PatternsOf Reality

Poincare asked "Why is the reality the most acceptable to science one that no small child can be expected to understand?"
Pirsig asks "Should reality be something only a handful of the world's most advanced physicists understand? One would expect at least a majority of people to understand it. Should reality be expressible only in symbols that require university-level mathematics to manipulate? Should it be something that changes from year to year as new scientific theories are formulated?"
He goes on to explain that in a "value-centered Metaphysics of Quality this "scientific reality" platypus vanishes. Reality, which is value, is understood by every infant....science is a set of static intellectual patterns describing this reality, but the patterns are not the reality they describe."

The patterns are not the reality that they descibe.
Not the reality that they describe.
A description of reality.
Not reality itself.
Not real.

Reality, as I've been saying all along, is subjective.

On another note, I'll be back to the rain soon.

100,000 years to extinction??

I read somewhere the other day that a species usually has about 100,000 years before it destroys itself.

Does anyone know how long humans have been on earth?
I just want to know how much time I have left.

Clarity In The Stars

The Barefoot Doctor writes that 'there's something disturbingly privileged about living through and witnessing first-hand such momentous phases of human history as the one we're in now. This will be the stuff of history lessons a hundred years from now, if there are still schools, or even people, for that matter'. Bar the latter extremely depressing question, it a startlingly accurate statement. He's right. We are witnesses to a new era, to events of massive proportions. He explains that the 'key to sanity at this and every time is to remain centered in the present'; to 'become aware of the breath and consciously decelerate the tempo, feel the life force in your belly.'
It's much easier said than done really isn't it? I know my own mind is forever in the throes of analyzing the past, or trying to predict the future. I hardly ever focus on the moment. I did last night though. I floated on my back staring at the stars, the only person in an empty swimming pool; and I concentrated on the moment. On the present. I gained calm, I gained clarity, I gained perspective, and I came home and fixed something that I didn't want to break. Sometimes you have to think about yourself, follow your instincts, and try not to let the ego and self get in the way. Try not to be so stubborn ;)