G.O.D.

Yogiji used to say, if the word God does not mean anything to you, think of it as those forces which Generate Organize and Destroy (unless you Deliver).


Everyone loves to throw around the G-bomb. "God, damn it," "God, help me," "Oh my God!" But who are we talking to? When I was growing up, I distinctly remember feeling like a big moron in the catholic church because I thought I was the only one who did not get it. Now I fear I'm one of the few who does. Somehow, as a child, I got this idea that God was some guy with a white beard sitting on a cloud throwing lightning bolts down like a bored kid atop an anthill with a magnifying glass. Maybe you also think that's what he is, or maybe you think that's just silly. More important than what he looks like is the implication there that God has some kind of "will." We often hear the justifications "...because God wills it" and "God works in mysterious ways." Perhaps phrases like this is where the confusion about his will comes from. I'll get back to that later.

In order to understand what we mean by phrases like "God, help me" and "God wills it," we first need to understand just what the hell this "God" thing is. Consider the idea that when we say "God," we can just as well say "the universe itself and the forces that govern it." The huge implication here is that God does not have an agenda to push. If you drop a ball in a vacuum, it will accelerate toward the earth at a rate 9.81 m-s^-2. Well, it will also accelerate toward every other particle in the universe. And it will have a lot of stuff going on within the ball itself. There are particles decaying, gravity, strong force, weak force, electrons spinning, momentum and inertia... It is a very complex system. I'm not denying it. It is, in many ways, leagues beyond our best attempts at comprehension. When we say "It is God's will" we are alluding to that; that this event that occurred is a result of the many complicated parameters of the universe. We use that phrase as a consolation for those who are unsatisfied at the lack of an explanation provided to them for why such a tragedy has taken place.

Another thing Yogiji tells us is that God wants us to be happy. God, the father, cares for us, his children. What does this actually mean? Again, it's not that some dude in a robe is hoping for our lives to turn out okay. This one is a bit trickier. In mathematics, we can describe certain phenomena with differential or difference equations that directly affect one another. Don't panic, I'm not going to get into dynamical systems or phase plane analysis, but I'd like to briefly explain a particular result that can be obtained.

When we have something called an equilibrium point it means that as some variable changes (often time), the others stay at this point. An example is a pendulum. An equilibrium point on a pendulum is when the weight as at the bottom because it's going to stay at the bottom. Contrast this to a point straight out to the side-- as time progresses, the weight will move toward the bottom.

The pendulum actually has two equilibrium points. One at the bottom and one at the top. They are different, though. The one at the top is called unstable and the one at the bottom is called stable. Mathematically, this means that, even though the weight will stay at the bottom or the top if it's placed exactly there, if one were to move it slightly away from one of those points, the behavior would be different. For the stable point, a small change would result in the weight moving back toward the point. For the unstable point, a small difference would result in the weight continuing to move away from it. There is a reason I described this. :) According to Yogi Bhajan, happiness is a stable equilibrium in our complex system called God. This result is important. It means that our natural state is to be happy. So why are we unhappy? The only possible reason is that we are actually exerting energy toward being unhappy.

In my own life, this realization came in the midst of depression and angst. When you're feeling shitty, the last thing you want to hear is some happy bastard telling you not to worry. So I got angry when I heard that "happiness is my birthright." If that is true, I thought, then why is it always an uphill battle? The answer came to me: I spent so much time practicing being unhappy, walking down the hill, that it indeed was an uphill battle. This can come in many forms. A buddhist will tell you your unhappiness stems from having desires, a christian will tell you it comes from committing the seven deadly sins, and a psychologist might say it's because you learned that throwing tantrums gets you the attention that you need (with the unfortunate side effect of creating a habit in your psyche and training you to feel that way internally). At the root of all of these is the simple truth that you did not start out that way. You were not born unhappy; you worked for it.

HDTV

It took a few years, but high definition television seems to finally be widespread. Like any new (or old) technology, there seems to be a few misconceptions about it among the laymen. Allow me to explain a bit about how your cable TV works.

First of all, HD is HD. It's broadcasting a signal in 1080i or 720p; a digital signal at that. This means that whether you go through the phone company, the cable company, or use a satellite service, you are getting the same transmission. If you have a poor physical connection or the signal is weak, it will manifest as pixelating, artifacts, or freezing of the image. Not poor quality.

Perhaps an analogy would make it clearer. A digital TV signal describes the picture; an analog signal sends the actual picture. It's like baking a cake and mailing it to you versus giving you the recipe. If I mail it (analog) you'll get a cake, but it might be a little stale and banged up from the trip. If I give you the recipe (I still have to mail you something, but it's compressed into a small piece of paper, and I can add checks to make sure you get it exactly right, maybe even by sending several copies) then you have to do a little more work, but you will eventually have a perfect cake (or no cake at all, depending on your baking prowess.)

So why is one TV provider better than another? It's not because of the signal they're sending. I believe it comes down to the features they offer (DVR, channels, filtering programs...) and the price. Though their marketing campaigns would suggest differently. They pull the same misleading shit with internet service and it drives me nuts. Maybe I'll clarify that in a future post.

Secondly, CRT > LCD. I established that the incoming HDTV digital signal is the same Discovery Channel on your cable line as it is on your phone line. So what's the next choice to make? Which display technology to use. When a signal is HD, it's referring to its resolution. So any TV that supports HD will display it in that resolution.

The difference comes in when you consider brightness, color accuracy, refresh rates, space, power consumption... For picture quality and motion there's just no beating the old tube style televisions. They're also cheaper. Unfortunately, they're harder to find as manufacturing companies are phasing them out for the sleeker LCDs. To their credit, LCDs have come a long way and boast quicker refresh rates, brighter colors, and wider viewing angles than their earliest ancestors. I think, however, that the major appeal to them is their thin frame. Who wants a 250 pound CRT TV when they can get an LCD and hang it on the wall -- especially when the picture quality is non-discernible to the casual viewer.

Hopefully this helps clarify some of the misconceptions about TV. If you're in the market for a new one, search the internet for specifications, compare those to the ones you find in the stores and actually look at them. Just remember that the retail stores have an agenda to push a certain product on you and it may not be the best one for you. They may also not have the TV optimally configured, or be displaying a decent video on it. If you're considering switching service providers, put picture quality out of the way and then decide what factors are important to you: price, the "guide" they use, contract, et cetera.

An Aquarian President

I find this election especially interesting as a yogi. My teacher, Yogi Bhajan, taught us that the age of Aquarius is upon us. It marks a shift in consciousness; a transition from “I” to “we,” among other things and we need a president who can respond to that consciousness.

In the Aquarian age, we're taught, things will happen faster. Cause and effect still applies, of course. If you kick a door, it still kicks you back, and if you murder someone, there will still be consequences. The difference is that the time between action and reaction will be almost instantaneous. I'm talking about karma; but karma isn't a moral issue. It means everything happens faster.

That includes information. If information can be accessed quicker, then more information will be available. If you want to know about life on another continent, you don't have to go live a lifetime there. You will have all you need to know about it readily available. Which leads me to the next transition - globalization. Not only will things start happening faster, but they will happen on a global scale. What you do in North America will quickly affect someone in Australia.

There will be more polarization - you're either with us or against us, black or white, plus or minus. There will be less secrets. If you really sit down and listen to someone, even now, you can tell how they're feeling and what they're thinking even though they may want to hide it.

If this all sounds frightening, then that's probably because it is. We know it's scary because we're already experiencing it and we're already having problems coping. Have you noticed any of these things happening? Global warming, Wikipedia, Google maps, the war against terror, the world economy... Is anything going on in your personal life that seems more Aquarian? Yogi Bhajan has taught us that the transition from the Piscean age into the age of Aquarius is from 1992 until 2012. Think about all the changes that have occurred in the last 16 years.

Many calendars predict some big or catastrophic event in 2012. I'm not sure what will happen during that year, but I suspect that the world isn't going to end. As I said, we are already in the transition. Indeed, we are at the tail end and you can already see things start to settle in. Technology is maturing, computing speed hit a ceiling, people are adapting to ecological, economic and personal needs.

But while we get settled in to the new age, the next four years, I'm sure, will be just as crazy, if not crazier, than the last few. The next president of the United States will have to carry us through these next four years of transition and he will have to be able to respond quickly and react appropriately to situations never before conceived of. The only possible way to do that is intuitively. He needs to have a gut feeling and to trust it. And he needs to remain neutral and humble so that he can be in a position of service for all. I'm not saying anything about which candidate is better suited for this task, but my intuition tells me that Obama fits the bill and I'm glad he got elected. Even knowing nothing about the man or his platform, just the fact that there is a change in the White House seems appropriate for this time of vast changes.

Keeping with the spirit of the Aquarian age, Obama's term is going to be either a catastrophic failure or an incredible success and I'm hoping for the latter.

Yet Another Blog is Born

Hooray for narcissistic twits who think that anyone cares about what they have to say. I am now joining their ranks. Time and again I see “first posts” which talk about what one might expect to see in the future on their blog, blag, website, whatever. Fortunately, I'm angry enough right now to have the clairvoyance necessary to avoid such a cliche trap. Undoubtedly the blog, if updated at all, will reflect how I'm feeling at the time of writing. Vague enough?

Along with the naive projections, of course, is usually some seed of inspiritation which compels the author to write the first post. Again, I'm just plain angry. I feel like sharing my thoughts on blogs (and how there are too many of them), elections (and how they bring out the worst in people), and website design. Actually, there's quite a bit I feel like discussing here and it would be more interesting and easier to read if each entry were focused on a particular topic rather than an aggregation thereof.

If that is my inspiration, then Paul Graham is my enabler. If you don't know him, take a moment now to read one of his essays. It doesn't matter which one you pick. They are all very well written and brilliant works. In particular, he has an essay about essays that forever changed how I feel about the writing form. Or, at least, thus far changed it. He makes the painfully obvious point that an essay is not supposed to defend a position. The original purpose of an essay was to organize one's thoughts on paper. It's an extension of the mind. Essays are supposed to meander; and thank God for that, because I already completely lost track of how I began this post.

To summarize: My intention with this space is to organize my thoughts and seek the truth on issues that concern me. (I used to use friends for this, but somehow I have none left -- a topic for another day.) A side effect of this is likely that you, whoever you are, might learn something as well. I have a strange mix of qualifications in maths, sciences, yoga, spirituality, and technologies, among others. So if your looking for a yogi mathematician computer programmer's take on the world, then you're likely to find it here. I hope that this space is not wasted and contributes something to someone at some point. Welcome and Sat Nam.