Your only hope is that forgetting might make a door appear.

[jackshoegazer]

My, my, how productive I've been! Laundry and dishes and oil change and hair cut for wee lad and cooking and car washing. Now I should just add sleep to my list of productions and maybe I'd get some of that too :P

I got the Book back from the Editor yesterday. There are no major changes to be made, and merely a few grammatical errors, and a propensity to use "seemingly" quite a bit. Some quotes from the review:

"...a fun and entertaining read, yet thought-provoking and surprisingly profound at the same time... very complex and well-developed characters. The book is very smartly written, full of nuances and witticisms. There is a wide spectrum of personalities, providing a something-for-everyone potential..."

Does anyone here know how to do margins with HTML? I would have liked to indent that last quote. Hmmm...

So now, the next step is to do the final edit and get it ready for publication. We should be sending it off toward the end of August, once Mercury goes direct again. Excitement, excitement!

I'll be working all weekend. Yip.

"I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth." ~ Bright Eyes

"People believe. It's what people do. They believe and the will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine and people believe; and it's that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen." ~ Neil Gaiman

Douglas Adams said that Man wanted to know purpose, so God left Man to figure that out. We make belief. The Universe doesn't mean anything until we create that meaning.

You feel like life has no meaning? Get out there and make some. Brew it, stew it, construct it, paint it, spell it, dance it, write it, cook it, eat it, shit it, fuck it.

It's your world. Populate it as you like.

Everything is under control.

Your control.

Do you think that an orbit exists as anything but an expression of the planet which follows it? Do you think your life exists as anything but an expression of you?

It's your life.

Wake up.

**EDIT**
Thanks wwonka666, for the indentation advice!

Comments

[wwonka666.livejournal.com]

you could try 'blockquote' text '/blockquote' with < and > replacing the ' and '

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

WOOT! THANK YOU!

[niamh04.livejournal.com]

Good luck with your book -- I like the quotation on beliefs -- (though I am a hard polytheist). I don't have any problem with beliefs, unless someone feels threatened when their beliefs are tested and they become defensive. Defending beliefs without any evidence other than faith, isn't necessarily a good idea.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Exactly :P

I'm a monotheist and a polytheist simultaneously :D

[niamh04.livejournal.com]

How's that? All is One?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Like the Egyptian pantheon, All is One.

I see the Universe as energy, and all of existenceis characterized or labled as the One God. Hence, monotheism. Yet, we label particular frequencies of that energy and call those more specific energies gods as well. Like we've labeled that particular wavelength of light "orange", this particular wavelength could be called "Mercury" or "Shiva" or whathaveyou.

[niamh04.livejournal.com]

You see them as energy then? What about consciousness -- are the gods conscious or have awareness of their own? Most of the Kemetics are hard polytheists. They view the Egyptian gods as distinct beings from each other. Now the Hindu pantheon, different story, even with as many gods as they do have...

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I see everything as energy, and I'd even be hard-pressed to deny that rather than energy, everything is consciousness, but that's a little harder of a sell to the uninitiated.

Like Qabalah, I see everything as a spectrum from pure potential all the way down to solid, thick manifestation. Gods are just egos (foci of consciousness) at various levels of manifestation, and the 'biggest' god is the ego that encompasses all that pure potential.

[niamh04.livejournal.com]

Hi Jeremy, and thanks for explaining. Everything is consciousness isn't too difficult of a sell. To some, perhaps. Some may call it new age. Just was form of consciousness may be the issue. Now, do you think the gods are creations of us, or byproducts of the mind in some form then?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. now that's a tough question, but I tend to lean toward the opinion that they are their own entities. We name them, but they exist independently of us. But since we're all made of the same stuff (energy/consciousness/chocolate/whathaveyou) we have aspects of them in us. Just like the spectrum of light that we call "orange" exists independently of the name "orange".

[niamh04.livejournal.com]

Chocolate? LOL I suppose we are chocolate when we digest it and integrate it ;) Could it be perhaps that in the bigger picture, all is One, then we go further, see all is connected, then?

This is a quote I wear on delphi, when I'm visiting over there:

"Consider frequently the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another.
For things are somehow implicated with one another, and all in a way friendly to one another."
~Cicero

I think (gotta love that sentence opening) if a being has awareness of itself and that around it, or sentinent, it becomes an individual, yet still remains connected because we're always connnected with the whole of everything in some way. If we weren't, we couldn't be affected by anything around us. But we can be affected, and because of this, we can affect that which we're connected to.

Certainly everything is energy, and at the subatomic level, everything is similar. But somehow, we form as individual, and aware beings, then to return to being unaware, at least in this particular existence (like coming up for air from an ocean for a brief amount of time, to eventually go back down again).

So perhaps, they exist in their own way, yet because of this connectivity, we create them, and they create us?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I see it more as we influence eachother. When we are aware of them, worship them, etc, we are sending energy their way, mingling our consciousness with theirs, and vice versa. The more we are aware of them, the more they are aware of us.

I equate the awareness/unawareness issue like a bus ride. When we are unaware, not manifested in a "life" it's like waiting at hte bus stop. Nothing changes, we don't learn. But to go somewhere, to learn something, we have to get on the bus. We go on our journey and then get dropped back off at the bus stop. From time back to timelessness.

[niamh04.livejournal.com]

And sometimes the bus breaks down along the way *smiles* By creating us and we them, I mean change or affecting, in that relationship to one another.

[maeghanne.livejournal.com]

That reminded me of Liber Oz:

http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib77.html

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

That's one of my favorite Libers!

[maeghanne.livejournal.com]

oh yeah.. and congrats on the book! :)

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm sooooo excited. I can't wait.

[anubis75.livejournal.com]

Well put man. Congrats on the book.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Thank you, friend!

[taeli.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the book and the glowing review.

Your post reminds me that I wanted to copy a short story I recently read for you. I'd been contemplating it but sometimes I'm off on knowing what people might like and you and I don't really talk enough for me to know for sure. Mostly what I know about you is from your journal, from observing you or from things I've heard other people say.

[lady-saffir.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the book!

Do you think that an orbit exists as anything but an expression of the planet which follows it? Do you think your life exists as anything but an expression of you?

Love it!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Thanks, lady!

I was suprised as anyone that that quote popped out of me :P

[3starsinmyeyes.livejournal.com]

i'm excited for your book!!

I can say, hey i kinda know that guy@!! :)

then maybe you will have money and can come visit me, as I am poor;)

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

You kind of know what guy?