Cartographic Explorations of a life.

To follow the map that has led me to this current time and place in life, it is essential to consider some of the foundations that were set to fortify a mindset.

Let us begin by noting I was imprinted by religion during my formative years. Forever indoctrinated into a hierarchy that suggests sanctioned sacrifice and penance offers a means of repentence and the remission of sin, including removing guilt and fear and restoring a right relationship with the divine. Weekly tithes allowed the purchase of a family pew. The young were encouraged to become part of the ceremony, serve at the altar, join the choir then go out into the congregation and sing so others would sing. Those days of blind faith disappeared by around age seven, when school began.

Baby boomer children were educated en masse. Many Catholic families had large broods. I believe my teachers, bless them, did their best with classes of 35 and more. Children were often feral, left to learn for themselves about the universe, survival and death. In some ways, a child is like a deer, who if they manage to survive attacks, resume feeding and socializing, accepting threat is part of life. The drama of adrenaline surges are part of the post traumatic stress that arrives later in life. Children who were slower to adapt or less capable of keeping up with the masses were called retarded and put in opportunity classes.

As a child I was observant, learning how to decipher the codes of the map when presented in the light of an immigrant family, or the generic school community. Life was full of skill testing questions. On IQ tests administered around age nine, I remember determining the Fibonaaci sequence, (without knowing what it is called). The sequence describes exponential growth that occurs in nature. 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5, 5+3=8 etc. I was not blind to the mathematical ambiguity that is often used to seduce the masses.

Mathematics and statistics are not always intuitive. Some people try to do 120% and think that if they get 40% wrong, they have accomplished 80%. Skill testing questions need to follow the order of operations and the answer is 72%. Doing 100% and getting 20% wrong is 80%. To go between 70% and 80%, the differences seem exponential but to explain the math is tedious. The question is if an 8% difference is really worth the higher effort.

As a person willing to extend myself to do the best possible, within a time frame, I tend to be an over thinkier, and perhaps an over achiever. This phrase is often said with disdain, contempt or pity by those who do not know what is involved in learning by making mistakes. I believe I am a good teacher because I have made many of the possible mistakes.

I ask questions about everything. For example, in economic strategies , "Is it better to have more customers at lower prices or fewer at high prices? How do you fairly establish prices/ wages/ insurance claims.( Obviously, writing for Vocal makes me thankful I pursued my day job for financial security). How is it that smart, rich people can afford to hire people so they can pay less to governments? "

Somewhere between the age 12-18 I realized that is there much to learn.I discovered the power of hormones. I chose to study 'hard science' to give me confidence in what I calculated was the way to change the world. I really thought that there were answers to everything. I had trained in Judo and was prepared to work with the strength of the opponent. My understanding of the world was influenced by Kahlil Gibran, Lewis Carol, Neville Shute, Edgar Allen Poe and popular music that pitted hope against bleak despair.

I did not like history and noted "Lest we forget is a familiar phrase that warned mankind needs to remember what freedom inspired many to go to their death in wars. I still question, "Why does history repeat itself. Do people not have a memory? Can they not read? Do the victors really write history? "

In my late teens to mid 20's, the nature of my focus changed. I was fascinated by reincarnation and could not understand how given what is known about genetic predispositions, reincarnation had not been redefined. I enjoyed science, learning about chemistry and animal behaviour and behaviour modification.

I recall my arrogance as a 20 year old. After researching the known available literature in the university libraries, I thought that I knew everything about the certain topics of study I had pursued.

Around age 25, I learned about human demographic shifts and changing population structures, and environmental stresses. I remember thinking someone smarter than me would solve the problems. This was during the time of the advent of computers. I wondered how long it would take to become integrated into a network.

Around my 30's I started wondering about aliens. I had learned that life is literally made from stardust and this was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. The strange behaviour of Comet 31/Atlas recently, peaked the curiousity of many who considered it held alien beings. We are already invaded by aliens. The bacteria found in the mitochondria, that links our gut to our brain and controls us holds a separate genome than the rest of a body and is highly conserved, and passed on through the maternal line

I began asking, " Do humans really only use 10% of their brain? What are the ways to tap into greater sensory abilities? "

During my 30's - 50's, survival involved raising kids and finding ways to be balanced in the world that suddenly became more complicated. I recognized individuals choose their own personal experiment with life, thinking they know what is best. Best is relative.

Relativity makes a case for learning to forgive, parents for their shortcomings, siblings for doing what they feel was right but offensive, friends with whom attachments dwindle as mutual interests drift apart, and oneself and the ignorance that seems to grow with time.

As I am entering the later years, I realize I am a cartographer, drawing a map based on the exploration of a path that is often less traveled. Data accumulated during my life supports that some humans possess information from the senses that is often refused. Questions, which I did not know I had, are often answered in a dream.

I wonder what signals guide humanity through seasonally affected disorders and social dysfunctions. I question how our world will survive solar flares and environmental tempests that can eliminate wireless communication. I am boggled by religious and economic differences that promote wars to establish dominance or servant/master societies.

I reject false humility. I see what is, more than what I want to see. I love how a baby can recognize the delight of being looked at with love, and reacts to clenched jaws with lips tightly curled in a snarl, nostrils flaring, face flushing, and non responsiveness.

I still find merit in the spiritual aspects of religion, with incantations that control breath and alter physiology and help put an individual in 'right relation' with more than the self.

The map that I am following respects that hardships and the dark aspects of life do teach lessons, albeit painful ones, about truth, that is elusive, but needed to survive. I see how little is known about so much, and being true to oneself helps my steer along the narrow dangerous passages. I still make many of my experimental choices based on science, but more and more, I find my way along this uncharted map to a treasure. I realize the following the map depends on love, which even as an underfined ideal, remains my choice of an ever-fixed mark.