It's that time of year again

To the pagans of ancient times, the end of April and the end of October were special times: this was their celebration of the beginning of Spring and Autumn, the start and mid-point of a year, the celebrations that had to do with balance.

We don't think like that anymore. One day is like the next, one season like any other, even if we all have our personal preferences. We live by the clock, not by the sun; we are aware of the time of year, but never of its significance. We moderns are so arrogant, we have no idea how ignorant we are.

Prior to the railroads, we lived by the sun. We arose when it was light and retired when it was dark. Our days in winter were much shorter than those in summer, and we acted and interacted accordingly. Now, we have not only standardized our "time", we forcefully distort (e.g., Daylight Savings Time), regardless of what it costs us financially, personally, or even spiritually.

OK, I outed myself: I'm old school. The particular numbers on a clock, the position of the clock's hands don't really mean a whole helluva lot to me. It's not because I don't care, not at all, but rather because it doesn't matter.

Six in the morning? Some people get up, others continue to sleep. Twelve noon? Some people are looking for (or enjoying) lunch, others are back at work or waiting. The evening news comes at five, six, seven or eight ... it doesn't matter. We pay little attention anyhow. The news only tells us whether we can move into evening-relax mode or have dinner or, well, whatever.

But for me, today, Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis' Night) is always special. It is a forgotten holiday, but a traditionally mystical-magical day (night). We have retained part of that magic in May Day Dancing and festivals, but of course not in America, because May Day is also the "communist" Labor Day. Our modern, sterile, ignorant-of-tradition, and ignorant repression of the natural cycle of nature have obscured and thereby made meaningless the inspiring beauty and enlivening of nature's rhythms.

In truth, I feel sorry for all those contemporaries who can only live in a clock-determined, clock-driven world. I am saddened by all those who cannot escape their self-created prisons of time. I am disheartened that I cannot make clear to them that they have enslaved themselves to an illusion we call time.

Many people that I know are enamored by and love their radio-controlled watches and clocks, because, well, you really know what time it is. That this "absolute time" is a mere average of 11 different "nuclear clocks" should give us pause to wonder just how exact and precise an average really is. If nothing else, it is a fixation on a detail that merely obscures the bigger picture: the wonderful and wondrous cycles of nature.

This is what I think of on this particular day of the year. Not because of the absurdity of our modern obsessions, but because of the respect it gives me for those who came before and who understood.

Yes, that's our modern malady: we know, but we really don't understand.

The arrogance of ignorance

Those of us alive today and in a position to be reading a blog, like this one, are, on the whole, a rather arrogant lot. Just look at what we're capable of: the best of technology, the vastness of knowledge, the widespread access to information, the high level of our standard of living, our overall rate of literacy and general level of education. We are witness to wonders only dreamt of by our forebears.

This tends to make us arrogant, you know? Who else has accomplished so much? Who else has made as many advances as us in the last, oh, just say, half-a-century? We've deposed monarchies, de-mythologized religion, discovered some of the deepest secrets of matter, send quasi-intelligent probes to distant planets. We've globalized trade, spread democracy around like fertilizer, and are literally capable -- even if not so inclined ... at the moment -- of destroying the planet. Who has ever done what we have done? No one, ever. We're the best that's been here yet, or so we like to think. Yes, arrogance is as simple as thinking you're better than someone else.

But, for all we can do, what do we really know? Do we really understand nature? Can we explain the phenomenon of consciousness? If we're so smart and powerful, why can't we ensure that every person on the planet has clean water and enough to eat, a roof over their heads, or that we all can live free of fear? Who knows what money really is, or how it works, or how our finance systems function, or what ideologies are and which ones we're individually and personally susceptible to? Why can't we recognize injustice when it stares us in the face? Why can't we do what is right, even if we know that to do so would perhaps reduce our own power? Who knows the difference between data, information, knowledge and wisdom? When did data become more valued and important than wisdom, in fact? Who understands the difference between a society, a culture, and political system? Who of you can even describe the difference between wave and particle theories of physics, or even know that there are different theories? Why is it that in the most informed, allegedly enlightened, knowledgeable, and supposedly advanced ages the world has ever known, we have so many who don't know the sun revolves around the sun and the sun around the center of our galaxy and our galaxy ... well, you get the idea.

There is so much we just don't know, either individually or collectively, but it doesn't stop us from looking down upon those who came before us: be it just a couple hundred years (that silly Descartes still believed in a soul) or a couple of millennium (the Ancient Greeks couldn't calculate their way out of a wet paper bag) and other than piling up rocks, what do the Ancient Egyptians have to show for themselves? Yeah, nobody has ever had their stuff together like we do, eh?

We look down on those who came before us for two primary reasons: (1) we consider them less developed, rather childlike and, OK, I'll say it, primitive, and (2) we can't begin to understand them; that is, meet them on their terms. Arrogance, you should know, is simply a form of blindness, no more and no less. If you think you know it all, what can you possibly learn from someone else? Truth be told, we're neither informed nor as smart as we like to think we are, and so we're blind to what we might be able to learn from those who came before us.

No, for the observant reader of the past few posts, it should be clear that yesterday still has a lot to tell ... if we had but the ears to hear, and the eyes to see.

Out, out, damned spot

There was a time that Shakespeare was a mandatory part of the curriculum. I don't know if that still is the case. At that time -- in my time -- it was considered mandatory, as part of a well-rounded education, that one would be exposed to "classic" literature. My parents never, ever suspected how dangerous that was. I don't think any technocrat or bureaucrat has ever pondered literature as the well-spring of subversion. But good old Bill knew and told us more than most people ever want to know.

I'm partial to Macbeth, I'll admit it, not because it the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, but because it is, as I see it, the most intense. To me, Macbeth is tragedy with all the fat cut off. There's not a lot of philosophical speculation of "maybe this" or "maybe that" options. Macbeth, as I like to think, is Shakespeare's most "down and dirty" play: you can want what you want, regardless of what reasons, but in the end, you have to make do with the consequences of your actions. Yes, at bottom, we're responsible for what we do. All the magic, all the witches, all the noble and other aspirations mean nothing. When all is said and done, reality takes its toll.

Of course, Lady Macbeth plays her part. Behind every successful (or doomed) man, there stands a woman. This isn't belittling to women, far from it. A man without a woman is a mere shadow of a human. It takes two to be one. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe in a future post, I'll get around to explaining it.) Of all the characters in this particular play, I have to say that Lady Macbeth is my absolute favorite. Without her, we don't have a tragedy, no, we don't have a play at all.

But, literature always tells us something about life. Macbeth, like all Shakespearean heroes is doomed. And, in this case, his accomplice, is doomed as well. It is Lady Macbeth who, long before her husband even suspects it, knows that it is all going to end badly. Most literary scholars like to think she simply loses her mind under the unbearable pressure of her guilt, but it would seem that she is the only one who really knows that her own motivating actions set the switches for the route to perdition.

What Shakespeare shows us, clearly and vibrantly, is that while we think we're doing one thing, in truth, we are doing something else. When we, further, believe, we are doing good (i.e., what needs to be done), in truth, we are undoing ourselves, we are undermining our own ambitions. Why? Because, just like Lady Macbeth, we confuse our personal ambitions with those of the general populace, of the masses, of, well, everyone else.

Lady Macbeth implodes not so much because she can't bear her own guilt as that she breaks under the burden of ego-centrism. She wanted more. She encouraged her husband to want more. But the desire for "more" is an insatiable desire. We can want what we want, but we can't have it all. At some point, the individual implodes.

There are those who would say that Shakespeare is not longer relevant to us today, but I disagree. We're living in an age in which some folks want it all and, like Macbeth and his Lady, are willing to do whatever's necessary to get it. What's different today is that it is a system (in a manner of speaking), not a person that is making the decisions, but, in the end, the results will be the same. Unlike then, there's going to be a lot of collateral damage, death, and destruction this time around.

There's a Grand Scheme of Things

We moderns, as I said before, like to think that life started with us, but it didn't. We like to think we're the smartest version of the species yet to appear, but I certainly have my doubts. I'm not saying the Ancients were smarter or cleverer (though they did figure out that fire and wheel thing, and whether we've really improved on either is open to debate), rather they were, in their own way, every bit as intelligent and insightful as we are today. The Ancients weren't errant, trial-and-error-driven, superstitious, child-like, simpletons. They were highly evolved, curious, interested and adventurous people. They didn't figure everything out, and neither have we, and if we took them half-seriously and were not so condescending in our attitude, there could be a thing or two we could learn from them.

Some archaeologists, for example, are convinced the Sphinx is much older than the Great Pyramids. It is obvious that the Sphinx has a lion's body, and it's just as obvious that the head has been resculpted. How old could it be? Well, if the body has anything to tell us, I'd start thinking perhaps as much as 12,000 years old. That's long before most archaeologists believe humans were capable of such constructions, but there's hardly a day that goes by that new evidence does not appear that humans have been acting like humans much farther back in history than expected, at least based on what we "know". And, to come back to my Creationist friends, could it be that the world being only 6,000 years old has something to do with the beginning of recorded history? It was the so-called People of the Book who first introduced the notion. Could it be that not t-h-e world, but a, or their particular world (understood as a way of accepting reality ... much like was say today that some people "live in their own world") came into being then?

Off track? Maybe, but maybe not. One of the hallmarks of modernity is its insistence on facts and factual knowledge (even if lots of folks prefer to ignore the same if these facts don't fit into their own little "world", like climate-change deniers, etc.). One of the hallmarks of our ancient ancestors is that to them, the story was more important, for it was the story that communicated meaning and made sense of their lives and the world in which they found themselves. Our incessant appetite for facts kills meaning. Facts are like sugar calories: they're fine every now and again, but you can't live off sugar, you need other nutrients to keep yourself alive and healthy. Myth -- true myth -- provides a rich variety of intellectual and psychological nutrients that help us find meaning in this otherwise hunger-producing world in which we live.

Hardline science wants us to believe that we live in a coincidentally and accidentally, created, formed and evolved world, that we ourselves are the product of blind chance, that there is no meaning to be found and when we think we have found some, it turns out we only made it up to placate our own fears. Why we have fears and why we can make things up to placate them doesn't matter to hardline science for that is outside the purview of their interests. This is why the state of science today, the state of our knowledge, is in such bad shape. If nothing else, our ancient forebears were trying, and it would appear to me, making some progress in understanding their (read: our) relationship to all that surrounds us. Sculpting a bull because it links us to observed natural, astronomical phenomena hardly seems like a random act to me, especially when I think it could take years to finish that sculpture.

For me, given the choice, between haphazard, meaningless chance and a meaningful relationship to the world around me ... I'll opt for the latter every single time. I think we owe at least that much to those who came before us.

There's a Grand Scheme of Things?

If you recall from last time, we were standing outside looking at the eastern horizon at the vernal equinox. We notice the constellation that is there. If we did that every year of our normal lives (which we found out several posts ago was "threescore and ten" or 70 years, that constellation that we would observe would appear to move about 1 degree to the West over the course of our life. That's not very fast, but if you passed this habit onto your children and they to their children and so on and so on, at some point, someone in your family would notice that the original constellation had passed and a new constellation had taken its place. This is what is known as the Precession of the Equinoxes.

So what, you may be asking. Well, this is why I find it so interesting. I had to explain this phenomenon to you because we don't care and hence don't know. This was, however, for a very long time a very big deal. Plato, and the Ancient Greeks knew about it, the Egyptians certainly knew about it, the Ancient Babylonians and Assyrians knew about it. And, if my simple example shows, how many observations would have to be made to see the parade of constellations go through several changes?

As I told you last time, it takes about 26,000 years to go through all twelve constellations. Analogous to our own solar year of 12 months, the precession was referred to as the Great Year, each "month" thereof spanning just over 2,100 years. Since we already use the word "month" to refer to our own time reckoning, these "Great Months" are referred to as "ages" and are given the name of the constellation that serves as backdrop for that given period.

Almost everyone has heard of the "Age of Aquarius" (Aquarius is the Water Bearer), and it's to this precession that it refers. The one preceding it is/was known as the Age of Pisces (the Fish), before that it was the Age of Ares (the Ram), and before that the Age of Taurus (the Bull). And if we do the math, Fish - Ram - Bull = 3 x 2,100 or about 6,000 years ago. An interesting number in this particular context, I would think, because don't the Creationists believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old? Is there anything to this?

Did you ever ask yourself why the Bull plays such a major role in some cultures and why there are so many very old stories involving bulls? One only has to think about Crete and the Minotaur (man with the head of a bull) to whom sacrifice had to be brought and Ariadne's thread. Or why as part of his labors, Hercules was required to capture the Cretan Bull? Have you ever asked yourself why you find pictures of Moses, for example, bringing down the 10 Commandments from Mt. Sinai, depicted with small ram's horns. And why was Moses so upset with his people that he smashed the original tablets on ... yes ... the Golden Calf (a young bull)? Or why in Ancient Egypt there were actual boulevards leading up to certain temples that were lined with statues of rams? Or why is it that Jason was off looking for a Golden Fleece? And, do you really think that it's a mere coincidence that a couple of thousand years later when a young rabbi got hung on a cross that he was known for wanting to make his disciples "Fishers of Men", or that his followers recognized each other by the sign of the fish?

Yes, I know this is all just oddly coincidental. That these animals played such a significant role in the myths, legends and tales is simply a matter of accident. I don't know about you, but for me that's all just a little too much coincidence.

A Grand Scheme of Things?

Gebser's model, which has underlain the last several posts, is one way of looking at ourselves over the not-so-long span of our existence. We moderns tend to discard the past, especially the distant past, because we have been taught to believe that our eldest forebears were, well, more or less childlike and naive, not particularly bright (like we are today), and rather helpless in the face of the big, bad world into which they were thrown. This is, of course, a self-aggrandizing, egotistical, and arrogant belief. Maybe that's why we take to it and hold on to it so dearly. What I like most about Gebser's model is his insistence on (and documented support for) the fact that humans have always been intelligent (though there have always been geniuses and idiots among us) and whatever it is that we humans figured out is still of value to us today. In other words, we can learn from them, if we're only willing to take them seriously and take a serious look at all they did.

Gebser's ideas are also not new. He's not the first person to come up with the idea that change may be "built into the system", in a manner of speaking. He links his model to what he sees to be as evidence of changes in human mentation. Eons before he came up with this approach, however, the topic of cosmic change, let us say, a Grand Scheme of Things, was a highly developed science (using the word in its most fundamental sense: "a way of knowing"). Have you ever heard of the Precession of the Equinoxes? Most haven't, so let me explain it briefly, for it forms the basis of one of humankind's oldest models of change, one that might even qualify as that elusive Grand Scheme of Things.

Up front, a few basic facts and tidbits of knowledge that are necessary to understand the concept. The earth rotates on its axis, once every 24 hours (or one day). The earth revolves around the sun once every 365.25 days (or one year). The earth's axis is tilted at about 23 degrees; that is, it does sit perfectly vertically and the path of revolution around the sun is elliptical. When viewed from outside, the earth would appear to "wobble" and it is sometimes closer to the sun and sometimes actually vertical in relation to the suns's axis, and this is what causes the seasons, which are experienced most clearly in what are called the temperate climate zones. Now, this "wobble" isn't a shaky kind of wobble and if we could push a stick through the earth (like through an apple) from north to south and we observed the point of the stick from a great distance, we would see that it inscribes a circle. The fact worth noting is that it takes about 26,000 years to complete that circle.

The moon revolves around the earth, the earth around the sun, the sun around the center of the Milky Way (our galaxy) and so on. Everything out there in space is moving. We, of course, don't have the sensation that we're moving, so if we go out, say, every night at the same time and look up at the stars, we would notice that they don't always appear in the same place. They appear to be moving, albeit slowly, but moving nevertheless, but it takes a very long time to recognize that they are.

OK, so, if we went out at night on the first day of spring (March 21, the so-called vernal equinox) and looked due east, we would see a certain set of stars on the horizon. As it turns out, there are several sets of these stars, called constellations, which are familiar to us from astrology (hence the hapless pick-up line, "What's your star sign?" As most of you know, there are twelve of these signs, one for every month of the year, even though we count our months from 1 to 28, 30 or 31 days, and the astrological months always start around the 20th to the 22nd of each calendar month.

Well, you may be wondering where all of this is leading, but you'll have to come back next time for me to tell you.

Who's calling the tune?

Far be it from me to want to sound condescending. I know much of what I'm saying can come across like that, but it's not my intent. I can assure you of that. What I've been going on about over the last several posts is, at least in my mind, a pretty big deal. We may think that life is merely business as usual, we may want to believe things really aren't any different from how they've always been, and we may even wish that we weren't involved. But it's not, they are and we are. Once you take a step back and get a glimpse of the big picture, you realize that while a lot of the details are very similar, their context has shifted and that makes all the difference in the world.

We can also continue to believe that small, individual, often petty, decisions can get things going in a different direction, but we missed that opportunity. Things are, whether we like or not, coming to a head. As I never tire of pointing out, just about all that we have set up for ourselves, all the systems that we simply take for granted -- social institutions, schools, our economic and banking system, politics, religion, nations, you name it -- are broken. All of them are causing way more problems than they are producing benefits, and the various varieties of each are at odds with or in confrontation with the others. So, do we just let things take their course?

That is one option, no doubt about it. It's not my preferred one, but it's an option nevertheless. We can also decide that each of us will keep his or her own and try to overwhelm, overcome, or outright defeat the others. This the active side of simply letting things take their course. It will, in my estimation, merely accelerate the decline we're experiencing. Another option, of course, is to place the responsibility in the hands of our elected leaders and representatives. We all know they are devoted civil servants keen on making sure that we the people are well provided for. Or, we can take matters into our own hands and see to it that we each get ours and everyone else can fend for themselves. It is these latter two options that seem to be taking on most form in the West. Truth be told, a moment's serious reflection will reveal that both of them are naive and dangerous. Is this all we can do?

Not really. I believe our best option is to simply wake up. We've been gliding along in our fat, dumb and happy lives for much too long. We've lost sight of what's important in the grander, not the individual, scheme of things. It's time for us to become aware of ourselves, our decisions, and the consequences of our actions. In other words, we need to get smart about what else can be done other than business as usual. And it is long overdue that we finally become worthy of the name "human being": not acting towards others like we wouldn't want them acting toward us; recognizing that all of us, regardless of skin color, beliefs or culture all desire the same things and are entitled to the same things as everyone else, like peace, security, enough to eat, a modicum of happiness, and a bit of meaning in our lives; accepting that differences are not better or worse, they're only different and maybe there is something we can learn from that; standing up for what we know is right because it's right for everyone, without exception, and not for a privileged few.

It's not a long list, to be sure, but we can call the tune ourselves or pay the piper. It's up to us. It's up to each and every one of us.

Second verse, same as the first

Now, back to our previously scheduled program ...

We left off wondering whether the efficiency and deficiency of the apparent shift to the next structure of consciousness is being presented as an immediate choice. I know that there are a number of you who simply can't believe that we could be changing the fundamental way we think and interact with the world. It's not an easy notion to accept. All you have to do is turn on your TV or radio, or simply leave the house to run a few errands and you are likely to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stupidity you encounter. The ridiculousness of so much that we have to endure doesn't immediately indicate that something totally different is on the way. I understand that, believe me, but at the same time I'm here to tell you that this is an exceedingly narrow view of life and of humanity.

I will be the first to admit and acknowledge that we, as a species, are slow learners. It takes us forever to really get something, and when we do, we tend to forget it rather quickly. We keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again. The way we express our difficulties in coping have changed throughout the span of our existence, but a lot of the fundamental problems still remain. So, yes, I'm aware that there are many of you who simply believe that we humans are simply bad at best, or rotten to the core at worst, but this too is a too narrow view.

Exceptions confirm the rule. As bad as we can be as a species, we also know that we are capable of wonderful, if not wondrous, things, that we can rise to glorious heights of accomplishment as well. In other words, we have it in us, but it's just that most of us have managed to bury it so deeply that we have trouble finding it. We too often think we need to be hard, cold, and decisive because the state of the world forces us to be that way. But all of the truly great human beings were above average in the same down-and-dirty world in which the rest of us live. The truly great among us are great not because of the world, but in spite of it. That's something none of us should ever forget.

This is why I believe we do have a choice. In fact, I firmly believe that we always have had a choice, we just weren't aware of that fact. We have thought that the world is as it is, mostly because that's the way it is, and because most everyone around us told us that that's the way the world is and there's not a lot we can do about it. It wasn't true. It isn't true. It's a mere misperception of how things really are.

So, once again, we're faced with a choice, but this time around -- and this is where this shift differs greatly from those that came before -- we can win the big one, or we can turn out the lights. All of our genius and technological "progress" has provided us with a number of luxuries, that's for sure, but they've also given us the ability to completely destroy ourselves, to wipe our and many other species of life off the face of the earth. While some people are worried that one country (Iran) might get a (that is, one) nuclear bomb, there are already enough of such devices on "active duty" that if used would essentially force this planet to start all over again. And it took us about 15,000,000,000 years to get here this time around.

We humans have always been a particularly destructive species, but we could overdo it this time. We have a choice, but we have to want to make it, and we have to be aware of the consequences of our choice. A lot hangs in the balance. Are we up to the challenge?

Resurrection

Back in February, I took a break from my train of thought at the time for a brief Valentine's Day interlude. If I was willing to take a break for a pseudo-holiday, I should be willing to do the same for a real one, so today, is our Easter break.

Easter is, without a doubt, the most Christian of all holidays that we (pretend to) celebrate. I mean, without Easter, there's no Christianity, pure and simple. You would think, and it still amazes me, that Easter isn't a bigger deal than it is ... for Christians, that is. Could it be that they really don't understand what the holiday is all about? Perhaps. It's a great kiddy holiday, though, even if you're an atheist: what's not to like about chocolate, in whatever form it comes in? Valentine's Day may mean chocolate for the sweetie, but at Easter, it's chocolate for the whole family (as well as those disgustingly artificial and chemically laden marshmallow chicks, but, hey, haven't I been harping on the fact that there's an upside and a downside to just about everything?).

What Easter has in common with just about every other major religion on the planet, is what most people just don't get. The focus, the theme of this particular holiday is life after death (put in most mundane terms) or eternal life (in a more spiritual and uplifting sense). Now, I don't want to go into detail about or have an argument about who has the better heaven. Every religion talks about what happens after we die and the common thread is that if you were "good" (whatever that means in the given religious context), what comes next is good, and if you were "bad" (and the same caveat applies here), what comes next is, well, literally, hell.

Who's right and who's wrong is not important. Whether anyone is right or anyone is wrong isn't important either. What is important is the fact that throughout the entire course of human history, recorded or archaeologically discovered, this has apparently been a subject that has been on our minds. The Neanderthals took great pains in burying their dead; the Egyptians made a civilization out of it; there hasn't been a time, place, or people who didn't try to come to terms with the fact that we're only here for so long and then ... . Yes, Easter is the holiday at which we think about death - as natural a part of life as there can be - as well as life, in particular life after death.

I believe that Easter is as good a time as anything to think about such things. Americans like to avoid the subject; other cultures apparently can't get enough of it. Regardless of where you personally stand on the issue, you need to come to terms with it anyway. You can believe that you can blow yourself up and awaken to six dozen virgins or that you'll walk streets of silver and live in houses of gold, or that you don't wake up at all and just rot in the ground. It really doesn't matter. All that's important is that you give it some thought.

Having said that, though, and in keeping with the current flow of posts (apart from this interlude), there is increasing interest in the topic by lots of people. One of the more interesting approaches, I would like to add, comes from the world of hard science, believe it or not. The philosopher of science Jim Beichler has written a number of articles and books on the subject. He has developed a theory of physics which he believes shows, scientifically, that individual consciousness survives death. He's part of a growing number of scientists who are refusing to be silenced by the "accepted wisdom" of the scientific community and are demonstrating in rigorous and scientifically acceptable ways that there's more in this area too than meets the eye, or we'd like to admit.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. If you're interested in Bleicher's ideas, you can find him on academia.edu. Open your mind. Expand your horizons. Take a new lease on life.

Upsides, downsides, and time-compression

One of the features of the transition of consciousness that we are experiencing that interests me in particular is the rate of change. When looked at historically, we find that the efficient and deficient modes of each structure of consciousness has been shorter ... much shorter ... than the one that preceded it. I don't know why that is, but it appears that it is that way.

If you recall, I already outlined what I believe the time spans of the different structures of consciousness to be, and if we consider that our latest deficient phase is a mere 500 years in the making, well, I think you can agree that things seem to be speeding up. Could they be speeding up to the point where the emergence of the efficient as well as the deficient modes could be simultaneous? Could it be that right up front, we have to decide whether we want the efficient or deficient mode? I know that's a difficult thought to get one's head around, so I won't pursue it further. If you're so inclined, though, I invite you to think about just that "at your leisure".

This is, of course, only one way to understand the notion of time-compression. I mean, we all think that life is passing us by more quickly than we've ever experienced it before, and this applies to everyone, not just to us older folks. My children complain about "not having enough time" to get things done that need to be done, and everyone wants to know where their days went and why is my 20th reunion already being planned, and why there just aren't enough hours in a day.

Another way to think about time-compression, however ... and it's my preferred way (after all, the one just described merely depresses me at my age, and at my age, the last thing I need is depression) ... is that what we once thought over, dead, and long-forgotten turns out to be more up-to-date, current, and "now" than we ever imagined. Think about it.

More and more discoveries are being made to show that "humans" (however you may define the term) have been around, doing "human things", for much longer than we suspected. We've had to revise our "accepted anthropological wisdom". The advances made in understanding the human genome and consciousness are forcing us to rethink both biology and physics. What is surprising, however, is the fact that very ancient and long-forgotten "knowledge" is making a come-back. It could just be that the Ancient Egyptians knew more than we give them credit for. It could be that historical linguistics needs to be revised. We are becoming ever more aware of the availability of information and we are being challenged more than ever to deal with this information in a sensible and meaningful way ... and we're having a hard time doing that. Why? Because the things we are finding out are at odds with the things that we thought we knew, with what we have been made to believe is true. In other words, the very foundation of who we are is being called into question. This is a hard nut to crack, and it is one that most people will resist. Nevertheless, our future, our entire existence depends on the decisions we make now. No pressure. But if you don't know, you need to get smart fast.

So, for those of you who are so inclined, and for those of you who would like to think more, let me suggest a couple of sources: in physics, Penrose, Goswami, Greene, and Bleicher aren't a bad place to start; in biology, try Sheldrake; in philosophy, I recommend Midgley; for language and linguistics, Stan Tenen and the work of the Meru Foundation; as far as Ancient Wisdom is concerned, the best place to start is with René Schwaller de Lubicz; as far as mythology is concerned, try Hamlet's Mill by Santillana & Dechand. There's more. Much, much more, of course, but you have to start somewhere.

Start somewhere.