I woke up early at 4:34am today, Friday Oct 28th 2022, and was making an espresso shot around 5:10am, when a series of thoughts about "how I ended up with this complicated expensive espresso kit happened"- what factors were involved that convinced me to spend money while I was between jobs without meaningful income.
How did I justify these purchases & do I really like what I decided on acquiring? I then thought about other online searches that ended up connecting me to a product or service that I ended up buying that I would have never been able to find or buy locally, or that I would have never thought about in the first place.
Branding, Brands, your mind is for sale to the highest bidder. Huge mega corporations have spend billions to get you to call a bath tissue "a Kleenex" Coca-Coal sells the idea of happiness and is the most recognized brand in the world, not from selling caffeinated carbonated flavored sugar water.
Did you know that retail stores are ancient while shopping online very modern or super new. It can take 3 generations of human society before a new technology becomes culturally integrated into societal change & police change. This is why today, in 2022, you still observe people using their smartphones in foolish ways, such that social decay a consequence of people staring into these small screens like they are staring at their shoes, instead of communicating with the people nearby or who they are out and about with together as a group.
Social intelligence declining, evidence in schools, the testimony of many teachers & staff provide ample evidence, as does the emergencies of school shootings where a student brings high powered weapons to school & unloads on everyone they can hurt, all because they felt abused or excluded from the social structures & clicks that students form for reasons that exceed my understanding, but which have something to do with "Wanting to Fit in" with peers!
I know that everyone wants to have a sense of meaning & purpose and that sometimes people derive this from their job or work or what they do to generate income, while still many more people seek social approval from family members, friend, coworkers or superiors at work, their boss or others, even politicians seeks approval from their constituency or the general public and love being in the limelight of the public eye in the media since that fuels their political campaigns, like they depict in the Movie "The Adjustment Bureau", a movie that I really like. Deep down I know that I am a hopelessly romantic type, but my wife would never say that. It's hard to explain, but I am a passionate person, filled with desires & wants that I barely understand.
I let lots of those negative toxic parts of my mind die off when I was reborn and renewed by being baptized into the Holy Spirit & truly accepting Christ Jesus as my Lord & Savior & began reading the New Testament of the Christian Bible so that the Holy Word would become living & real to me.
Memories of my dark wicked past no longer haunt me now as I know that I am not who I was back then. I know that I have become the kind of man that God intended me to be, still with tons of room for improvement in all domains of life, aspiring towards greater excellence in all ways & trying to encourage other people to do the same, like my cousin in law Blake Miller, does, the surgeon who I really appreciated deeply on many levels who encourages me to encourage others more. He gave me this Book called "Darwins Black Box"that I highly recommend reading. Dr. David A Sinclair's book "Lifespan, why we age and why we don't have to" another excellent read. Blake gave me both of these books, hoping they would enhance the way I think about life!
Let's suggest you visit someone you love & you wake up early with them and they make you an espresso, add milk converting it into a latte that you really enjoy. Later, when you go home, you hop on the internet and google search for "espresso" and start learning about the history of coffee. Soon a collection of YouTube videos under your belt, you're becoming knowledgeable about espresso shots like a barista. As your online searching continues you encounter many ads about espresso machines and espresso grinders. You already have an aeropress and have been drinking coffee for some time, but the tick or itch begins to grow as you now want an espresso setup.
Price is king, related to your budget, income, resources or wealth. You're not everyone so you shop for things at your price-point, related to the consumer price index of those things & the purchasing value of your fiat currency, which exists mostly as digital bits on a bank server belonging to people who control all the money, through complex derivatives stacked in ways so obscure that no one really actually understands how much money exists, while the Federal Reserve keeps QE pumping out more magically, which further dilutes your buying power by reducing the value of the money, USD in this example.
You know that big beautiful copper & steel espresso machine at the local restaurant is too big for your kitchen counter & find out when searching online that they also cost thousands of dollars. You refine your searching, picking a price point you are comfortable with. You get the espresso machine & find that your coffee grinder just does not work to produce a tasty shot like the one you can get from your local coffee shop, so you look online about grinding espresso. You learn that a quality high precision grinder that can produce uniform coffee particles small enough for a proper extraction in an espresso machine to produce a shot that is neither under or over extracted, striking a flavor balances that's delicious, is also an expensive grinder that costs way more than the value priced espresso machine you purchased.
As you review espresso grinders, you learn that quality models with the required precision that are also durable or long lasting cost a lot more than a cheap high speed blade pulse grinder you were using for 5-10 seconds bursts with 30-50 grams of coffee to produce grinds for your aeropress. By the time you are done, you're into the Espresso machine & grinder more than you ever thought you were going to spend in the first place.
I use this example, because even being budget sensitive & frugal, my Hand Made in Florence Italy Eureka Mignon Notte cost almost as much as a my smartphone, an iPhone SE2. The GEVI 5403 Espresso machine was cheap enough, but it rattles & vibrates noisy when operating, mostly because the lid to the water tank not secured well and bobbles around against the top of the tank and the back of the machine, making a sound emissions racket while doing so, but the removal base below the espresso basket held to the machine with magnets, & its steel plate on plastic base also vibrates emitting noise.
You have to hold the machine with both hands to silence the irritating noises as it brews shots of espresso. Deep down you want a silent setup, but the version of the grinder that emits less noise & a higher quality espresso machine will make your $600 kit look cheap, as you look online and find that you would have to spend $4000 for a high quality kit that is very quiet and does not vibrate plastic tanks, all stainless & copper, brass, glass & wood - no plastics! Perhaps for another life, right? After all, your not running a coffee shop, its just single servings of espresso when you wake up in the morning and your $0.6K setup works- its good enough- its actually great, especially the high quality espresso grinder. Surely you could just get a better espresso machine when the low end GEVI gives up its ghost in the future!
Nothing lasts forever after all, not even you. That is to say, we are all running out of time in this life as people, so I want to encourage you to make the best of your time alive. Put your smartphone down & lok up. Holding your head like that causes Text Neck problems and over-using a smartphone causes premature wear on thumb joints. Sometimes less is more & there is a wise balanced way to use a smartphone sparingly, when you actually need to use it to capture a photo, look up something pertinent or meaningful, to communicate with other people, to shop online, to play games, there are many ways too use a smartphone in short bursts, when your not with other people. You can listen to music or watch videos on your phone. Mobile broadband or wifi are actually magical if you think about it. Sure, if you study physics & HAM radio & RF technology, it's not actually magic, it is really just applied technology, wireless technology.
Many of the technologies you are benefiting from today were actually developed by the US Military Industrial Complex and were previously classified. CMOS is great example. Intel did not create the first integrate circuits, neither did Fairchild Semiconductor the precursor to NN or what became Intel. IC's were created for satellite imaging in classified NSA & CIA statelets when Roberty Noyce the founder of Intel was a small child. At the highest levels of government it was decided that spinning off some of those classified military technologies into the commercial space could create strong economic growth or what became known in California as the Silicon Valley Miracle of semiconductor design & manufacturing, mostly became of the success of Intel.
Meg & I have visited the headquarters of Intel & toured their really cool museum about the history & manufacturing technology behind CPU chip making in chip fab clean room where the technique wear bunny suits made of teflon & tyvek, to keep skin cells & hair & other particles out of the sensitive lithography equipment. Simply walking generates up to 5000 particles per step, the mass of our body & sole of our shoes scrapes against the ground- kicking up thousands of particles into the air nearby. In a clean room chip fab, a single dust particle can result in a dead CPU, since that particle can block light used in the photolithography stages, creating a defect or occlusion in the chip affected by the dust particle. I have been an investor in Intel for decades & love Intel the company. I really appreciate all the cool technology & information innovation at Intel. I particularly love the water recycling at Intel Chip fabs & clean production technology that reduce pollution & make chip fabs safer for the communities nearby. I like that Intel prioritized employee safety. Intel's focus on making high quality long lasting CPU's also creates brand loyalty. I think Intel is poised to become the worlds dominate chip maker, surpassing TSMC, also generating tons of additional profits thereby, resuming it position as the market leader in the chip space.
Today people are wearing the Internet on their wrists with smartwatches like the Apple Watch. Even smart rings on peoples finders like the Aura ring, contain all the smart technology needed to do complex health & fitness tracking, sleep tracking, heart rate, breathing rate, SpO2, and other biosensors that give the person or patent real time feedback, just like a CGM system, the Dexcomm or Abbot models that constantly give diabetic people realtime blood glucose readings continually, so they can make better nutritional & insulin does choices, that improves their health & wellness; preventing fatal lows while sleeping, helping to reduce high blood sugar events with a warning when the blood glucose levels are too high. Normally, before CGM, diabetic people were flying blind on the seat of their pants, with only finger stick pricking blood drop testing in glucometers as a way to know their blood glucose- but without all the graphs & tends & other insight offer by the CGM smartphone app that really peoples diabetic people!
Watching the Adjustment Bureau, specially Elise's character, reminds me of the pull, the deep down yearning & desire I have to father a child, to bring a life into existence. About 4 years ago I was at work at Batteries + Bulbs in Tukwila when a young woman came in needing help with the battery in her red Honda Fit, so I brought a new battery out into the parking lot, removed her car's old battery & installed a new one. I have to write this section through tears, because I have never been tested so hard before. I love & adore Meg & would never betray her or cheat on her. So this young woman and I were talking, making nearly constant eye contact while I was installing the battery, explaining each step slowly and carefully, telling her that its good to know how, just in case, and she listened very intensely. She was a few years younger than me, dark black hair, very physically fit, about 5'6", with radiant eyes & very pretty face. I really liked her voice & first impression of her personality. After I finished the battery install, she said "hey, can you talk for a few minutes?"- I was so enamored & lost into the interaction that I said "sure, what do you want to talk about?" she said "I have never met anyone so kind & loving & also strong & knowledgeable, who had the grace to politely explain anything complicated like this to me, you have a teaching spirit & something is resonating in me that I can't explain" my heart was fluttering and I started to melt inside, but then the Holy Spirit said through me "this is a test of your will power to be the loyal husband, let this beautiful young woman down softly, thank her, and let her one her way, you have already inspired her to find someone like you, who will cherish & honor & respect & love her the way she deserves, and that was your role in this interaction"- every fiber of my being wanted to make a way where none was possible, so I yielded to the Holy Spirit. I was so dazed and captured that I didn't notice that she had written her number down on a small scrap of paper at some point. We kept talking & she handed me the paper wither her cell number on it, and I subconsciously put it in my pocket. We kept talking for tens of minutes before someone else let me know that I had to come back in the store. I explained to her what the Holy Spirit had told me, gave her a hug & we made eye contact for a solid minute or two before parting. Looking into her eyes was like peering into an alternate future, a complete feeling of wholeness and peace that I had never experienced before. I woke up thinking about her & that interaction this morning, after watching The Adjustment Bureau for a second time last night. Elise's character in the Adjustment Bureau reminds me of this lovely young woman. I am only being honesty here. I took the piece of paper & set fire to it, knowing that calling it would ruin my marriage & be the end of the life that I knew. I was not willing to gamble, who knows if it would even work out. It's an alternate pathway that I was not intended to take, even though it would have resulted in children & a bigger family. Before I met Meg, I had a similar encounter with Jessica, who had all these same attributes, but who moved to Africa as a social worker for a Christian Missionary outreach program, and invited me to go along, which I declined. As I can tell you from Meg's parents, who were divorced, and my mom who was divorced, and my late brother in law Drake who was divorces, who all remarried happier later in life, that if you are stuck in an unhealthy marriage, you are not trapped. There is someone better out there, lonely, looking for you, who will be a much better husband or wife, who will love you the way you deserve to be loved.
It's the inception of these thoughts about other people, the passion, the love, those special connections when we connect deeply to someone else. Sometimes its from an idea, an ad, or an example that someone else set for you, sometimes its online connecting your mind to the minds of other people in new emergent ways that nearly no one understands completely. We have not had enough time with internet widely diffused access or smart devices to make sense of how to best use these technologies, thus the worldwide web really the Wild West as can be illustrated with online illicit drug marketplaces like the Silk Road where people can buy and sell things not allowed on Ebay or Amazon, even human organs are sold are the dark web. When I say you are for sale to the highest bidder, that includes your employer. You are forfeiting your finite time alive for income to buy things you do not even understand. You will likely look back on your life & at somepoint downsize & simplify & streamline at home. You will give up hobbies & eventually even your tools. At some point, if you are lucky, you will grow old. I am 39, already filled with regret again. I remember feeling this way in a previous life when I was lonely, old & very wealthy, just wanting a family, a real friend, a genuine loyal loving partner, a lovely wife, but having none of that, lonely & old, waiting to die, wondering why God' was keeping me alive.
I remember existing before becoming a human on Earth. I have distinctive clear memories of existing without a physical body, on the edge of a higher dimension that I believe is Heaven. Peering down at the Earth I had a street-view maps like ability to zoom in on peoples lives & see what is happening, how they are feeling, their life events. I noticed a tragic car accident that was hurting Ken & Connie Schwarz, their young daughter Erika having been struck in the head by car that slid down a hill during a freak winter snow storm as the young man driving was trying to get home after work. I saw Erika on life support & felt the pain in Ken's heart, really deep wrenching anguish & sadness, so moving to my soul that I remember asking God "Can I please go help him, he has made a lot of mistakes, but he had a good heart, and a lot of bad things have happened to this man that were outside of his control, can you send me down to Earth so that I can help" and then God said "Let it be" and boom, I was being born, unable to see, but alive inside, my soul already formed, send down to Earth from heaven. I remember as a small toddler feeling like I should be able to fly around effortlessly and was frustrated, preverbal, at my inability to float or glide in 3D at will, like I could when I did not have a body, resenting gravity even before I knew what gravity was.
I think Earth is a testing ground for the soul, a place where your soul is refined with different temptations, risks, rewards, failures & winning. Where you live a dynamic interactive life with other people being tested, in a giant worldwide simulation, that God sets up to test our souls, to teach our souls moral & ethical lessons that some people manage to avoid as they lust after political power & influence to wield over other people. I can't answer for despots like Vladimir Putin, I only pray that God will reach them so they stop hurting other people so much. I think Vlad is going to hell for his immoral & unethical hateful & evil deeds, evil thinking, evil choices, evil words, evil actions & evil character as a person. I think on Earth he will be brought to justice in the future, charged with War Crimes & Crimes against Humanity & punished accordingly by international courts. I believe that all of this has something to do with World War III, or the next world war. That somehow China is involved with Russia and that they will form an evil axis in WWIII. I believe the western world will unite and overcome this evil axis & become the victorious united leader of the future, as all wars is outlawed, as all crime eliminated, as we unite as one global country, with one central government, one energy credit currency based on physics, as one human people from one planet Earth.
I believe this singular super civilization united by the singularity will explore space with nuclear fusion rockets & take genetically engineered robust longer living humans to infinity & beyond with FTL or faster than light travel by warping spacetime & accessing other higher dimensional spaces where energy & information are fused, where time has no meaning at all, where FTL perfectly normal & commonplace, just one dimensional layer above that in which we find ourselves living in today, on Earth, as macromolecular humans that self-assembly with elements from foods using tertiary digital DNA & analog epigenetic information from our mothers egg & fathers sperm, that fused into a single new cell that contained everything needed to make a new person. Life is a miracle and amazing & precious & special & worth defending! I love being alive & want to encourage you to do the same, not just thinking about it, but making it magical any way that you can imagine! Cheers brothers & sisters, warm regards & good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment