An odd thought struck me today as I watched the squirrels traipse through the forest.

Am I looking at the ancient ancestors of the next (comparably) intelligent life?

The odd thought took a more radical and revolutionary turn as I contemplated the scope of time, and just what may be, as farcical as it may sound.

Am I looking at just a squirrel? Or perhaps the evolutionary herald of an entirely new intelligent species, so many millions of years from now... Of course the chances that it would be the squirrel and not something else entirely different are infinitely small, but the thought requires some traction in a specific model, so I shall think of squirrels.

Whatever it may be, if it may be, represents the joys of natural contemplation. The ability or at least the attempt to transcend all habitual perspective and don a radically different one. Brain-bending, you know.

At the end, at the very least, Nature becomes infinitely more valuable. In Nature, one is surrounded by time. A process so terribly slow that notions of patience don't quite capture its progression. Life is so ephemeral and passing. Tiny little bundles of excited energy, more active than anything, soon passing into nothing. You can almost conceive of every moving thing, from the drift of continents to a passing deer as the same fundamental orchestra of passing matter, though perhaps along different scales.

They say peace is a matter of mental tranquility. I tend to view it as more the mental arrest that occurs when attempting to conceive of it all in a thought. You're not inactive, you're just caught up in a mental embrace and you can only reach so far or stretch so much. It is the height of mental exertion, not its nadir. The moment where you have taken as big and as deep a breath as you can possibly take, and your whole body is caught up in the effort, stalled at the limit, brought up and consumed in that slight pause before the tremendous exhalation.

So I totally forgot I had class and spoken test today. Well, here goes emergency overdrive protocol Reach Down And Grab Some Nuts.

Today I taught Lucky the equation of trust, and explained to her that since she has trusted me, it is now my turn to trust her. I secured the halter rope and took her for a walk without leading her. She did fantastic, following my path and taking my cues. We walked together and jogged together, all without a rope to tug on her. An interesting thing is that without the rope, she becomes more dependent upon me for direction. It appears that relying on a rope creates a dependence upon a substandard form of communication, as well as giving her the ability to control me. Ropes are two-way forms of communication. Without the rope, she doesn't even try to stop and eat grass. She is too worried about being keyed in on me. I couldn't even get her to eat some grass. She wasn't comfortable. She needed the rope.

It was a good day though. A glass-smooth river and almost complete silence. Cool weather, and a bald eagle gliding gently over the water. I told Lucky that we had to go down about a mile to get to the river, and we'll see the eagle down there. Sure enough, we took our time and made our way down and there was the eagle, 30 minutes later, gliding along as if on cue.

But this is how it will work from now on: she trusts me, and then I trust her. A very good principle I think.

I have a zit right in the fold of my nose and cheek, making it impossible to gouge out. I helped my father install a blower/exhaust fan and hood for the stovetop in their new kitchen yesterday, and my face is still full of sheet-rock and dust.

22 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving honoureth Me; and to him that ordereth his way aright will I show the salvation of God.

I got some Austrian red wine to explore my alcohol heritage.

Hm... while German and Austrian Riesling is good, it appears that that too much blood from too many wars has soaked into to many fields for Austrian red wine to taste like anything but rich, smoky death.

It even looks like blood mixed with muddy water.

Intriguing, yes.

Revolting? Absolutely.

Yet it still captures me with the same existential angst that death does.

I can see Roman feet sludging through the mud as bodies lie all about and fires burn reluctantly against the gray, misty rains.

Hot vapors of death choke and burn my throat...

This is terrible!

Mmmm... more...

I just spent two hours trying to write up a piece on J.S. Mill's Of the Composition of Causes, but got lost and forgot what I was trying to demonstrate with it. Whatevs. I liked studying it at least. Interesting stuff. I really want to be able to put something together though, since emergentism is a hot topic and I haven't really seen anyone discussion the British empiricist tradition surrounding the topic.

Am I the only one left on the internets who received a standard American education?

For the sixth time already people, the tax-exempt status of religious organizations is a direct result of the separation of church and state as understood by our history.

It's just some weird bizarro world to see people complaining about the tax-exempt status violating the principle of the separation of church and state.

Then again, it is just a phrase, and knowing what the phrase means and entails with a solid historical understanding of it is just "intellectual poppycock" or something.

There is an ad on LJ that advertises a "crulity free" technique to stop horse cribbing.

Well, that's nice I guess. I don't much like crulity. At least I think I don't like crulity, considering that the ad establishes it as a thing not to be liked.

On second thought, I'm not going to take horse advice from these people.

Lucky and her boyfriend have adopted the new baby colt. On second thought, "new baby colt" is the most horrendously redundant phrase I've used yet.

So now we has a little non-traditional horsey family. It's ok though, they get all the same housing and employment rights.

I'ma go check out the Sikh temple in town. They be all like, "Yo check us out, we just be chillin' here up in our House of God. You don't gotta do nothing. This be for ever-one, yo." Sure they have rules, but it they be all like, "You need a place to worship? We got you covered." The Jews, well, they want you to be Jewish, and the Catholics, well, they want you to be Catholic, and the Lutherans, well, they want you to be Lutheran and the Baptists, well, they're Baptist, and it seems the Sikhs are all about just letting people chill in their God-house. Mad respek.

Lemme tell ya a story sonnee... yes I tell you, long ago, 234 years ago... the Cont'nenal Cungress sent out the call fer a few good men.

Where did they go to find them?

To the bar sonneee, they went to the bar.

I was thinking about this after coming across some of the disputes regarding authorship of some parts of the Bible. More and more I realize just how much we are inadvertently recruited into fights without ever stopping to ask if we really care about it. Politics or whatever. Do we really care who wrote the Bible? Do we really care how old the Earth is? I mean, what's the point? Let's say I drink the Kool-Aid and go on believing that the Earth is 6000-some years old... and? Does this better my walk with God? Does it increase my understanding? No, it's just a putative claim that goes nowhere and does nothing.
( Cut. )

I gots me an A on my last Frenchie test. This is good, since I was getting a string of 85s and it was getting quite old. Now I can get 95s.

Today Lucky started loading on to a trailer without having to be led in, and then we laid her down.

Some people are against laying your horse down, but seeing what it takes to get Lucky to trust you, I will say that there is simply no other way for us to get through to her on this level. It took 75 minutes of hopping around and fighting with Chuck until she finally collapsed like a bag of bricks.

It is weird, but you can literally see the horse's mind blitz-out and go blank. She laid down and slumped over and closed her eyes and everything just changed.

And then of course, we couldn't get her back up.

She was so tired she pretty much hit the ground sleeping.

Lucky could go ten miles on three legs, if she had to.

But everything was cool and we patted her and stroked her and made everything safe, and then gave her some grains and turned her in for the day.

real_convert_me

Come one, come all, as I have created a place without trouble or trial.

Lucky was very naughty today.

Aside from the momentary frustrations, it is quite amusing to see your horse get that look and stance like who the fuck do you think you are? All taken aback and posturing like an offended Victorian-era courtesan.

She's digging freaking holes now when she's tied up. Not just pawing, but moving large mounds of earth and creating significant terrain features. If I take the time to train her to stand for a few hours, I'm afraid she'll have dug her own grave or something.

And on the trail she was all about crowding my authori-tai. I had to stop a few times and have little five minute fights with her about who goes in front and not walking on my feet.

Must be something in the air, I dunno. Hormones? Nah, not in the beginning of winter. I dunno, whatevs.

So in these links, I am told that Christians or Christianity had nothing to do with Nazis, but it is ok that mosques and stuff are under surveillance because dangerous people should be kept under surveillance, the most dangerous being kept in prisons or asylums.

I refuse to believe that such cognitive dissonance exists without creating two fully distinct and independent personalities.

But hey, Jesus didn't say kill people so I guess Christians can't be guilty of killing people. But if this isn't enough, the Jews sure are thankful for not having to slaughter animals anymore. Hey lookit there's that anti-Semitism again!

These things really shouldn't bug me, but this stuff makes me shake. Literally tremble.

Yes efriden, the Jews are so thankful for the ensuing 1500 years of constant persecution.

I'm gonna go to a job fair tomorrow.

Dear God what have they made of me...

equestrian has the most ridiculous wank in the fucking world. Jesus Christ. Just replace "for the children" whining with "for the horses". I didn't realize the community was for people to spend their time lecturing others about horse care.

I mean shit, they even have anti-Amish wank. Seriously, its like if you're not part of the same bullshit modern consumer world full of luxury and recreational horse ownership, you are a horrible person. They work their horses everyday! They like, almost starve them! The Amish! All of them! Don't trust the Amish!

Fucking A, I mean, seriously, go blow it out your fuckhole. The irony of all this is eventing is terrible for horses. I mean really, you want to draw lines? You want to get high and mighty about horses? Seriously, it's a ridiculous game that consists entirely of climbing a little higher on the moral pole.

How many people fucking jump their horses till they're beat into the ground and then get on LJ to fuck with other people? Oh no, but not them, they take real good cares of their horses. It's different! I'm good! I do everything right!

RANTYRANTYRANTY!