@garystager and @teachakidd often side-off on Twitter to discuss education among a range of compelling exchanges. They exist for thousands like me as participants in the bustling edu-district of the metaverse.

I find their exchanges often lead me to get of the horse I am currently on, like welcome storm chasing off humidity. They make me rethink – along with hundreds of other people I notice in the metaverse.

There is a real danger that people with incredible ‘real world’ power stay on their high-horse, or worse swing a rapier sword at those with alternative new ideas.  It makes it really hard for other to engage with them.

In the days of passive consumption, CD-Roms, ICT and office automation – it was easy to command from the horse, or to spot the leaders (they had the horses). Now if you want to lead – you’d better be prepared to walk – in the metaverse and that will lead you to new people, ideas and experiences – in both virtual and real space that even a few years ago was un-imaginable.

“She peeled her clothes off.”

It brings a particular image to mind. Clothing that clings to the flesh like a remora, parting with a soft, sucking sigh. The almost audible visual of wet cloth pulled from flesh. A bandage pulled from a wound. The moisture implied. The humanity imagined.

There’s no peeling when you undress alone. Just a husking.

The bra parts the breasts like a broken shell, the sweat-stiffened jeans (sloughed off) lie rigid on the floor. Everything is part and parcel. Removed from the body, but never a part of it. Yet with each itemized deduction, the heart of it–the kernel of soft, ripe flesh–comes clearer. No residue. Just the unpolished truth of thighs and hips and shoulders.

The meat.
The seed.
The vessel.

A friend recently sent me an e-mail and closed with the words, “I’m your huckleberry.” And I knew that I had here someone who speaks my language. Which is awesome.

Two of my Long Term Relationships were with women who had studied Russian language — one of whom I met because we were both in a Russian lit class together, the other of whom started studying Russian because I studied it (how cool is that?) — which gave us a common, secret language.

Oh sure, Russian is not a “secret” language, per se… except, how many people do you know who speak Russian? We could exchange quick questions or comments without anyone else (for the most part) being able to decipher exactly what was going on. Very handy at get-togethers or negotiations or the like. (Remember the movie Die Hard? “Schieß auf das fenster!” And yes, I studied German, too, so it was cool for me to intercept that little message before it was explained in English. It felt like I was an “insider.”) It wasn’t something we did often, really. In fact, it was rather rare. But it was there. It was a large piece of land in our common ground.

Penny does not speak Russian. For a while, I thought it was a shame that we didn’t share that kind of secret language that I’ve shared with past paramours… but it has since occurred to me that we do share a secret language. It’s the language that comes from similar cultural references — being the same age, growing up in the same part of the country, going to the same university, participating in the same extra-curriculars, and other common experiences.  It’s knowing what “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” means.

All lasting relationships must, by nature, be built upon some common ground. But the best of them, it seems to me, share a secret language. Stephen King explores this idea somewhat in his novel, Lisey’s Story. It’s the little phrases that contain a thousand words-worth of meaning. The little gestures that may have no significance to anyone else, but touch the heart of your beloved.

My aforementioned Long Term Relationship with Natalie began to fall apart when certain subjects became verboten. What good is sharing a secret language when you’ve agreed not to speak? Fellow blogger Jolene talks about how her husband neglected to share with her his own secret language… effectively keeping it a secret from her, instead of with her.

And part of the writing on the wall with my soon-to-be-Ex-wife came in the form of her deciding not to continue building our common, secret language. By deciding not to go to movies with me, or go to concerts, or read the same books, or continue building any new common experiences beyond the mundane. Languages are constantly refreshed, or they become irrelevant and whither. So, too, relationships.

I’ve begun connecting with new friends as a result of this blog, and I find it interesting that many of these new connections are born of sharing a language beyond the mundane. Be it the “nerdspeak” I share with a few of you, or the movie/literary references with another, or the parlance of writingdom or kickboxing or parenthood or academia with still others… and the common, secret language of profound heartbreak (and determination!) with most.

I look forward, in future romantic relationships, to allowing a new secret language to grow. Maybe it will include dance, or rock climbing, or photography, or travel. A new way of kissing, or new way to say, “Yes!” Maybe we’ll learn sign language even as we learn to read each others mood.

When I realized that I was giving up on my relationship with Penny, I thought of it in these terms: I can no longer try to hold up both ends of the conversation. It’s a metaphor, but it works. Relationships — romantic or otherwise — are a conversation. But as my conversation with Penny is playing itself out… there are still new conversations to enjoy.

Here’s to new conversations, with new friends and lovers, in languages that haven’t even been invented yet….

• It took a handshake between Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the UK and US, and Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon to settle a seating spat at the Munich Security Conference. Depending on who you are, this may or may not be a big deal. Here’s the video:

• King Abdullah is popular in Egypt and Jordan. Yipee! Woohoo! The King is also very popular here. What I really hope for is that he would take advantage of this popularity to push for more radical reform in Saudi Arabia. People say he has to be cautious, but I disagree. If you are this popular then you can certainly afford to make some bold moves.
• Two TwitterCamps in Jeddah and Khobar today. Twitter users in the country are invited to discuss Twitter services, features, tips and tricks, as well as twitter clients.

The last commercial I’ll post, since most of you will watch these elsewhere. This was the first ad (chronologically speaking) to make me sense that the copywriters had stepped up their game to match the Super Bowl hype.

Maybe it was me, but overall the quality of the ads this year seemed disappointing. Many of the storylines didn’t pay off in the climax — some missing a punch line, while others simply fizzled out (like the Simpsons).

But hey, what’s up with all the slapping going on? Is there a new cultural rage I missed out on?

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Flat out clever… and funny.

Brett Favre has a second career waiting for him… should he never retire.

It was by far my favorite ad during the Super Bowl this year. As it turns out (and it figures) Google has been running it for quite awhile on YouTube.

But I certainly hadn’t seen it before. To show you what a sap I am, I utterly adored it. Telling a story through a series of Google queries seemed not only heartfelt and witty in comparison to all the lame beer commercials and jock humor, but also the most thematically spot on: search after all is what Google is about.

Houses made out of Bud Lite, coffins filled with Doritos? I didn’t just dislike those — I hated them. Ick.

Here is the Google ad, in case you missed it. Enjoy!

• We have no movie theaters, but that won’t stop young Saudis from making movies. BBC has a short reportage about these young men. I have met most of these guys who appear in this reportage, and got a chance to watch some of their work. They are talented, creative, and determined. Too bad that our government refuses to acknowledge their talent.

• And speaking of Saudi talents, here’s that latest single from ReD CoasT, a band from Jeddah:

• Surprise! Surprise! BAE Systems will plead guilty to offenses of false accounting to settle bribery allegations made over al-Yamamah arms deals. BAE will pay $400m but only in the US, and not in the UK where the SFO dropped their investigation into al-Yamamah due to a request by former prime minister Tony Blair.

Today’s letter of the day is “D” for disillusionment — for at the heart of the matter, I believe Timon from Athens to be a battered and heartbroken soul.

In asking myself about what I think is the story center, I keep returning to misanthropy and its principle causes. Do we just get jaded at some point and never recover our innocence? What is the nature of humankind? Do we presume Original Sin? Or subscribe to Rousseau’s noble savage? Is man born good and corrupted by society — or does society redeem man from his evolutionary heritage red in tooth and claw?

My base setting happens to be spiritual, hopeful and idealistic to a fault. Despite what I read and hear and see and experience about the world and its limitations, inequalities, sorrows and injustices, I have a fundamental, underlying sense that there is an order pervading it all, a purpose transcending reason and bridging the gap between our literal existence and a meaning we can’t quite put our finger on. I’m a believer.

But at the same time, I recognize agnosticism and atheism as all-too-viable options, especially in response to the daily input we receive from our surrounding environment: the earthquake in Haiti, children dying of malnutrition and AIDS. Perpetual vice, corruption, ignorance, poverty. The cycles of death, disease and decadence that led Buddha to his epiphany about desire at the root of human unhappiness. (It’s not for no reason that D champions the day.) Time passes, yet nothing changes.

What could God be waiting for before pulling the plug on this sea-monkey experiment? Have we improved by one jot?

I feel for Timon and the error in his base assumption: if I do good out of kindness, then life will provide for me. I needn’t concern myself with self-protection and the niggling financial details. Beneficence leads to bounty. Even if I’m not Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. The internal mechanism is just. I have been given much so that I, in turn, may give it all away.

It’s hard not to read the opening act of Timon and think, what a dupe. He’s either guileless or boneheaded or a fraud himself — doesn’t he see that these people are users? Can’t he distinguish between the good and the preening posers pretending to be so? (So, okay, and the letter “P.”)

Neither interpretation skirts the hard truth that the people surrounding Timon are vultures. Shakespeare makes this abundantly clear, both in the before and after images of the Poet and Painter and the Senators who say what they need to in order to get what they want. They are all whores in one way or another.

Timon’s gripe, however, extends outward to all of us. The nature of experience itself is nasty, brutish and short, to borrow words from Hobbes. The moon uses the sun. Eat or be eaten. You can’t escape the primitive war for survival; you can only be ignorant of it or try and close your eyes to it. But all our institutions are illusions, adult games of make believe to convince us we’re something we’re not.

I’m currently reading Ghost Rider by Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist for Rush (among his many notable accomplishments). I was particularly drawn to it because of the context in which he wrote it: having lost his daughter Selena to a car accident and his wife Jackie from the devastating heartbreak of the loss — and all within a year’s time — he set off on a journey by motorcycle with no stated direction or purpose other than to keep his “baby soul” alive.

He’s been one of my heroes since high school, the older brother I never had. Though our principle orientations toward the world differ radically, his rational-scientific-skepticism has served as thorny counterpoint (occasionally in 6/8 time) to my tiggerish optimism and belief. No matter how much I might oppose his conclusions, I never fail to gain lots from the Hegelian dialectic, wrestling out on the lawn in the metaphorical backyard. At the end of the day, he is living a life I deeply admire: one of awareness and accountability, of adventure and constant appreciation for the briefness of our flourishing in this time and space (as the As drop by for their say).

The travelogue by motorcycle has been a nice bonus. But the core question at the heart of the heart of the matter has been nagging me, the one that caused me to start reading in the first place: would he find Spirit at some point in the journey? Would the Sophoclean blow delivered like a Greek tragedy finally bring hm to his knees? Would he, like Aquinas, experience a profound religious epiphany in the cathedral that caused him to disavow his previous writings “as straw?”

Reading along, I was struck by this quote:

Everything I ever believed has been blown out of the water, even my simple karmic morality of “you do good and you get good.” Sadly (very sadly) ‘taint so.

But I was equally struck by another, prior quote:

You know, I used to think that, “Life is great but people suck,” but now I’ve had to learn the opposite, “Life sucks, but people are great.”

How to process this in terms of Timon?

One of the major lessons in cognitive therapy is that the map is not the territory. What we think we know about life does not necessarily correspond with how life actually is.  Parents imbue us with a sense of the accepted boundaries, the geography, topography and horizons of our youth that they envision will stead us for the course.  But e’re long on our outward journeys, we discover we’re not in Kansas anymore.

It normally entails neither a radical course correction nor a complete makeover; we’re driving a car and  counter steering as we go along, constantly fine-tuning our belief systems to stay medium on the road, updating and integrating our lived experience into our philosophical works-in-progress (plus or minus the mediated events that wreak havoc on our outlooks.  God forbid we should have to live through the devastation of a Haiti or a New Orleans or a 9/11. But people do. And without necessarily abandoning their faith in an order and meaning to the universe.)

Maybe the take-home from Timon is that he could not ultimately distinguish between the map and the territory. When he lost one, he lost both. Unable to refashion the old pattern from the shards of shattered meaning, he failed as well to create a new, functional worldview. For him, it was either all or nothing at all.

I admire Neil Peart greatly for not compromising his values, for absorbing and integrating the bodyblows of lived experienced and travelin’ on. Not only surviving, but thriving, rising like the Phoenix to bring a new dream into existence.

Life goes on, and we all do the best we can. Hopefully, in the midst of it, we continue to gather in warm, well-lighted places to share and reflect from our individual experiences, to collectively gain from our localized views as dots on a spherical map.

Perhaps, one day, Google Earth will become our GPS of choice, a technological interface for digital men and women, yet one step closer to the heart.

[Greetings from Portland, OR, where it also never rains. I am here with Penny and all three children in order to attend the oldest child's gymnastics meet later today. I didn't expect to have time to get online, but thanks to my friends having wifi and one of my children wetting the bed about an hour ago, I'm not going back to sleep. So here I am. While I'm not looking forward to telling our hosts about the bedwetting, and definitely not looking forward to the long drive home tonight, I am looking forward to a pleasant day of visiting with friends, cheering on my son, and otherwise taking time away from our daily grind.]

Saw this line on a fellow blogger’s blog (Suzanne, who is, as far as I know, happily married):

“I was never into weddings.  I can honestly say that I felt funerals were easier because they were done in a couple of hours and you didn’t have to take sides when they were over.”

She talked about the phenomenonandonandon about how many women seem to obsess over weddings as opposed to their marriage, to which I commented:

“…In our own case, I don’t think my soon-to-be-ex-wife idealized the ceremony or the reception so much, but I do believe that she had getting married as the brass ring to grab for, as opposed to being married.

“I don’t know for sure (I could ask, but she’s asleep right now), but I believe she had a hope chest while growing up. Is there anything more vile than a ‘hope chest’, that places all this emphasis upon marriage as a be-all, end-all?”

Of course, I’m not looking forward to getting divorced, but I am definitely ready to be divorced. Well, maybe it’s not so much that I want to be divorced, as I want to be out of this marriage.

But what is the divorce analog to a “hope chest” for marriage? A “hopeless chest?” A “bummer chest?”

As you can see if you start reading this blog from the beginning – which was just a few months ago! — I had long dreaded, dreaded, dreaded the notion of divorce. And now… while I’m concerned about the details (most common comment on this blog so far: “It’s too early for you to worry about [topic]….”), I now embrace divorce as an opportunity to get out of a bad situation and start creating a better life.

So for me, the “hope chest” for my divorce would have to have a happier name. How about… the “restart chest?” The “new beginnings chest?”

What do girls and young women put into their hope chests? What should I put in my “new life chest?”

I’m definitely going to need a new toaster….

Interesting article over at the New Scientist about a new theory which could mean that our world might be a giant hologram. Holographic space-time? How utterly fascinating! My socks are still on my feet, but it’s quite surprising. Then, cosmology is quite abstract.  {via kottke}

“It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan.

“If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”

When the black hole has gone, all the information about the star that collapsed to form the black hole has vanished, which contradicts the widely affirmed principle that information cannot be destroyed. This is known as the black hole information paradox.

No one – including Hogan – is yet claiming that GEO600 has found evidence that we live in a holographic universe. It is far too soon to say. “There could still be a mundane source of the noise,” Hogan admits.