Almost done with gradschool.

Almost.

I wish my life hadn't exploded right before my final semester, but as it was, it did. Now, I'll be done with classes in two weeks, probably done with 'homework' in a month and a half, and walking in December.

I'm dealing with being nuts relatively well at the moment, though, all things considered. The secret seems to be staying busy. Being busy isolates me, however.

I remember reading a story in one of those psychology texts about a man who was "schizophrenic." The patient claimed that he was continuously being followed by three, invisible green martians. The Doctor examined him, and determined that, other than the martians, the individual was in reasonably good mental health, and was certainly stable in his condition. The course of treatment was simply for the man to stop talking about the martians.

I wonder if that man felt alone, having this experience that he couldn't share with his wife and children. I know that not being able to talk about my feelings, ideas, or experiences is certainly what is sinking my marriage.

I'm intelligent, and after a fashion, competent. I'm extremely creative and have good ideas. My social cognition is otherwise very good.

There must be a way to find balance.

Lady, I come that I may behold Thee, I come that I may do Thee honor, for I have heard Thy beauty extolled from heights and depths, and greatly do I yearn for Thee.

Beautiful are thy feet in sandals; thou art trim-ankled and lovely

Thy knees are firm, Thy stature grand; Thou standest tall like the palm tree

Full of splendor are thy thighs; their roundings are like jewels upon ornaments, inspiring men to virtue

Slender art thou of waist and beautifully girdled; thou art clothed in brilliance, inspiring nations to greatness.

Thy breasts are round like apples, ample like two clusters of grapes upon the vine, within Thy chest beats a heart which knows righteousness. Upon Thy bossom rests the garland of the night's sky, Thy voice resounds with love and justice.

Thine ears are perfect, discerning truth and falsehood, deaf to deceptiveness and idle talk.

Thy lips are full and desirable, speaking only wisdom, eager to give pardon to the innocent and the repentant. Upon Thy right hand Thou wearest Truth as the gem of Thy signet ring, resplendent with the colors of the Heavens.

Thine eyes are black like the night, their lashes like the wings of the raven

The light of Thine eyes burns brightly conveying even what Thou sayest not. They look upon Thee, and obey Thee.

Greatly art thou beloved among men, Greatly art thou revered among women; thy hair is hidden from them beneath a diadem of glory.

O Bright, O Luminous and Unattainable,
O Shimmering specter of true love and unknowable radiance and splendor,
To the ends of the World have we, Your servants traveled, through deserts, through swamps and forests primeval; through travails unnumbered and untold we have fought, facing countless hardships, battling beast, demon and cur to defend Thy Kingdom.

We have slain the black dragon
We have wrestled Lion and Serpent
We have rode astride the back of the Behemoth
We have caged the Ziz and toed the Leviathan to shore
We have sought unto the ends of Creation for treasures and raiments suitable to Thy perfect form.

Do not, therefore, turn Thy lovely visage away from me, bloodied and filthy with the dust of the Earth though I am, for I have shed bitter tears and blood for Thee, made sacrifice of myself for Thee, and ask in return only a glimpse of Thy countenance, hoping to see there a reflection of Thy pleasure, and to know that we have found favor with Thee.

O Sea, O Moon, O Resplendent Valley wreathed with Lilly and with Lotus, O Glittering Diadem of the seven continents, we adore Thee, and strive for Thee. Bless us with the Light of Thine eyes, and grant that we may someday be worthy, that in death, we may lay our head upon Thee, and rest in Thee forever.

Hermes: "You what is annoying? People who think I am happy all the time. All.. 'spectin' me to be all love and giggles when I show up."

Me: "You're very good at giving that impression."

Hermes: "Am I?"

Me: "Yeah. And then no one sees your vengeance coming. They are just standing around, and all of a sudden -BAM!- kick in the ass from the world's swiftest boot."

I think the best way to look at this question is as a probability problem. Current mathamatical models suggest that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance that any given planet could support life, with a 10% decrease in probability for each evolutionary step achieved, so 1 in 100,000 for cell with a nucleus, 1 in 1,000,000 for the ability to form multi-cellular organisms, 1 in 10,000,000 for mobility, 1 in 100,000,000 for eye-spots, and so on.

To put these numbers in perspective, your chances of winning mega-millions are about 1 in 135,145,920 (slightly worse than the chances of finding a planet with eye-spotted organisms). And it's a similar sort of problem. You have 6 balls each with the ability to produce a random digit between 1 and 9, and a card, where you have a desired outcome. Consider the "desired outcome" is life, and each of the six desired digits is a particular variable needed for life.

Before we go any further, you have to understand the process by which planets are formed. Generally, when a star is being formed, a large amount of particles gather in one area. There is a sun, and a sort of "disk" around the proto-star, which later will coalesce into planets, moons, etc, over time, as gravity draws these particles together. So, a star the same size as our sun has a wad of planetary mass about equal in size to all of our planets, as a collected wad. We have nine planets. Some are too far away to bear life, others are too close, but these are accounted for in our variables. We can be modest, and say that 5-7 is probably about average. So than means a medium sized star has about 5-7 lottery tickets in the game. Smaller stars will have fewer. Larger stars will have more.

Now, let us consider how many stars there are: a fucking uncountable number. Many, many millions more than the 70 sextillion originally viewable by the strongest telescope from Earth.

Do you ever know how big a sextillion is? No. You don't.

With ever increasing numbers, the highly improbable becomes the inevitable. There is *inevitably* life somewhere other than on Earth. The chances of winning mega-millions is certainly low, but as we know from our meager terrestrial experience, it does happen.

Now, of course, this is assuming no intelligence guiding the workings of the universe. Human-centric thinkers will certainly argue that God created the entire vast, infinite universe just for us. Personally, I'd think the creator would have been working with a smaller budget if She just had us in mind. We can't even see half of the incredible wonders and the beauty that exist in the far reaches of space.

If we consider our evolution as a species: we started as tribes. We thought our tribe was better than the other tribe. Then we got together and decided we weren't so different. Tribes joined tribes to make cities, and then countries. Then, the Empire.

At that time, we thought the sea went on forever. We threw our trash there because we didn't know any better. When we came to the Americas, we weren't entirely convinced that they'd have people on them. When we found people, we treated them like animals. Then we started to realize that all kinds of people are basically the same, on a fundamental level, and we all should have basically equal rights. Humanity is just *now* at the point that we can see ourselves as a species, rather than a person, a family, a tribe, a country, or even an empire.

Humanity is just now sending out its little dingy boats into orbit around our tiny planet, looking out into the vast sea of space, wondering if there are people out there, too, or if space is a good place to throw our trash. When, not if, we run into intelligent life out there, how we treat them will be a defining moment for us.

Prediction: We will have philosophical arguments about whether the blue creature with three eyes really has "human-like" intelligence, or whether it is just a dumb animal, because it communicates through pheremones, rather than in words. We will mince words about whether their feelings are actually feelings, and if they really have souls like we do. We will use them, if we can. We will war with them, if we can't. Because that is Who We Are, and it is what we do.

In my opinion: we are not prepared.

Harmonia and Astraea

I already read the theoi.com and wikipedia articles. Can anyone recommend primary sources?

How The Blessed Gods met the Not-So-Blessed Gods

( Why Dionysos wasn't in the Illiad, How the Gods reunited after the war, Why Hermes doesn't drink anymore, and other questions answered, roughly in the style of Hesiod, with anachronism thrown in for good measureCollapse )