive debt. To me neither one is very satisfactory. Sure there is insurance available, but not to everyone, and now at days it's almost as if it doesn't even cover enough. Plus a large portion of society knows that if you have any medical conditions (like diabetes or heart problems) before you get insurance, they might chose to not even cover you. Why? Because you're a risk between them and the almighty dollar.

I could get even more into this subject, beyond health care and into to the corporate sector, but I do believe that is another post. Partly because I want to actually clarify my thoughts on the subject in full post, and also if it's not clarified, I might sound crazier then I actually am. So until next time, I suggest checking out Paratopia, as well as the blog and website of this guy called Suelo who is living moneyless in Moab, Utah. I think he's onto something.