Infinite Universes

If there are infinite universes, will my consciousness go forever? At a minimum, I will live my full possible life.

If there are infinite universes, do I have infinite consciousnesses or just one consciousness with infinite aspects?

There are infinite universes and infinite consciousness within the known universe.

I hope there's a universe in which I have the power of flight. And one in which I play professional baseball.

Time and Trial

I had a class last night for which the topic was time management. All work and no play takes all the fun out of work. The pace will not relent, so I have to do the best I can to stay calm when madness spins about me.

I have a trial starting in a week. But I still don't know what I'll be arguing, because my young clients don't know what they want.

Of course they don't know. Two strangers just rolled into their house today and said: so, there's a trial coming up and if the judge finds that your parent did something wrong, you could get put in foster care. If the judge says your parent didn't do anything wrong, it goes back to the way it was before: you don't go to therapy anymore, and there's no more order of protection for your parent not to hit you.

How could we have even expected the kids to have a ready answer to that kind of question? We phrased it much less confusingly than the example above (I hope).

We'll probably have to interview the kids again before the trial, even though it's very disruptive for the family.

I honestly don't know if I could bear doing this kind of work on a daily basis. Someone needs to do it. Someone, like me, whose heart breaks for his clients, will probably be the most dedicated advocate for the kids. But someone like me, who might be haunted by his cases 24/7, is especially susceptible to burnout. I have 3 cases right now. Legal Aid children's attorneys have as many as 150 cases at a time.

A Couple Thoughts to Extend This Study Break

It's amazing how well impending finals motivate me to clean my apartment. It wasn't enough to wash the dishes or change the cat litter. No, I had to break down the cardboard, and unpack all our books from boxes, where they had been sitting since June 1st. We are moving again in six months, so it's unclear how pressing the need was to unpack those books. Oh, and I had to sort some mail. I mean, having a messy study area keeps a guy from really bearing down and focusing focusing focusing.

Fear is a powerful motivator. I have a job, and I have done well at finals for four straight semesters. Motivation thus a bit lower this time 'round.

A thought struck me the other morning: why did I stop practicing religion as soon as I decided it was fake, yet continue to consume pornography? Both require one to willingly suspend disbelief in order to create a bubble of warmth in the cold void.

Things Are Looking Up

New President. It's been a long time since I felt like our president could do some good for the nation and the world.

New Job. I will be serving a 2-year clerkship starting next year. Normally, law clerks do research and help draft judicial decisions. My job will be more focused on recommending whether the appeal should be heard at all.

New city. Moving from New York City to a smaller city. Looking forward to more time with Mrs. Beckett, more time outdoors, less time spent in traffic, lower expenses, and more snow.

Still Waiting

I have always felt there was something I would become. At some, point, I would awake into the life I was meant to live. But days and years have passed and I have not had my great awakening. I have become clearer, smarter, more focused, less self-destructive. But I am not changing the world. I still want to change the world. I still believe in the power of my insight, and my ability to help. I am a good teacher. I am a good thinker, and a good writer. I am empathic.

Within a year, I will be a lawyer. And, if nothing changes, I will be working at a law firm. Not because it is my dream, but because it is where my life is going right now. I have to be patient now. I am still in school. I am still learning. I am still building my skill as a thinker, writer, and advocate.

And I am still waiting for my life to start, even as I understand that this day, these moments are my life. They are all there is.

This time must have my care and focus. Every moment is another opportunity to awake into the life I am supposed to live because my life is the life I am supposed to live. I think this is akin to the weak anthropic principle. I have seen it rendered many ways. I attempt to render it thus: the possible conditions that can lead to the present state are necessarily unique. It's why deduction is possible. I have seen something; therefore, the universe of what could have happened is limited. Imagine, for example, that you see a wilted flower. That wilted flower can only have been produced by a limited set of occurrences, e.g., the life and death of the flower. Moreso, that flower could not be, were you not there to see it.

Just so, I now am. I could not be otherwise. My very existence removes a whole world of possibility from existence. My existence prevents my father from having been killed in Vietnam. That I never have played professional baseball prevents me from having been a professional baseball player. Thus the future affects the past as much as the past affects the future. It is a way of stating an obvious imperative that's easy to overlook.

Related: There is no meaning independent of the listener. There is no reality independent of consciousness.

Perhaps I should not be twisting astro- into metaphysics. But how else to know whether they go together?

photo: (c)2007 Derek Ramsey, grabbed from this page.

High Anxiety

Do you live your life in a state of high anxiety? Do you feel like a motor drives you from one task to the next? Do you constantly worry what others think of you? Do you have trouble relaxing? Do you feel like you're running toward a goal that keeps moving further away? DO you sleep erratically? Do you always feel like your world is about to collapse around you?

If so, you may be suffering from panic disorder, law school, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and/or manic-depression linked to the need to please others in order to maintain a sense of self worth.

Self-medication is not advised.

Today

Police Chasing a Dog or Police and Dog Chasing a Person?

So I just got out of bed to make a trip to the bathroom and to have a light snack. As I sat at the desk in front of the window in our cozy garret apartment, I noticed police lights up the street. I then noticed movement and heard some shouting. Then I saw a couple of policeman jogging up the street. In front of them appeared to be a giant dog. A huge dog. The size of a small horse. A mastiff or some such. One of the policemen had some sort of chain. Someone yelled "back it up, back it up," and behind the dog/police parade appeared one unmarked police car with a dashboard light coming up our narrow winding street in reverse. After that came at least three more police cars.

I went downstairs and outside to investigate, where my landlord and the tenants below us were assembled, gawking at the receding lights. Sadly, I was the only one to have seen the dog. Less sadly, the thought that a horse-sized dog was loose unnerved the girl who lives below us. Her boyfriend theorized that they were looking for a claw-hammer murderer/rapist. I doubt they could have had any object but the capture of a giant dog.

It is always possible that they were actually chasing some felon (perhaps a claw-hammer murderer/rapist), that the dog was a police dog, and that the cops running behind the dog were simply holding his chain. For this to be true, my estimate of the dog's size would have to have been way off. Police, so far as I know, do not employ horse-sized dogs. It's possible I erred, though, given that I watched the action take place on a dimly lit street maybe thirty feet away.

Nevertheless, I lean toward it having been police chasing a dog. They were running down the middle of the street. Why would a fugitive or a dog chasing a fugitive do that? Anyone who's seen Cops knows that fugitives go for backyards. They want to hide. Also, I never saw a person running in front of the dog; just a dog trotting (seemingly nonchalantly) in front of the cops. Finally, I was immediately struck by the size of the thing. For a moment I really did wonder whether it was a horse.

Regardless, it was more than I bargained for when I got up to piss and eat some crackers.

Welfare

Dear Conservatives,
If you support the bailout of failed financial firms, stop your sniveling about assistance to the indigent.

Dear Libs,
If you support welfare programs, please spare the world your outrage that the feds would bail out financial firms.

Dear Everyone,
I am aware that corporate and personal welfare are two different things. But both are premised on the idea that our government should protect us economically, even when we are partly to blame. The differences lie mainly in how "us" is defined. Unfortunately, the indigent do not have the same voice or power as corporate America. Example: Bankruptcy. Tough on consumers; cushy for corporations.

Also, Dunkin Donuts on Lefferts Blvd. in Kew Gardens has consistently tasty coffee. Much better than at the Metropolitan Ave. Kew Gardens location, at which it is consistently burnt.

Win for Life

I've seen a lot of a certain lottery commercial recently. A balding guy grins maniacally while talking the viewers through his shit-eating-grin-inducing life. He's won Win For Life, so he gets a million dollars a year for life. Thus, he shows us how he rows a treadmill (next to his accountant) and drinks wheatgrass (next to his personal trainer). He is doing these healthy things, he explains, in order to live as long as possible, so as to keep the money pouring in for as long as possible.

For a while, I didn't pay much attention to this commercial. But it annoyed me a bit more than other commercials. Tonight I realized why I find the commercial so unnerving. The lottery-winning man is grimacing because his life is gruesome. He is attempting to smile, (because the the thought of money still excites him), despite the harrowing prospect of year upon year of life bent on nothing but its own extension.

His family would keep him alive at all costs, unless those costs got too close to one million a year.