| As a Carbon-Based Crystalline Fractal Possibility Wave Resonator, it is my duty to BE.
If you need labels for me, here are a few that
might apply: Vietnam Vet (1),
Hippie (2), Mystic (3),
Computer Jock (4), Gamer
(5), Lover (6),
Son (7), Father (8),
Friend (9).
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Labels are useless
except as a starting point that leads to everything else. My participation
in the Awakening Tribe is yet another extension of these interests that
I have expressed here.
Human Relationships and Technology
There is a balance necessary here, but I feel that
technology facilitates Human interaction quite well. I have learned and
continue to learn from experience in both of these areas. Each one of us
is a book. Each life is a story, a saga unique to each individual, that
when shared is a valuable asset to us all as a culture and civilization.
My work as a computer training consultant and network administrator reflects
this. One of my goals is to relate to people to help them relate to their
computers as tools which ultimately helps them more effectively relate
with other people. It's my desire to do this gently; with empathy and understanding
and without causing those that I attempt to help to feel stupid or ignorant.
Patience is the key.
Information and Communication
My life lessons uniformly seem to have some focus
on these subjects. The number of different modes in which these two things
operate amazes me. Look at how they relate. Communication, by definition,
doesn't exist unless information is being conveyed. Information could supposedly
stand on it's own. But of what use is it, unless it's communicated? One
might say it could be held and merely acted upon. Yet, isn't acting upon
information a form of communicating it? If information is neither acted
upon nor communicated, it's the same as if it never existed. Both information
and communication are essential to Human interaction. Both are essential
to technology. I find many forms of non-conventional information and means
of communication to be of particular interest, importance and value. This
is one of the reasons that I'm a Jane Roberts reader and volunteer my services
to Seth Network International in maintaining their web site. It's also
one of the reasons that I volunteer my services to the Awakening Tribe
as Pastor.
Consciousness and Existence
These are the fundamental interests that form the
basis for all my other interests. My beliefs are that everything, living
or not, physical or non-physical possesses some form of self-awareness.
Consciousness naturally seeks to fulfill it's own inherent value. Even
all information is conscious; and in the course of it's own value fulfillment
seeks to be communicated, or to be acted upon, or both. This sort of value
fulfillment is the fundamental nature inherent in all of existence.
An aspect of normal Human existence is time. It is
my belief that this apparent sequencing of events is an illusion that we
create for ourselves in order to avoid flooding ourselves with too much
information. All events occur simultaneously. But in our presently limited
consciousness we are frequently unable to "digest" information coming from
all directions all at once. To take care of that, a lot of us individually
and together create time so we can manage things in bite-sized chunks.
The concept of reincarnation is bound up with notions
of time as a stream of sequential events linked together with cause and
effect. However, I believe that instead our many lives are simultaneously
experienced. With role-play games one might have several characters, but
only play them one at a time in a causal framework. Yet existence is more
like being able to play all the characters at once. What would appear to
be "karma" between "reincarnations" is actually a sort of "bleed through"
of information between lives in simultaneous time.
Footnotes:
(1) "Vietnam Vet" -
I am Ex-Navy with 17 years of enlisted service spanning the late 1960s
through the 1970s and ending in the early 1980s. It was at that point in
my life that I experienced my "mid-life crisis" years in 1982 and 1983.
Actually, I never set foot on Vietnamese soil. All my time in the War Zone
was spent on or over the coastal waters of Vietnam. I spent three years
living in Thailand during two different tours of duty at U-Tapao Fleet
Air Support Unit. Other neat places where I was stationed are: The Island
of Guam, Midway Island, Japan (Sasebo), The Philippines (Subic Bay), Mare
Island Naval Shipyards (San Francisco Bay Area). The ships that I served
on were both Destroyer class vessels: the USS Everett F. Larson (DD830-homeported
in Long Beach, CA) and the USS Robison (DDG12-homeported in San Diego,
CA) [Return]
(2) "Hippie" - This
might seem contradictory to the first label, but during my entire stint
with the military there was a "Flower Child" struggling to emerge. Rather
than be drafted (pre-lottery days) into the Army or running off to hide
in Canada, I joined the Naval Reserves while still in my last year of high
school. I did a two-week boot camp during my Christmas break of December
1966 and thus avoided being too deeply brainwashed by the military mindset.
The Broadway productions of Hair and Death of a Salesman had and still
have a most profound impact on my thinking. The music of Hair especially.
As an "experimenter" with psychoactive substances and an introspective
researcher of metaphysical interests back then, I guess you could have
termed me as a "closet" Hippie. These days I'm "legal" most of the time,
but as a civilian I feel much more freedom to express my "Hippieness" through
my art, through my writing, and through my hair. Yes, I think that marijuana
should be just as legal as booze. [Return]
(3) "Mystic" - I've
always had more than a passing interest in "New Age" subject matter. I
still have and occasionally use the deck of Tarot Cards that I bought on
the "drag" near the University of Texas campus in 1969. My interest in
Astrology goes back even further because of my birth date, February 19th.
As a child I was constantly perplexed by newspaper horoscopes, some of
which would list me as Aquarius and some of which would list me as Pisces.
In 1969, I finally researched it in earnest. I obtained an Ephemeris and
a Table of Houses and manually worked up my chart to find that the sun
was just barely half a degree into Pisces when I was born; very nearly
right on top of the cusp of Aquarius and Pisces. These details notwithstanding,
I've used Astrology more as an occasional tool to interpret rather than
guide my life. The same holds true for Tarot, Numerology, I-Ching and similar
tools.
I think that I intuitively understood
that my life could not be predestined or predicted or planned completely
in advance; that each step along the way opens new possibilities and each
moment offers an opportunity to strike off into new directions. Then consider
that each of the probabilities in a person's life are realized somewhere/somewhen
in the quantum universes. Life is open-ended and I am here to learn. This
is why for the past thirty years my own motto has always been "Life is
a school of change; be adaptable." [Return]
(4) "Computer Jock"
- This label represents my passion for technology. When I was 6 and 7 years
of age I remember a favorite form of play was to take empty cardboard boxes
and poke sticks in them for "switches" and draw "view screens" and "knobs"
and "meters" to assemble my own toy "control panels." In high school (personal
computers hadn't been invented yet) this extended to an interest in radios
and electronics. In the Navy I was in the Radioman rate - a further extension
of these interests. Plus, it introduced me more fully to communications
and, eventually, computers. Maybe that's why I stayed in as long as I did.
Today, I understand computers and the Internet as communications tools
to facilitate Human interaction. [Return]
(5) "Gamer" - My interest
is primarily in computerized role-play games. In D&D terms, all my
characters are Neutral (with respect to "Law" and "Chaos") and Good (with
respect to Good and "Evil"). I favor Clerics and Mages over Warriors and
Thieves. There are some very powerful life-analogies here that I feel drawn
to, especially where on-line gaming of this nature is concerned. You are
the "oversoul" of a character as it interacts with other characters - each
with their own "oversoul." [Return]
(6) "Lover" - It should be sufficient to just say that all my most intimate sexual experiences have been with women (one at a time, please) of my own generation or younger; and I prefer it that way. I'm not a "player," and my last active relationship continued over the course of sixteen years. Not being much of one for empty overnighters, I prefer long-term relationships and the reduction of unnecessary internal and external turmoil. For me, there cannot be sex without emotional involvement; and there cannot be emotional involvement without commitment. Now - as of February 17, 2005 - I'm married again and loving every minute of it! [Return]
(7) "Son" - When I
was born in Amarillo in 1949, my mother had just divorced my father. For
five years after that it was just she and me, until her marriage to my
stepfather in Dallas. After that, we all moved to Lamesa. My brother Billy
was born a year later. From there on we were a complete family unit. As
such, we moved to El Paso and later to Austin where I joined the Navy Reserves
and left for active duty in 1967. I returned briefly in 1969 to attend
UT for a couple of semesters; but for the most part, I was the absent son
during the 1970s because I went back on active duty with the Reserves and
eventually enlisted twice more as Regular Navy. My brother was the one
who stayed and helped care for Dad until he died in 1979. My stepfather
was 21 years older than mom was. Brother Billy got married, got his PHD
from Baylor and moved to West Virginia with his wife and two boys; a new
family unit to carry on the tradition. Meanwhile, I'm back in Austin to
do my turn and take care of my Mom until the cycle is complete.
Ah, but I'm also the son of my biological
father. He wasn't allowed to see me when I was born. At the age of 42,
I finally met him for the first time and discovered that I had five other
half-brothers and half-sisters. Darla, my older sister, was by his first
wife. My mother was his second wife. Bernie Max was by his third wife.
Dianne, Yvonne and Chipper were all by his fifth wife. I've met them all
since, except for Chipper. Chipper died in a boating accident in 1987, six years
prior to my discovery of either him or our kinship. Yet there are no regrets
here; only facts. I've come to know Chipper - the other James Thames -
through our common genetic link and through the stories told to me by my
father and my sisters that he grew up with. [Return]
(8) "Father" - I am
biological father to one born as Tommy B. Thames; and step-father to three
others who I knew as At Thames, Suwit Thames, and Jack Thames. Unlike my
own father, but more like my step-father, I had the blessing of actually
being with each of them in their early years to live with, care for and
nurture. For a time, I too actually succeeded in putting together a family
unit. During my "mid-life crisis" however, I had a need to return to my
roots in Texas. My boys had the need to remain in Southern California.
We had some contact for a couple of years, but the distance between our
two locations was great and they had their own lives in which to find the
fulfillment of their own value and potential. We were out of touch for close to twenty years. But, in 2004, I found them again. Two years prior, I put up a "My Sons, I'm Looking for You!" web page. Eventually a friend of Jack's saw it and sent me Jack's phone number. When I called Jack, he gave me the phone numbers for everyone else. Now, to complete the circle, I drive my father (who I found when I was 42) out west to see all his grandkids and great-grandkids that he's never met before.
[Return]
(9) "Friend" - Pleased
to meet you! This is another one of those starting places that leads to
every place else. I'm still in Austin, Texas and you can drop me a line
at [email protected]. [Return] |
