New Hair

I have no excuse.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  In fact, it still does.  I love it!  It's so much fun - it still surprises me every time I look in the mirror.

And I get such a great reaction from other people.  Total randomers stopping me on the street to ask where I got it done.  Complete strangers telling me how much they love my hair.  And of course, it wouldn't be any fun without the disapproving stares.

Salt Lake City has (one of?) the world's largest genealogy libraries and I've invented a wonderful back story involving a long hidden family history involving an incident with an ancient Roman deity and a peacock.  This is accompanied by sage head nodding, until I see the reference to bestiality make the connection in people's brains.  Hilarious!

So now, I'm finishing up the very last of my research work here... In the past week I've done eight interviews, sat in on four meetings and one conference, and made a preliminary presentation of my research.  It's now Tuesday afternoon and I'm on a lunch-time flight to Chicago on Friday.  Between now and then, I've got another four interviews and two more meeting scheduled.  The new hair makes for an AWESOME ice-breaker! :)

My last full week...

I can't believe how quickly time has flown... nor how much work remains to be done in my last week and a bit.  Wowsers!
Best get on with it so!

It always comes down to who you know, not what you know...

I'm so happy that nepotism is alive and well in Utah.

Really, I am; because without it, I wouldn't have had one of the most interesting mornings since I got here.

I have been struggling with some access issues where I am based.  Very specific issues, with specific people, who insist on setting themselves up as gatekeepers and then withhold access to the places they've been promising to bring me for (six) months.  Frustrating as hell.  To be fair, I have had some great access to other parts of the organisation - it's just this one specific area (and one particular person) who's proving to be problematic.

Anyway, I was talking about nepotism.  A woman that I've become friendly with here brought me to a St Patrick's Day party (the irony of being the only Irish person in the house at a St Patrick's party!) and introduced me to another of her friends who works at a fairly prestigious research hospital.  We were talking shop for a little while and she offered to show me around the facility so that I could see how things are done in other places apart from where I am.  Yeay!  A bit of rounding out.

So this morning, I met her at 7.  (Yes, 7.  In the morning.  In order to get to the hospital on time, I had to get the Trax at 6:30, but the first bus past my road isn't until 6:40, which meant I had to walk twelve blocks (about 3km), which meant I had to leave my house this morning before 6!!!)  She brought me to a treatment planning conference and then brought me on a full tour of the facility - hospital and research institute - and introduced me to heaps of people.  She spent 3 hours with me this morning, showing me everything and talking me though a lot of the specifics that I was seeing.  Fantastic.

And what did I have to do to get this amazing treatment?  Apply for a Fellowship?  Request special permissions?  No.  All I needed to do was serendipitously meet the right person at the right party.  Proving yet again that it's rarely about what you know, and more often about who you know.  And for once, at least, I'm very pleased about that.  :) Happy day!

It's completely true...

My favourite tshirt.
Never fails to get a grin.
Especially from other sexyglex wearers.

For added irony (in the Alannis Morrissette sense), I also wear it when I'm wearing my contact lenses...

In more recent news...

My parents came to visit me last week - I don't think I've been so excited to see them EVER!  I was like a small child the day before my birthday on the day I was due to go to the airport and pick them up.  Like me, I don't think they were expecting much from Utah, what with it being soooooo high on everyone's list of places-to-see-before-you-die!  By the time they were going, I think they'd been won over by the sheer beauty of the state - even if there is some deep oddness that goes with it.  (Is there a Nobel prize equivalent for understatement?  I think I deserve one!)

They arrived on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, I met them for lunch and then we went for a wander around Temple Square (because you have to, right?  It would be like not going to Agia Sofia or the Blue Mosque when you go to Istanbul/Constantinople, or skipping the Acropolis in Athens) and a tour of the Beehive House.  That was hilarious!  Two lovely girls trying to put the hard-sell on me, my dad, and some other guy who was doing the tour: "What religion were you brought up?"  My ingrained Catholic guilt made me reply "Catholic, sorry", when I've been practicing for months that the next time I get asked that question, I'll answer "I'm a Pastafarian, but my husband and kids are Jedi".  Bah!  Now I'll have to go back so that I can have my ésprit d'éscalier moment.  Goddammit!

Tabernacle - Organ Recital

Thursday, I met the folks at the Tabernacle for an Organ Recital.  That was impressive.  The acoustics in there are incredible.

Dad wanted to get a nice jacket, or rather, Mam wanted Dad to get a nice jacket, so I suggested a suit shop that I've passed on the bus every morning for the past six months, not realising it was a Mormon clothes shop.  Seriously!

Click for larger view and see just what
a missionary can get for under $700!

That evening, we went to watch the Tabernacle Choir rehearsing.  They were in the Conference Centre for that and while the acoustics weren't as good as in the Tabernacle, it was still an amazing spectacle.  I tried to upload a short video here, but the technology gods are not on my side unfortunately.

Friday morning, we hit the road and headed south to Moab.  Dad and I hiked around Arches National Park, and this time, I got to do the Park Avenue trail and actually climbed up to Delicate Arch: it was so worth it!  We had dinner in Moab, before heading 50 miles further south to our (dingy) motel in Monticello.

Park Avenue trail

Me at Delicate Arch

Next morning, an early rise, and back up to Moab where I ran the Canyonlands half-marathon in 2:04, a personal best, thank you very much!

At the starting line

At the finishing line
(I'm going by my chip time... I started WAY back!)

That afternoon, I took the folks to Dead Horse Point and Dad and I took the trail across the headland to the Point, while Mam met us there with the car.  Thank Jeebus that she did, because by that stage, I don't think I had the energy left to trek the mile and a half back to the Visitor Centre!

Mam & Dad at Dead Horse Point

We stayed in Moab that night and on Sunday went back south to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, stopping off at Newspaper Rock on the way.

Newspaper Rock
Needles District, Canyonlands 

I hadn't been to either of these before and they were really impressive.  We couldn't go up to the actual Needles, because that would have been a full day's hike and we weren't really in that sort of mood.  Also, my legs were still a bit stiff from the day before, but we did several of the shorter trails (between half a mile and 3 miles each) and had some amazing views of the Needles in the distance.

Needles District, Canyonlands

Needles District, Canyonlands

Wooden Shoe Bridge
Needles District, Canyonlands

Back to Moab that evening and on Monday morning, we set off for the Island in the Sky in the northern end of the Canyonlands National Park.  Visibility was very poor this day, with high winds and sand blowing up to obscure much of the view, but it was pretty incredible all the same.  I'll just have to make sure to bring my Jedi family back here when they arrive in 3 weeks (EXCITED!!!).

Grand View
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Green River
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Mesa Arch
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

View through Mesa Arch
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Schaffer Canyon Trail (yes, that is a road!)
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

We drove back to Salt Lake City that evening, via Highway 128, which runs along the Colorado River and is the route of both half-marathons that I've run in Utah.  It was lovely to drive up there safe in the knowledge that I wasn't about to get thrown out of a bus and made to run back to town!  

Highway 128

Highway 128

I took a sneaky day off work on Tuesday and chilled out with the folks, cooking a big ol' dinner and my roommate Linh, her fiancé Pete, and my friend Sarah came over to meet my parents and eat and drink and generally be merry.  Mam and Dad dropped me to work on Wednesday morning on their way to the airport and I'm still here, while they're off having fun in Richmond, Virginia now.  Lucky ducks.

It's been a while

I've been meaning to put up a couple of posts to update y'all on my exploits state-side. I finally decided to just get on with it, instead of procrastinating further and was horrified to realise that it's been over a month since I blogged.  Horror!

To follow up on my last post, I am growing to love my (not-so-)new MehBook. I don't think I'm going to rename it though, even if it no longer generates ambivalent feelings of 'meh!' for me.

Catching beads at a Mardi Gras parade

So, last time, I was just about to head towards New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I mean, a Fulbright Enrichment Seminar. It was a brilliant weekend - so much fun, such a great city, and a chance to reconnect with some fairly new friends and make a couple of brand new ones. On the Thursday night, there was a welcome reception with the Mayor of New Orleans. Friday morning was spent working on local community rebuilding projects - my group was assigned to City Park, where we helped re-establish nature trails through replanted growth. It seemed a bit of a shallow task, given some of the other groups were helping with actual rebuilding projects and replanting the bayous, but the whole park was decimated during Katrina and there are only 3 full-time employees to look after the 1,300 acre park. It's an amazing amenity, close to the centre of New Orleans, and has been salvaged mostly thanks to the efforts of volunteers, so worthy enough! In the afternoon, there was some seminar stuff to deal with, followed by dinner and dancing at a local hostelry. Saturday morning brought us on a tour of the Make It Right Foundation's work in the Lower Ninth Ward. This was a strange experience for me: I felt like a voyeur, traipsing around this neighbourhood. Parts of it are still flattened, and interspersed are the most amazing futuristic sustainable houses. The work that's being done is inspiring, but the scale of what's left to be done, five years post-Katrina, is heart breaking. The Foundation started up about 3 years ago and has received around $35million from private donors; they received their first federal funds eight months ago. Eight. Months. Ago. Shocking. I think the most poignant and evocative thing I saw that morning (out of a lot of disturbing and upsetting images) was the grassy corner lot, with just the remains of a concrete garden path leading to a badly damaged and weather beaten wooden door propped up by some breeze blocks. I wish I'd had my camera with me for that one.  Saturday afternoon was spent doing more seminar stuff and then, we had a police escort through New Orleans to get us to our garden party dinner at an old St Charles Avenue mansion, while we watched two parades go by outside. Mighty craic!

Photo in the mirror: Fulbrighters from around the world

Sunday was spent in the traditional pass-time of getting over my hangover, wandering around town, enjoying some more parades, trying the local hangover-cure/fast food (deep fried oyster po-boy, surprisingly undisgusting) and otherwise keeping myself entertained until it was time to head back to the airport and come back to the excitement and freezing temperatures of Salt Lake City...  Whooo-hoooo!

MehBook

My laptop died this morning and I am still in mourning. (Do you like what I did there? I do enjoy a bit of homophony of an evening!) Anyway, it's all very sad. A memorial service will be held in due course. Family flowers only. Donations to the 'Sinead still needs to eat, despite having to buy a new laptop' fund.

The 'silver lining' in this scenario is that I am now the rather bemused owner of a brand spanking new MacBook Pro, or as I'm finding so far, a MehBook. I'm sure that once I get used to its little foibles, get some software installed (that's proving to be unreasonably tricky, grrr!), figure out how to type euro-symbols and put fadas on my e, and generally get to grips with it I will become a convert to the mainstream cult of the Apple. Until then, I still say 'Meh!'

Eddie the Eagle

Picture, if you will, the pristine snowy slopes; the lone skier, gracefully swooshing down the mountain side, adroitly weaving between trees and around hillocks, sliding to a stop with finesse... And then look over at me, squealing in terror as the incline reaches a terrifyingly steep 2%; as my speed picks up and I lose control of the possessed pieces of plastic attached to my horrendously uncomfortable boots; as I launch myself into yet another snowdrift to halt my precipitous descent to the queue for the chair lift. Avert your eyes in shame as the two Australian guys try not to piss themselves laughing while they pick me up off the ground and I immediately start sliding backwards through the rope barrier and back into the line of people in control of their skis and waiting patiently for their turn.

Pretend you don't notice as I signal frantically to the chair lift operator to slow the bloody thing down so that I can get off and then end up 'skiing' to the top of the slope whilst lying on my back (I kid you not... just as well I've been doing so much yoga in the past few months that my body actually bends like that without breaking anything). Then, something like passing a car crash, watch in horror as I point those possessed slivers of waxed plastic back down towards the bottom of mountain and push off in a wobbly line, straight into another snowdrift. And repeat. Repeatedly. Until the point where one of my skis snaps off my boot - ah! the relief! - and I realise that I no longer have the physical strength remaining to hold myself steady while I snap it back on again. Screw you guys, I'm going home. On the plus side, I don't think I have laughed so much in one day as I did yesterday, even if it was pretty much all at myself. I also became fairly adept at lifting myself from prone to upright without the use of my ankles or knees, which would go a long way to explaining the pain and stiffness currently locking up everything from my ears to my lower shoulders.
So, when are we going again?

No means No

I am shocked and a little sick to my stomach at the current Republican efforts to redefine 'rape' in order to cut federal funding for reproductive health care.
Currently, federal dollars can't be used to pay for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman's life is in danger. A far-reaching anti-choice bill, introduced by Republican Chris Smith and supported by 173 members of the House, includes a provision that would narrow that use to "cases of 'forcible' rape but not statutory or coerced rape." So, it's alright as long as he used roofies, or didn't smack you around a bit first. Date rape is probably okay too, so that's all fine.
Seriously, people? How can this be okay?

Update: apparently the word 'forcible' will be dropped... apparently someone realised that rape, by definition, was non-consensual. Freaking geniuses.

Fox News in Nazi Analogy Shocker(s)

Anyone a fan of the balanced, non-partisan and fair news coverage provided by the Fox News channel? Then read no further, unless you want you illusions (delusions) shattered!

Democratic representative Steve Cohen (Tennessee) stirred up a bit of a media shit storm last month when he commented on his political opponents, saying "They say it's a government takeover of health care? A big lie. Just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie and eventually people believe it... the Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust."

John Stewart's Daily Show did a very good job of demonstrating the outrage that such a comment caused. On Fox News.
20 January
Female Anchor: He compared the GOP Health Law claims to Nazi lies.
Male Anchor: I know you're kidding.
Female Anchor: No, I'm not!

19 January
Bill O'Reilly: It is accusing the other side of being Nazis, I mean, that's pretty strong... the rhetoric is absolutely over the top.

20 January
Female Anchor: The media should be all over Steve Cohen.
Sean Hannity: If Republicans ever made such a comparison, well you know the mainstream media would be all over it.

19 January
Karl Rove: Congressman Cohen should be ashamed of himself!

At which point Jon Stewart interjects with the observation that "if that guy is telling you you should feel shame..." before pointing out that "of course, you can always count on some Democratic buzz-kill to twist things around", cue Richard Socarides ('Democratic strategist') on Fox News with anchor Megyn Kelly.

20 January
Richard: If we want to get into who's heating this and who's over-heating this, I mean, y'know, every night on the very network that we're on right now, the leading commentators on this network use this kind of language, so let's you and I get together right now and say that...
Megyn: (shocked and appalled) That's just not true, Richard!
Richard: (laughing a bit) Well, that is tr-- I mean, listen, you know, people can be the judge of it.
Megyn: (righteous indignation with perfect hair and teeth) The can! I don't know if you sit and watch our programming every night, but I watch it every day and you're wrong.

Jon Stewart steps in again to let us know that "I watch it every day too - 12 long years. I think he might be right". But just to be sure, issues a challenge to his staff to find any evidence to back this up. You can guess where this is going...

28 February 2008
Bill O'Reilly: If you look back at what happened in Germany, you cannot escape the similarities of what Hitler and his cut-throats did back then and the hate-filled blogs what they're doing now.

5 March 2010
Glenn Beck: There is this Obama supporter. He's got this book and this video out that are propaganda pieces, and I'm tellin' ya, they would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

27 September 2007
Tammy Bruce: You have a media-gestapo in media matters and then you have a political-gestapo in moveon.org.

8 December 2005
Bill O'Reilly: The far-left in this country, the zealots, I mean, these are zealots, are Nazis.

12 August 2010
Glenn Beck: America is repeating the mistakes of the Weimar Republic.

27 February 2007
Bill O'Reilly: I don't see any difference between Huffington and the Nazis.
Mary Katherine Ham: (editor of townhall.org) I still don't think she's a Nazi.
Bill O'Reilly: I didn't say she was a Nazi.
Mary Katherine Ham: (laughing) Alright.
Bill O'Reilly: I said there's no difference between what the two do.

According to Jon Stewart, it's just too easy to find people making Nazi comparisons on Fox News, so he challenges his staff to find someone making a Nazi comparison within 24-hours of Megyn Kelly saying it doesn't happen on that network. Sure enough, 3 and a half hours after her exchange with Richard Socarides...

Glenn Beck: I know the progressives are using progressive tactics. They're not using Nazi tactics. They're, they're, - the real answer is the Nazis were using early American Progressive tactics and that's not my opinion, that's historic fact.

The next challenge for the Daily Show intra-student was to find someone, who had earlier condemned it, making the same Nazi comparison as Cohen.

12 March 2007
Bill O'Reilly: The Suarez/Lewis (?) mob despises Fox News because we have their number and report on them accurately. They use the moveon website to smear this network and others with whom they disagree. These people use propaganda techniques perfected by Dr Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Information. They lie, distort, defame, all the time.

Taking it to the top, find the boss of Fox News, Roger Ailes, explicitly calling people who aren't Nazis Nazis. And along comes a copy of a print interview in 'The Daily Beast' apparently, dated 17 November (no year) where he is quoted as saying of the NPR executives that fired Ron Williams "They are Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism."

Final challenge. Megyn Kelly watches Fox News all the time and yet has not seen anyone equating political opponents to Nazis or Nazi behaviour, so find someone doing it actually on her show, with her present.

31 March 2010
Megyn Kelly: Bernie, did you watch it? What did you think?
Bernie Goldberg: (commenting on media coverage of liberal protesters) Well, true believers always make me a little nervous. I am not calling these people Nazis, I want to make that clear. But they are not behaving like Liberals. They are behaving like brown-shirted thugs.

Oh Gander! Your goose sauce is ready...
It's a lot like the pot calling the kettle 'black', or my personal favourite, the cat calling the dog 'hairy hole'.

Baby-Daddy Bombshell

Conversation overheard in the office today:

W1: I've decided that today's the day I tell Joe* that I'm going to be a mom.

[I'm thinking, 'oh, how sweet! she's going to go home to her husband, or boyfriend, but this is Utah, so probably husband, to tell him they're going to have a baby. There'll be excited hugs and it'll be wonderful... But...]

W2: Really? You haven't told him yet?
W1: Yeah, I'm just going to send him a casual little email.

[Now, this is not the direction I expected the conversation to go]

M1: I thought you weren't going to bother telling him?
W1: Weeeeeelllll, I really don't think it's any of his business. I wasn't going to tell him at all. But today, I just feel like telling him.

Now, I'm no prude, and the way other people choose to live their lives is entirely up to them, but I'm thinking "That's so not a 'casual little email', lady!", oh, and Joe, Mazel Tov!


* Name has been changed - just in case!

For Voley (again)

I saw this in today's Metro Herald from home and had to post it for you...

(Click to see a bigger version)

You'll get yours...

On Monday, I went to a lecture on the Death Penalty by a Fulbright Visiting Professor from Hong Kong. He's a philosopher (and a practicing barrister), so I was expecting a thoughtful, provocative exposition but instead, came away feeling a little disappointed that none of my pre-conceptions had been challenged and that I'd rather wasted two hours of my day what with travel time to the U. The main argument against the Death Penalty, as presented here, was that eye witness testimony is deeply problematic (unreliable and prone to distortion or untruth, whether deliberately or due to genuine error); relying on circumstantial evidence in a capital crime is on shaky moral ground; and it is better to let a criminal go free than to execute an innocent person. As I said, coming from a philosopher, this was a disappointingly simplistic argument, with little finesse.

That same evening, I went to a Sundance Film Festival screening of the documentary 'The Redemption of General Butt Naked'. If, like me, you need a quick (non-partisan, of course!) wiki-minder of who or what a General Butt Naked is, then you can find out here, and find out about the documentary here. If you can't be bothered following the links, between 1989 and 1996 Joshua Milton Blayhi, aka General Butt Naked, was a warlord in the Liberian Civil War. He raped, murdered, butchered and mutilated countless thousands of people in those seven years. He was the commander of the Butt Naked Brigade, a platoon of child soldiers who fought naked apart from the shoes on their feet, the automatic weapons in their hands and the drugs in their blood. The war ended in 2003, but in 1996 Blayhi had an epiphany, converted to Christianity, laid down his weapons, and became an evangelical preacher. The film makers followed him from 2007 to 2010, documenting his personal crusade for redemption both in Liberia and while he was living in exile in Ghana.

I was not expecting to enjoy this movie. And I didn't. Not that it was a bad documentary, you understand; just that it was pretty difficult viewing and some of it was very disturbing. But it did bring me back to the lecture earlier in the day. What if the death penalty isn't enough to give retribution for the crimes someone has committed or caused to be committed? In 2008, Blayhi was the first of the former warlords to stand and give evidence before the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Liberia, testifying that he (or those under his command) were responsible for the deaths of at least 20,000 people - men, women and children. The TRC have granted Blayhi amnesty from prosecution for war crimes. So, we're not dealing with possibly flawed or tainted eye witness accounts (of which there are many), but the admitted guilt of this man. There is no case of mistaken identity. Condemning a man for one act of 'evil' [insert your own definition here] may be morally ambiguous, but what about twenty thousand acts of 'evil'? Does one act of 'good' [let's take his conversion and quest for redemption at face value] absolve him of what he has done or caused others to do? I'm even more conflicted thinking about this now, three days later, than I was when the images of the lives he impacted were still fresh in my mind.

And then on Tuesday, this story was brought to my attention and it really tied me in a knot. The Egg, by Andy Weir. It's not long, as short stories go, so for those of you that can't be arsed clicking on links, here is the complete story:

You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.

So, Blayhi, it would seem that you, and I, will both get what's coming to us.

Difficult to reconcile

I'm having a bit of a philosophical crisis. I've been listening to someone present an argument over the past few months. Some of what he says makes sense to me; some, not so much. But this is not a big problem of itself. Today, I realised why the argument as a whole makes me uncomfortable. The fundamental basis of his argument is so deeply impoverished and flawed, that it colours the rest of it - even the bits that seem to make some sense. So where does this leave me? Not all of his message is complete horse, but how much credence can I give to it when the foundation is so shaky?