Something

December is almost here and Im trying to get my fill of Christmas spirit before I scuttle off to Europe. Im lucky enough to be spending a couple weeks in Italy and Im pretty excited about that.
Finally things are getting settled in my apartment. Ive moved back into my place and its really nice. I got a new paintjob and a new carpet. With any luck I can keep clutter and junk down to a minimum. Right now Japanese teahouse is the motiff Im going for. Though I think the cats liked it better with all the clutter, but for now, theyre getting more comfy since the furniture is going back to where it was (at least some of it is). Ive managed to pair it down to the bare essentials. There was quite a lot of junk just taking up space. Now its become a wonderful place to live instead of just a storehouse for my stuff.

Nothing

My apartment and home is fast becoming a big nothing. Theres been a crubling peeiling, water damaged wall next to my bed for longer than I can remember and its finally being fixed by the management. The entire main room is being repainted and recarpeted and I have to completely evacuate the room. There are a couple interesting points staring me in the face today. Both points are about the importance of stuff. Firstly to me, and secondly to my cats. Im piling all nonessential stuff into my moms garage. But what is essential stuff? Well Im starting with the least important things, like old magazines, toy laser guns, my collection of audio cassettes, a 3 foot tall godzilla toy etc, and moving on to medium important things like old paintings, drawings, and all the old cameras my father left me. As I pair it down more and more, I keep thinking about what I could really live without. If god forbid, my mothers house burned down, would I miss any of that stuff? Though Im sure Id have greater concerns than for my stuff if somehting like that happened. I guess when you break it down, the most important stuff of my life is not really objects so much as relationships. I could live without my stuff. But I think Id be pretty lost without any loving connections, with people or pets. And that brings me to my second point. The importance of stuff to pets. My cats, Wind and Cloud are not happy kitties right now. Their world is being slowly dismantled. As the main room empties out they have fewer places to go and fewer things to sit on. With almost no potential targets for catattack, they are getting bored. Pets are special in that they have neither the same needs of wild animals nor the needs of people. Kitties need lots of petting , food, water, and lots of little nooks and crannies to investigate. Its a kitties job to investigate those places for the sake of all the rest of us who have neither the time , inkling or ability to see whats behind the computer desk, or up on the top shelf of the closet. Its a kitties job to test out all the potential napping places in a home. Well I guess Im sorta stopping them from doing their jobs. But it cant be helped. Ive explained this to them as best as I can but that doesnt make it any easier for them. With a little luck it will all be finished and back to normal within a week. Hopefully the big nothing that is my home right now will be a nice something once again.

Fractals

Why do we love fractals so much? Well its very simple to me. Fractals are graphic representations of time and space. They appeal to us on a gut level. They seem to speak to us in a very deep and profound way. Ive definately noticed a huge increase in the popularity of fractals. Sure the technology makes it easy now for the non mathematician to create them, and Im sure its fun. But they seem to be creeping into popular culture more and more. Ten years ago I doubt most folks even knew what a fractal was. But I see them more and more on TV, in movies, magazines, and most definately in crop circles. It seems to be creeping into the collective conscious of humankind more and more. Now even Isaac Asimov said that the universe is fractal in nature. He said that when you break things down to what seems to be the simplest component , you'll find infinite complexity within that component which mirrors the complexity of the whole,...or something like that. This wisdom dates back thousands of years to the ancient hermetic traditions which spawned the idea "As above , so below". You can see this when you compare the design of solar systems to the design of atoms. Ive often wondered if the spiral of a galaxy has any bearing on the local genetic code within that galaxy. So this seems to work with both time and space. Ive heard scientists and physicists, going on about how great it is that we finally found the smallest stuff we'll ever find with the Plank scale. Well thats just a joke to me as clearly they just dont get it. We'll never find the smallest scale of size, nor the biggest. You can zoom out forever just as you can zoom in forever. Time is the same. The notion of time beginning with a Big Bang seems equally ludicrous to me. Time like space is infinite. You cant divide it down to its smallest component. Nor can you divide it into its largest component. There is neither beginning nor end. To think that we can comprehend or discern any boundry to time or space is completely arrogant. Just look at the last 2000 years of science. It was a realatively short time ago ( on the scale of human history), that we decided that the Earth is flat and the sun goes around us. Why would we assume that now all of a sudden, we understand everything. Sure I have high respect for science, and physics, and love to hear what the experts have to say. But I just think its completely silly and arrogant to assume that our knowledge is anywhere near the all encompassing all knowing thing it would take to understand the full nature, and limits of time and space. Ive no idea if most people even know why they like fractals. I guess its like fibonacci numbers, and the golden ratio. They are just so deeply imbedded into the nature and structure of things, that we cant help but love them.