QUOTESSAYS

 Of course, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." was the catch phrase from the movie 'Love Story', required viewing for all Boomers back in the day. It was my first wife's favorite flick, which should have been warning enough, but it was a different age. Her being told all the time that she looked like Ali MacGraw didn't help. She even started to mimic the plucky character MacGraw played in the film, which became incredibly irritating. Unfortunately, I did not model myself after Ryan O'Neal's character and neither of us had a terminal illness to wrap it up tearfully romantic. Instead, we got married and started dying slowly. I often wonder at how many doomed marriages were inspired by that horrendous movie. Now Ryan O'Neal's and Ali Macgraw's own love life was closer to reality. They were both drug fueled train wrecks, scattering lovers and damaged children behind them like litter. Ali is my neighbor up the road a piece in New

 As I get older, I look back and realize how many people stronger and smarter than I am crashed along the side of life's highway through the years. Not only physically, but emotionally and intellectually too. That is why those Facebook question posts are so popular. So much easier than real thinking and reflection. Death happens in stages, not all at once. One of the greatest lessons I learned as a geriatric CNA. In retrospect I realize surfing life and rolling in the mud worked for me. Towards the end of life, material goals and accomplishments start to look silly. Experience beats having stuff every time. Putting yourself in positions outside your comfort zone is the key to adaptability and the ability to change on the spot. The more you experience, the more you are able to experience.

 Though much of the hoopla around the 'Metaverse' is just advertising hype at this stage, the trajectory of virtual technology would appear to be pretty clear. The doom and gloom crowd will always be emphasizing the downside of technology, but that is academic at best. It just is. Humankind will use whatever technology they develop, for good or bad. I am not swayed by the argument that humans will lose their humanity either. Humans aren't all that great to begin with. Read the comments on those question posts on Facebook to see just how little we have evolved. We just might need a little boost from cybertechnology to keep pace. Trust me, everyone will be plugged in. https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-zuckerberg-facebook-virtual-world-leave-people-behind-2021-12?r=US&IR=T

  This also works pretty good for taste in pop music and several other areas of modern life.....

  The Strange Similarity of Neuron and Galaxy Networks (getpocket.com) Always been one of my pet theories. Everything we experience and conceptualize is filtered through our consciousness anyway, so we might as well conceive of the universe as a huge brain. The reality is our physical senses are pretty limited as tools to perceive anything at all, so we might as well swing for the fences with creative ideas. I am a firm believer that every PhD candidate in the hard sciences should be required to dose on 500 mics of Owsley grade Acid before receiving their credentials, and 250 mic refreshers on their graduation anniversary from then on out. That will keep their mind open and fluid and prevent any calcification due to over education and ego issues. Once you slap a 'Dr.' on the front of someone's name they start drinking their own Kool-Aid.

  Somehow this quote reminds me of my reaction to the phenomenon of all those questions posts on Facebook these days. I could not figure out what they were about, so I did a little digging. I just knew that a Face Book page of some wholesome mid-western housewife with a nice friendly smile was not all that interested in my favorite Thanksgiving side dish without an ulterior motive. The one you always hear is they are digging for password clues, but that is only a sliver of the real reason behind these posts. It is mainly about gathering lists and information about people to sell for whatever purposes the buyer wants to use them for. Back in pre-internet times it would be similar to purchasing mailing lists of potential customers that fit the demographic of your product. In addition, there are all kinds of other angles to the information they gather, no matter how innocent your answer. There is actually no 100% safe answer to these posts. The psychology of getting people to respond is q

 One of the things I have noticed as I get older is how you never know when you are making a memory that will last the rest of your life. A sound, a smell, a situation can all bring back certain memories so clearly. I have one so vivid I have written about it before. When I was seven a neighborhood woman who had befriended all the kids in our hood died. She seemed ancient, but as I look back, I am sure she was probably in her 50's. I also have a suspicion she may have been a pretty good drinker in retrospect. She certainly was jolly and always had a glass of something in her hand. I remember the ambulance in front of her house and later a man explaining to us that she had passed. Now I am sure I had somewhat of a concept of death, even at that tender age, more of a 'flush the goldfish down the toilet and say a prayer' understanding, but it suddenly hit me all at once at how life actually worked, and I was part of that equation. Death became real, not abstract. I remember si