Meme Share: Stay Positive and Optimistic

Proverbs 23:7 states, "As ye think, so shall ye be." 

Buddha said, "What we think, we become."

Marcus Aurelius put it this way: "Our life is what our thoughts make it."

In other words, events are neutral. The thoughts referred to above are the memes you bring to the table and apply to the situation. You are the holder of the memes. You construct your apprehension of reality through the memes already in your meme bundle.

In Hamlet Shakespeare said, "For there is nothing good or bad, but that thinking makes it so."

Can you trade your pessimism meme bundle for an optimistic bundle? Would you want to if you could? Can you trade your current attachment to frustration and indignation for acceptance of the here and now and peace?

Epictetus suggested this simple course in order to achieve just that:

"Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does."

Meme Share: Torus at Burning Man

A friend of the blog has shared a flickr image with us of a lighted torus sculpture at the 2012 Burning Man gathering in the Black Rock desert of Nevada. You may click on the link below to access more slides of this beautiful torus.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seraphimc/8004519648/

Photo by Scott London taken at Burning Man Festival 2012

Bacteria Communicate According to Golden Rule

photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SalmonellaNIAID.jpg#file

According to the Simple Explanation, all Units of Consciousness, no matter how primitive or complex the material they govern, reach out to one another with information and shared intent in order to build something bigger than themselves for the betterment of their world. The Simple Explanation calls this the basic meme of the Golden Rule. Here's how it's defined elsewhere on this site in the article "The Simple Explanation's Golden Rule":

This goes for all Units of Consciousness, from sub-atomic quanta up through cells and organs to organisms and beyond. Every physical manifestation links up with others of its kind (atoms link together to make molecules; molecules make cells; cells make organs; organs link together to make organisms; organisms link together to create societies, and so on) to become the building blocks of the next level of hierarchical aggregation.

When I speak with some scientifically-minded folks about the Simple Explanation, I find great resistance to the notion that there is any sort of conscious decision-making for non-humans, certainly not for such primitive things as bacteria, for instance. Whereas I tend to think of bacterial communities as imbued with conciousness, intent, cooperation, and communication; fully capable, in other words, of behaving according to the Golden Rule.

I've just read an article which fully upholds the Simple Explanation's view of complex behavior in very simple critters. I'm happy to report that the article is not by some "kook" but by Bonnie Bassler, MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.

Dr. Bassler's lab has discovered that bacteria talk to each other, that they work together in the manner of a single, larger, organism, that bacteria can distinguish self from other, and that they develop integrated strategies for community survival and enhancement. Bassler joked during a presentation for GE's TED lecture series, "Doing things together because it makes a difference," speaking of bacterial communities. Sounds a lot like the Golden Rule, doesn't it?

If you have 20 minutes, I highly recommend you watch this video of Bonnie Bassler's TED talk on the topic of bacterial communication.

 

A Simple Explanation of the 12/21/2012 Prediction

The earth's axis wobbles like a top.

This wobble, or precession, takes

26,000 years to complete.

photo:wikipedia.org; Precession

of equinoxes

 

The earth's "precession of the equinox" completes its 26,000 year cycle this year, 2012, on December 21, the day of the winter solstice.  

photo: wikipedia 
Maya Long Count Calendar
 

On that same day, the 5,125-year-running Mayan long count calendar comes to an end or turns over to begin a new cycle.

Some people have suggested that December 21, 2012 portends the cataclysmic end of civilization as we know it. It turns out that many theorists have arrived more-or-less independently at numerous 2012 Doomsday scenarios. The wikipedia article on the subject is well-researched and comprehensive, with a works cited list 148 entries long. 12/21/2012 is an active meme chord that is becoming more vibrant as the date approaches. The website www.december212012.com has a handy countdown clock and a list of 21 different catastrophic events that may beset us on that day, with articles and videos covering everything from pole reversal and electromagnetic pulse, to precessional wobble and timewave zero. There's even a Greenwich Mean Time conversion chart to show you precisely when the world will end in your time zone.

Some 2012 predictions focus on the frightening collapse and destruction of civilization, while others focus on the cataclysm as the orderly end of one cycle as it ushers in the birth of the next, more enlightened age.

John Cusak outrunning apocalypse in "2012"

(Think the Hollywood disaster movie, "2012", with  hero John Cusak outrunning the fear-based, apocalyptic Flood meme on the one hand versus the "Dawning-of-the-Age-of-Aquarius" hope-based New Age meme on the other.)

The Simplest Explanation for all this chatter is that the 12/21/2012 prophesy is the latest iteration of the archetypal Doomsday meme common to most world mythologies.
Do I think the world is ending on 12/21/12? I truly doubt it. But, whether or not death comes on a planetary scale, many of us will pass away on 12/21 just in the normal course of events. It is always wise to consider and prepare for death, because you never know when it will come. Given that, here's the best advice I can give you: no matter what happens on December 21, stay centered, stay positive and optimistic, and hold onto the "onward and upward" meme.