Lost and Found - That First Cup of Coffee

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So I got up three times this morning, meaning I went to bed three times as well.  It was a typical sleep with my brain running wild when it was supposed to be resting.  That is a curse I face which I suspect ties in to the Salem Witch Trial curse already inflicted on my ancestors.

Let me explain.  Tests indicate my brain never goes to sleep like it should every night when it is supposed to go into a REM (Rapid Eye Movement) state and recharge your batteries.  Somehow it tricks my body into a REM state and then the wily brain is off to Alice's Wonderland where nothing is as it seems.

So while you might spend the midnight hours safely asleep and restoring your body and mind, my mind is off in the Land of Oz, Wonderland, Camelot, or where ever my fantasy wants to go.  Now who would want to miss a chance like that?

As for the Salem Witch curse, if you check the real records of what transpired in the Salem Witch Trials back in 1692 you will find many, far too many, references to my paternal ancestors.

For a time they were suspected of providing a sanctuary for the witches and wizards from the Puritans and several times they came close to getting caught.  But it was other family members, part of the Church hierarchy, who falsely testified, were part of the trial or part of the clergy condemning the witches.

Thus the sins of the father, mother or whoever most certainly can result in a powerful spell being cast against the accusers, and all future generations of that family, like me, for something that happened 320 years ago.

At least I used it as an excuse for failing to do something, like homework when in school or chores at home.  You need some bizarre family stories to make for a decent genealogy and to be able to mesmerize the kids with your spell.

Now back to getting up.  Here is my routine.  Pour a cold cup of yesterday's coffee.  Check my face in the mirror to make certain some alien walk in did not take place overnight.  Grab the remote control and sample the various cable news shows listening until I'm certain they are still in a mindless babble mode.

Then I ask my brain what I did last night and wait for the download.  My next physical activity, (until this point I only walked down from the bedroom to the kitchen, poured the coffee, and staggered to the front room to remote cruise the cable), is my daily radiation fix.

This is my second concession to modern technology having already subjected myself to the television radiation.  So I wander to the pc and check my emails, the comments and stats on my newspaper, and confirm that I again failed to win the lottery so my routine will continue ad infinitum.

Then I think, I write, I fantasize just so I can check my options, and finally eat lunch.  From that point on all measure of predictability, planning, foresight or productivity can and most likely will be thrown to the winds.

When we were kids my kid brother, one year younger, would get bored and come find me to conjure up our next adventure, we called them "capers"  Finding something to do was never a problem for my mind.  It did not matter if I was alone, with my brother or in group, an endless series of "what to do" possibilities were always waiting on the tip of my tongue.

I think that is missing from a lot of kids in today's world.  The desire for adventure, a thirst for knowledge, a hunger for understanding and a motivation to learn what you don't know and experience what you've never seen.  We should all help them.

Right now kids are trapped into delegating all their knowledge, wisdom, time, maturity and truth to the viral world of the Internet.  Talk about peer pressure.  If you don't have the latest I Phone, I Pad, Smart Phone and Apps then forget it, you are ostracized from society.

Add to that the parental pressure to keep up with technology, network with all those kids in case any of them might be kids of rich people who can help you some day, to finally to compete and do all those other things parents seem obsessed to do with computers.

So the phone can replace your teachers and social media replaces society, it has now become viral.  With the Internet you never need to personally know your best friends.  In fact, with the Internet, you can create any kind of persona for yourself you want, thus insuring you can never interact with people lest you expose who you really are.

Losers can have friends.  The lonely can find lovers.  The dumb can act smart.  And we can all live happily ever after as long as we never expose the person behind the facade.

The Internet has ruptured the fabric of family and societal structure leaving real people dependent on a machine for communication, companionship, knowledge, entertainment and all the creativity in your life.

On a national level we need to Take Back America and on a personal level we need to Take Back Our Kids from the precipice of self-destruction which comes when the mind becomes a useless thing and only follows instructions from the God in the Cloud of Cyber Space.

Save a kid.  Unplug him or her.  Teach them the real life meaning of knowledge, wisdom, caring and love.  Teach them their responsibility to be creative, sing, dance and be happy.  In the process we just might remember our long lost responsibilities as well.

Teach them to think, to be sociable, to be articulate and to be humble and all those other things our technology has not quite mastered yet.  Video games should be an occasional diversion, not a constant obsession.  Life is more than being bombarded with the latest videos, movies and music that somebody else decided you need.

I mean we can still do things for ourselves, can't we?

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