Where to begin? Jim Elvidge, the author of one of my all-time favorite books, wants us to contribute to The Universe - Solved! website by posting our own blogs. That's a great idea. It presents me with a bit of a problem though, where to begin? When I start writing like this I always want the beginning to be perfect. I've been thinkin' and thinkin' on it, but if I keep thinkin' on it I'll never actually post a thing. I guess the best way to start would be with a bit of an introduction, and on how it is that I got to be here.
Here goes.
Why all the interest in metaphysics? That branch of philosophy that asks all the big questions? What is it all? What is the purpose of it all and what is our place in it all? How did it all begin? I seem to have developed an interest in all that at an early age, I blame it on several things, like my Parents. As a child they made me go to church on Sundays. I wasn't particularly thrilled with getting up early, getting dressed up, and going to church. I did, however, develop an interest in the reading material. I would say that by no later than the age of twelve I had read my KJV of the Bible, got to the end, and had to go back and read it all over again. It a crazy read, it fired up my imagination.
Then there was television.
Don't laugh, but my earliest memory of television, of seeing it and recognizing, was of Star Trek. I don't remember the exact episode off the top of my head, but I remember Captain Kirk watching the viewscreen and the Klingon commander telling the Enterprise crew, "Prepare to be boarded or destroyed!" And I remember the start of the show, seeing the Enterprise zip by at warp speed seemed to have made a bit of an impression.
Hey now, I said don't laugh.
I remember watching tv and seeing images of these guys, they called them Astronauts, they were blasting off into space and exploring the moon. I also saw a short bit on tv, something about "Yog - Monster From Space", those Astronauts must have been absolutely fearless! I wanted to be just like those guys!
And I remember seeing images from back here on Earth, images of protests and war. I didn't care much for that, the Astronauts and the bug eyed space monsters were what got my attention.
Television was different back then. The tv was this big old console type thing, like a big piece of furniture. There were only four or five channels, seven or eight if reception was good. And if you wanted to change channels you actually had to get up, walk over to the tv set, and turn a dial! And in the wee hours of the morning an odd thing would happen, all the channels would show the flag while playing the national anthem, when it was over they would "sign off", and then all you would get on tv was this thing called a test pattern, or in some cases nothing at all! A bit later they would play the national anthem again and, "Begin a new broadcast day."
We didn't have alot of this technology back then. The phone was something that hung on the wall, it was hooked up to this thing called a "land line." There were no home computers, no internet. If I wanted to read about stuff I had to look it up in The Worldbook Encyclopedia. It's amazing that those Astronauts made it to the Moon and back without technology. Once I'd learned how to read, if I didn't have my nose in the Bible it was in an encyclopedia, or a comic book, or maybe something like Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars novels. God, science, and science fiction, those were the things that got my attention.
And trains.
I loved trains. The railroad was everywhere. It went right through town. Until around the age of four we lived in Milford Center, on Railroad Street. if a train went through town at night I could watch from my bedroom window. And if Mom and Dad ever took you anywhere in the car you would always come to a railroadcrossing, half the time you'd have to stop and wait on a train, it's a wonder we ever got anywhere. Times change, if you looked around my hometown or surrounding countryside today you'd never even know the railroad had ever been there.
"You know one thing I hate? It's how quickly people just forget things these days. I mean, who here still remembers that time a couple of years ago when the whole Earth blew up? You don't? When they put us all in the big space ark? And they brought us to this planet? And the government said not to tell the stupid people..." -Steve Martin
I'm afraid I have to wrap this up for now. Next time I'll conclude this introduction bit, telling all about our journey on the space ark, from the Old World to the New World, how I developed an interest in other "isms", the arrival of technology, and how it all relates to the concept of Programmed Reality.