Journal Entries
Oceans
Posted Jul 25, 2005
So...back to my original subject...
Oceans give the appearance, after a short period of study, to change frequently, but in fact do not. Lakes give the appearence, after a short period of study, to remain stable, but in fact do not.
A lake is nice because it is easy to understand, and once you understand it, there's nothing more to know. If it happens to change while you're still looking at it, it's easy enough to get reaquainted with the new thing. You always know what to expect, but if it's a pretty lake, would you really mind?
Oceans are more difficult. There are three stages to mapping out an ocean. The first covers the surface. It's not very hard, and you can bet that just about everyone else has mpped it out already. The second covers mostly everything else. Since lakes are more common than oceans, many people try to map an ocean the same way. This doesn't get them very far, but most never know the difference. So very few people get to mapping this second part of the ocean. It may be completely different than it seemed from the surface. There's a real sense of reward when you finish mapping this out. Because of this, many people stop here, too, as if the ocean were a sea (something I've not discussed yet, as it's pretty obvious from the above what it is). But there's one level still to go.
The third stage in mapping an ocean is incredibly difficult, as there is nothing you can do on your own to acheive it. You are completely at the mercy of the currents, kicking up whatever they can whenever they can. Often you will find things that are beautiful, things that are disturbing, things that glitter, and things that drip with toxic sludge. The question then is wether to ignore the bad in light of the good, or ignore the good in light of the bad. In any event, once you've reached this stage in mapping, it could be dangerous to swim for too long.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jul 25, 2005
Heroes
Posted Jul 20, 2005
He grasps at the sun, though it burns his hands, and by his actions the earths are preserved. He swims in the river, thought he current pulls him down, and by his actions are the winds kept turning. He strives up the mountain, though his limbs grow weary and the stone rends his skin, and by his actions the stars are renewed. Do not weep for him, child, though his life is hard, for without his pain, none should return from the restless sleep wherein we burn our nights in the hope that tomorrow some small whisper of a shadow of peace will fall upon our sleepless ears and we will wake in glory. For we, the common masses, can do nothing of ourselves to escape the cruel fate which enslaves our pitiful species. We need our heroes, our altruistic noble youths, to lift us up from amongst the putrescent refuse of life to dwell in the clouds among the gods of light. Our heroes, who run through sorrow and woe, never to emerge into the sun with us, who sacrifice their lives and souls to see us through the darkened bog to light and life in the sky again. For so it is with all worlds, in all times, for all eternity. Learn it well, child, the lesson of the truest love. This is the knowledge which sustains the turning of the earth.
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: Jul 20, 2005
Who Left?
Posted Jul 18, 2005
Hard and distant your pale eyes seem to me as they glitter greenly in the fluorescent light. The white walls of this asylum in which we live our lives fail to contain the vast space between my heart and yours, the millennium of miles reflected in your eyes. Those eyes – angry, piercing, rending eyes they become when fixed upon me. “So close, but yet so far,” the cliché reverberates through my head as we stand, close enough to touch, but so far apart I can barely make you out on the distant horizon – naught clear but your eyes, burning forth with their cruel light. I would go that distance, the distance in your eyes, but I know that I cannot; my ties to this place are still too strong. And even if I followed you, followed you so far from home, I don’t know anymore what you would be in that place. I have seen you clothed in black, while light beamed from every pore, and also, then, in white, while darkness surged frothily in your soul. In that place, what are you? Will you even be there? Or is there just another stop on the imaginary journey across a thousand worlds to get to you? If I fight my way past even that, will I come to the end to find you died long ago? +++ Or, worse, that you never even existed except within my mind?
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Jul 18, 2005
The only question now
Posted Jul 5, 2005
The only question now is how not to fall into a well - a well being a thing that does not change, does not morph, does not adapt or react or grow. The water there is trapped, unable to move, unable to breath. Nothing reaches it, except for the occasional bucket, which only exists to steal from it what little it has. Anything going into or out of the well does so through the bucket. The water in the well was once part of the vast, almost endless reaches of water across the globe - all water is connected in this way. But once the well is dug and that stone wall built around it, it is cut off, away from its family, away from its friends, away from its life. All it can do is sit and wait until the all-merciful bucket finally dries it up and annihilates it.
So then, the question: How do you not fall into a well? If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't have written this entry. Still, there is some small hope in the fact that other people usually notice when someone falls down a well. If the person falling would only hear them...
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jul 5, 2005
no
Posted Jun 27, 2005
An ocean morphs more in an hour than a lake does in a month, but it never changes. Not unless something truly drastic happens. However, there are depths to an ocean that are not seen in lakes. Things may stay hidden and secret forever, unless some stray current kicks them up. For better or worse, it's not always easy to tell.
Lakes change frequently and quickly. But they very rarely adapt or morph. The slightest thing can destroy what they once were and turn them into something else. For better or worse, it's not always easy to tell. But lakes are shallower, you can see everything in them and understand them and map them quickly.
So which is better? To be steadfast and steady with hidden treasures and horrors or to be constantly changing with little hidden? It's not always easy to tell.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jun 27, 2005
Still_WRD
Researcher U1665007
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."