Sol's Inner Vault

Just a passing thought, but maybe a key aspect of actual immortality, even the sense of surviving spirit, is being perpetually curious; right to the end, being interested in the worlds within and around us.  This engagement is the attraction of tomorrow's headlines, the process of learning becomes neverending, while this wondering about all things must have its origin within our DNA, or else we follow course with countless species come and gone forever.  Being curious keeps away energy draining attitudes of popular cynicism, and boredom even from ourselves, it's normally inevitable. Always learning, until the very last moments, that's what I'll hope for.

One might begin with a noble philosophical question: does any species truly know the experience of another? We too often assume all life feels what we experience. Anthropomorphic perspectives are nearly impossible to avoid for most of us. We reflexively attribute our own mortal sensations with any flora or fauna of passing interest.  Mostly, the analogies and comparisons aren't accurate- all critters do things for reasons they understand. Yet, clearly most forms of life also example some degree of empathic reaction, as we so often witness in nature. Feeling more connected, we are comforted by these parallels between us and other species, it's understandable.  But, it still remains true- as far as we know- that a creature will in the end freeze to death in the subzero storm, without knowing even one moment of what we would call remorse, regret, self-mourning, or the dreadful sense of non-existence.  

So, last night we're watching old episodes of Wheel of Fortune, there's a free channel where they show nothing but, and mom suddenly blurts out-- and nails-- the final combo puzzle answer, "SHRIMP AND FRUIT COCKTAIL.", well before the contestant missed it.  Yes, mom is beyond amazing, but this moment set off a bell in my head: how remarkable, even when ailing, is the human brain? It varies a great deal in severity, type, and manifestation, and dementia can be so greatly diminishing. Yet, what is most amazing is how we may still experience and enjoy things, how consciousness still drives forward, even as the harsh disease process slowly develops. Two nights ago, I got the goofy whim idea to give my mom a quick, crash course in smart phones. Within a few minutes, she learned to select, scroll, and click. So, then I started the ChatGPT app, why not, right? We started asking the program about Greek and Spanish words translated to English, etc; mom was instantly intrigued

It's the learning curve that hurts, you realize there's no arguing with dementia; it argues back in disconnected hieroglyph you can't comprehend except by pain. You learn that challenge does no good, it can't be brought to awareness or memory. You can't win, but you learn there are indeed also ways not to lose. You learn- thru repeated failure- that this horrible monster can be outwitted, and then you are better help to your loved one, and to yourself. The sudden outbursts of raging, combative and stubborn for no reason except maybe the need to grasp anything not fleeing from the moment, some illusion of control. The 4 a.m. wanderings to the kitchen, to the empty bedrooms, to the garage, to the neighbor's driveway across the street, to the "Don't know why I'm standing here.", to the precise locations of phantom dreams, to the long stare across the living room of nowhere.  How all of it must be welcomed as if dementia wasn't enemy after all,

Is it true that everything is up to you? Bukowski, the others, were they wrong? About The System keeping us down, no matter what we think or believe?  Is it true that happiness is something you decide over time? Having tried decades of prior chaos and parade of marching calamity, finally it becomes the choice of joy that arrives after all?  Doing things to be happy fills the day, but activity cannot replace attitude, so it is possible to do nothing, happily. Imagine the global energy expended by humans trying hard to be happy, the psychic footprint that must eclipse any carbon tracks of transit and trade.  When all the while happiness can't be negotiated, marketed, or contracted. Choosing happiness overrides any random reliance on good fortune, good works, or the best intentions. Deciding my happiness assumes all responsibility without dependence on circumstances or changing variables.  It's only our desire that defies gravity, the longing to resist sorrow or strife- there are

We know and witness this virtue in various forms including joyfully, or with sadness, or timely excitement.  The forever loyal dog, waiting day and night for his master who has passed. The unappreciated spouse, ignored for too long, yet innocently yearning for a deeper, more real love, someday. The beleaguered worker, a raise long overdue, still getting up before dawn. The thoughtful child who saves her pennies and dimes, recounting her tally each night. The happy believer, waiting confidently for heaven's call.  The absence of this quality may prove reckless, or may endanger you even more than random life intends. Or, you may learn it again and again at every age, rooted in simple faith and hopeful planning, the power that beats time's hold, sometimes with eyes calmly closed, the virtue of patience.

Below "Don't you know?  Death mocks faith.  There is nothing after, says Death.  Don't you suspect that faith is myth? Don't you fear Death night and day?  It's okay, you'll forget it all anyway. All faiths crash when you disappear, here then gone never returning, existing in memory and worn pages, as if no one ever resided in your soul, but that was only one of many tales."  Above "Don't you know? Faith rebukes Death.   Faith promises an eternity.  Don't you suspect Death is a rumor?  If Death can't scare us, it's powerless. Where is the dread of Death in faith?  Don't you know? Believing saves.  Trusting belief is the test.  Don't you suspect believers know?  Believers, protected by a mighty Word, only smile at tricky Death, undeterred. Faith continues forward without facts. Knowing, as opposed to forever seeking. Accepting, as opposed to deciphering."  Don't you know? If you have faith and loyally believe, you'r

The sheer, crazy vastness of the universe is conceptually impossible for our dim and linear brains to grasp. But, trying at least to feel some sense of it, or attempting to comprehend these great distances becomes a sort of meditation in kind, a mental voyage, or expansion of physical possibilities. How smaller and smaller we must become to consider the distance of even a single light year- 5.88 TRILLION miles- there must also be an internal humility of perception; or, a shrinking down of self-importance that may- with practice - facilitate the best understanding humankind can know. This utter massiveness of the expanding cosmos can be personally intuited, or palpably suggested thru many methods and approaches. A simple exercise, for example: imagine yourself launching skyward directly into space, the Earth rapidly receding into a disappearing dot against the deepest darkness. Then, keep going. Up and away from everything, higher and farther, until your mind continues on its own power

Here's a cheery thought: everything ends. All relationships change or end in some manner, whether change of heart, or days run out too soon, it still ends. Didn't mean to ruin your day, just having a moment of sober reflection.  So, what's to be done with this strange and transient existence? It would seem change is the only principle of physics that approaches the eternal nature reserved for supreme beings and such, as if impermanence is the only universal religion. With endings come new definitions. Nothing can end without also starting again.  The same mechanism of uncertainty doesn't seem to bother the galaxies, wheeling thru space in ever greater distancing, expanding into more, what, exactly? More space, more change, more unknowns than grains of stars across a vastness too big to embrace?  So, how do we negotiate this shifting course of no-confidence, spontaneous events, unpredictability the standard? Simply enjoy the fleeting moment we have? I've  got no usef

If not for it, we'd still be in the caves. Some scientists say it's really a curse; when it leads down unwelcome paths. I'll concede, there are times when it's vexing, beyond annoying because of the persistently all-consuming moments it can take over, mind of its own, almost as if from another power. There are times when I could just say get lost, go away, not now! But, the need overwhelms other sensibilities, it's typically no match, I cave in to the craving, and the urgency. Most days, it's much appreciated, and valued for what it is: a blessing. Thankfully, I've always been afflicted, and it drives the motivation to learn, while keeping the hours and days endlessly explorable, and interesting-- the irrepressible pursuits of curiosity.

It's a headline for some of us, a real lack of knowing or realizing. For others, it's a simple but vital reminder: you don't need to be nice to meanness. Neither should we waste too much time with well-practiced haters, remembering they're experts, but they've robbed their own soul. Maybe it's your nature to lead with kindness; that's a virtue made of love, patience, and faith that good can win. Maybe it's your personality to shun conflicts, avoid hard words, and ignore antagonism. But accommodating bad behavior only guarantees its safe return, and indulging others' cruelty only normalizes hostility's expectation. Some folks will bash you from left field, sucker punch you with criticism, or turn loyalty and friendliness into the bus that you're suddenly beneath. Don't feel too bad when it happens, just recall that meanness doesn't deserve your allegiance to decency Facing abject human meanness, you smile, you walk away, you continue t

Don't recall ever playing Cowboys and Indians. We were huge Lone Ranger kids, we loved them both. Yeah, I know, stereotypes; but, I was seven. Mostly played war with my buds, in the vacant lots, parks, or around the apartments. Anywhere can be a battleground when you're playing.  We were never against each other, always the same platoon. The enemy was only a hologram in our young imagination, otherwise invisible. But, I could actually see them as we played. They were always nazis, in uniform.  After all, they did kill my parents' families, only my mom barely surviving, a prisoner in Auschwitz. So, ità was easy for me to imagine I was a soldier, like Sergeant Chip Saunders, Vic Morrow's great charactee from the TV show Combat, that I always watched with my father, himself a brave resistance fighter in Greece.  It was easy to see these imagined enemies as we acted out our boy version of war dramas, easy for me to focus my anger and resentment over never knowing my own gra

It's true, have no reason why, things that are unexplained are hard for me to accept; it always bothers my psyche more than it should. But, some things, or, how about everything really, there is just no plausible cause and effect. As with the subject of reincarnation.  Have recently revisited the intriguing topic of very early memories that seem incongruous or even fictitious. Countless accounts, many thoroughly researched and documented, infants and children describing vivid memory, dream, entire recollections of other lives prior, or even their own death, and other inexplicably detailed and specific descriptions-- is there anything actually happening here?  If true and real, it would seem to involve one core question, or some similar query: Can our primal life code- the Human Genome- somehow, via pathways we're light years away from understanding- can DNA transport or import memories of experiences of lives that have past? In their own unrehearsed words, these unsettling but

How significant are we, humankind, on this small spheroid called Earth? Consider the following: Each dot here is a GALAXY...  Each GALAXY has roughly 100 BILLION STARS.  Each STAR has at least 1 PLANET.  This is just a very little parcel of the universe.

Reasoning. Did we ever learn about this process? It's my last refuge, before praying. But, neither reason nor prayer guarantee an outcome my soul may rest upon. This secretive spirit within, often restless for no visible cause, nonetheless pressured, anxious for the next thing, then the next, pulling to the furious future, maniacal at times, the unnameable longing for that which is just beyond the border of reason, as if logic alone cannot fulfill another desire, the call to new worlds. Yet, those panicked, shallow breath moments when feeling most alone, most afraid, confused, or forlorn, who or what to trust then? Deity? Dreams? Dumb luck? Maybe an expert, or total stranger? Or, no, none of the above? Reason is still my best friend, best chance to survive the momentary crisis, best bet in all storms, still the #1 adapting-survival skill. But, employing reason is not all of it, there's another critical element in play, the part that challenges me the most: trusting reason, over