TONY ON APES, SPACE & MORE

Including Totally Optional Prompts and Three Word Wednesday.
Have you had a go yet?

Welcome to my Wednesday Magazine post.
A new assessment warns that almost half of primate species are facing extinction, mainly due to loss of habitat. I just thought I’d mention this, as wider environmental news doesn’t seem to hit the headlines much nowadays.

I know, man-made global warming is always there.

But this is a problem in itself. Whilst I think it is wise to combat the possible effects of warming, we are being induced to give it too much attention. But what do I mean by this?
Main media only reports what Big Biz wants it to report. And Big Biz has realized two advantages in global warming. First, it hopes to scare the public into accepting more nuclear power (supposedly eco-friendly), and it stops other eco-issues making the news.

It seems celebrities are beginning to clamour to be first.

First to what, you may ask? To go into orbit with Virgin. And I love this idea. Anything that popularizes, and provides money for, private space endeavour is okay by me.
This is because enterprise needs to be in space. It is the only way we will finally begin proper exploration, and wrench control of space from government. For as I’ve said before, governments make terrible explorers.
And also for another reason. NASA is too hi-tech – good for Big Biz contracts, but bad for tech in the long run. For instance, they still blast people into space, whilst Virgin is showing that all you need is to get a craft up high, and then gently catapult it higher.
Much simpler, and cheaper, don’t you think?
Next Magazine post Friday. See you then.

© Anthony North, August 2008

LOST IT

I’ve lost it – damn! Where’s it gone?
I know what it is, where it’s from;
I had it before, I’m sure I had,
if I find it, I’ll be so, so glad!
You’d enjoy it, too, I’m sure you would,
believe me it is very good;
You’d find it is exceeding fine,
with a marvellously melodious rhyme,
but I’ve lost that damned last line …

(c) Anthony North, August 2008

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ABSENT THOUGHTS – Horror Fiction

The power of control. As individuals, living in a material world, we don’t understand just what it means. We go through life, the real impulses going unnoticed. I know this because I used to think like everyone else. Until I met HIM.
I’m a psychiatrist, and he came to my attention when he was referred to me by the police. In his mid-twenties, he had lived a moral, law-abiding life until some six months ago, when for no apparent reason, he went on a crime spree. Finally caught, he had no idea what he had been doing – indeed, it was as if the last six months had been totally wiped out of his mind.
Time and time again I tried to access those unconscious thoughts – try to work out what had motivated him. But I’m sure if I’d hypnotized him a million times, it would have been no good. So eventually I decided to look into his life instead.
I did, of course, confirm that there was no possible reason in his past why he should have turned like he did – and obviously no reason why he had suddenly become the man he was before his black-out. But when I discovered the mystery concerning his birth, I felt I had at last a lead to follow.
He was an orphan and it took a great deal of time to track down the circumstances of his birth. And when I discovered the ‘secret’, I knew exactly where I had to go.
I found Reggie Brown two days later. He was, in a way a pitiful sight. It was some eight months since the accident that left him crippled – a car crash following one of his many burglaries. And in his early twenties it was even more tragic.
I suppose you could call him a paranormalist, perhaps even a medium, although he didn’t contact the dead. He had had an interest in the subject for many years, ever since he began to have feelings that he was not quite himself. Researching the subject, he wondered, first, if he was picking up telepathic thoughts from someone else, and soon learnt how to use the ability himself.
And it was then that he saw, in his mind’s eye, someone else identical to himself. And once the accident had happened, and he could no longer live his own life, he decided to live it psychically through his twin – until he got bored.
Well, I’m back from my interview with Reggie, writing down my thoughts before telling his twin – and possibly trying to convince the police, but I don’t hold too much hope of success there. The twin is sat down before me, but wait … what? …
There is a strange glint in his eye. He is moving forward, menacingly ….

© Anthony North, August 2008

TT #16 – HOW TO EXPLAIN LOVE

Featuring Thursday Thirteen. Have you had a go yet?

13. This work is about love. Now, don’t go all romantic on me. I’m going to be clinical. Too often love is thought of only emotionally, but that doesn’t explain it, or our behaviour. I’m going to be rational.
12. I’m also going to be specific about what love I’m talking about. I’m not going into love of God, or family, or your favourite pet or teddy bear. I’m talking about the intimate emotional relationship of one person for another.

11. Love and spirituality can be closely connected.

Eastern philosophy often combines the two, and religion and love have similar language – ecstasy, passion, etc. I feel this is because both come from a deep emotional centre within the mind.
10. Where did love come from? Well, if you don’t accept evolution, I suggest you skip this bit. Man is said to have become man because of a unique pelvis which allowed him to walk erect. But what would be the upshot of this?

9. It meant that mating became natural and comfortable face to face.

And for the first time a species had regular, intimate closeness as the norm. I’m convinced love came from this process, and from here, what we class as humanity followed.
8. Emotional togetherness birthed other emotions such as joy, jealousy, grief. And most importantly, an impulse towards another individual assisted in our thoughts moving away from instinct. In a way, this is even expressed in Genesis, with man and woman as one in a garden (nature), until temptation came and Adam had his Fall.

7. Love has not always been expressed as it is today.

For much of history it was seen as functional, and mainly for procreation. This was due, I think, to a mind-set in which survival was uppermost. Only when society organized itself to improve survival did the view change.
6. It is first popularly expressed with Shakespeare, with Romeo and Juliet placing love above duty to family or society. For the first time it becomes expressed as all-encompassing and all-consuming.

5. Today, love seems to have changed once more.

We tend to be infatuated by the personal and lifestyle. And all too often, this places love as a choice alongside career or personal politics. A fast society also demands immediate gratification. This does not allow time for love to blossom.
4. But what, exactly, is love? Well, I think, in order to explain it, we must realize it doesn’t exist. Now, I know many will be appalled by this, but read on. To me, love is two things: infatuation and deep companionship.
3. When love first blossoms it is physical and sexual – hormones are in overdrive. And it is this I class as infatuation. Eventually, this goes, and it is replaced by the deep companionship I speak of – and in many ways, this is the most powerful of the two in the long run.
2. I make this separation for an important reason. All too often, when infatuation wanes, people can mistakenly think they are falling out of love, when what is really happening is a transition. If we realized this, maybe there wouldn’t be quite so many separations.
1. Of course, in the short term, infatuation for someone can overpower deep companionship, and it is here that the affair occurs. Yet often, I see that it is the failure of trust that leads to separation. Perhaps we shouldn’t automatically class the affair as a ‘separation’ matter. It is simply a misunderstanding of what love is, and is not.

© Anthony North, August 2008