Next year is the Year of the Rabbit.

"The rabbit is the fourth animal in the Chinese zodiac. In the Chinese culture, the rabbit is known to be the luckiest out of all the twelve animals. It symbolizes mercy, elegance, and beauty. People who are born in the year of the rabbit are calm and peaceful."

We can hope that rabbits worldwide will band together and turn the tide next year swathing the earth with a bounty of mercy, elegance, and beauty with a chaser of calm and peaceful. We could just do those things for ourselves, of course, but, like Lily Tomlin said, "Life could be beautiful . . . but it just won't."

Or, we won't? A lot of people are trying to make a difference. But what percentage are they of 8 Billion? 5% perhaps? 5% struggling to drag the other 95% out of the rip tide that is the World's eternal M.O.? The ironic cleave is that 95% are mostly busy trying to survive, find food, or, consulting a plastic surgeon for a Brazilian Butt lift.

Meanwhile people everywhere will continue to pray to Heavenly Father to fix things although they each have their own definition of what that may be. They will love their neighbor. They will turn the other cheek. But . . . when that gives the enemy the convenient opening needed for their agenda, when divine supplication worketh not, we can turn to mass consumption of material goods to comfort ourselves as we order new stuff on Amazon to impress our friends and then get on our expensive media devices to complain about gas prices and profess sympathy for others who are not able to join in the mass consumption that feeds follow-home robberies and smash and grabs all while we follow our favorite celebrity or tik our toks.

Interestingly a few months ago on Jeopardy there was an "answer" about a recent genocide and no one got the "question" right. Blank stares actually from all three. The Question was' "What is Rwanda". Most other answers about movie stars were met with the right question from the contestants.

Clearly some tyrants and some genocides are important and others score low or not at all. 800,000 should have been enough to get on the map, but there are other factors to consider--such as what types of Rolex were the slaughtered wearing and did they use contour make-up? Empathy needs to know these things.

8 Billion people in the world. Things weren't even working well when there were only 4 billion, or 2, or one. Eternal rip tide.

People are like fruit. Everyone wants to figure out who is a banana and who's an apple or mango as we love to label each other for hierarchical purposes. Of course nowadays you can be an apple AND a mango as we declare our genes to be traitors. Apparently 21% of younger fruit are not the fruit others think they are. Back in my day that was 3% according to poll sources. A decade ago the unknowable figure was 10%. Well, to each his own and all the best to all.

But . . . All fruits, ALL, can also get rot and mold. And worms. What percentage I don't know. Still, they may fall to the ground and sprout up all over again. Or be pecked by a bird--seeds swallowed, fertilized and shat out. The circle of life . . . and death . . . and the circle of unending need to fill emptiness. So many things just don't stick to emptiness's ribs, though. Like selfies. Very little nourishment there. You have to keep eating voraciously at real life. You can't "make memories" on purpose. Not the best ones anyway.

The World is a Sow's Ear.

Bugs is my favorite wabbit….

Whilst engaged in my 2.5 mile daily walk this morning, I concluded that the only Truth is the oneness of it all. The Cosmic Oneness.

Every time I jump on a particular Bandwagon, I realize the illusion and jump off to find myself back at the beginning.

All my Love to each of you as we pretend to be separate on this stage we call Earth.

Thanks for your insights D and D!

The Cosmic Oneness! We are all stuck with each other like it or not. Like conjoined octo-billions?

If only we could get back to one hand washes the other. I guess we never were really there though . . . But the writing is on the wall. Everyone wants the upper hand. Too many hands holding grenades rather than joining together to make light work.

D&D, my favorite wascally wabbit!

It's the worst it's ever been, it's the best it's ever been.

My Raven and I are grateful for your presence.

Watch your 6.

Love always,

Tu cuate, EOD

"It's the worst it's ever been, it's the best it's ever been."

And the way it has always been. Love you EOD and best regards to Judic.

With that passage the Elderly Canine has revealed something I have long suspected: that he is in fact Charles Dickens.

Methinks he wears his age quite well.

What's up, doc?

And wassup, dawg?

All my favorites in one thread. :)

Now that you're here, I feel the same!

Thanks. :)

I love your descriptors of Year of The Rabbit. Robin Williams comes to mind.

Interesting that little Rabbit is sandwiched right between Year of The Tiger and Year of The Dragon.


We can only hope, starting this year, starting now, more people will join the effort to the eschew the materialism you describe, quit turning the other cheek to tyrants and criminals and we can get on with a very good Rabbit year.


I'm counting the days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2022 12:43PM by Kathleen.

Kathleen Wrote:
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> a very good Rabbit year.


A great goal we can try and aim for, always.

Would be nice, eh?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2022 02:47PM by Nightingale.

"Oh, that rascally rabbit." (Says 'Homer'?) :)

Not that I'm a celebrity watcher, but Johnny Depp and Amber Heard may have proven your point here, and your Lily Tomlin quote: "Life could be beautiful . . . but it just won't."

Ha! Yes. Johnny and Amber proving they really are "only human" after all.

"You never really know a woman until you've met her in court." Norman Mailer.

observationally founded conclusions which indirectly rather support the concept of evolutionary lag.
The machine was never designed for the environment in which it now finds itself - the mismatch resulting in what is assessed as "aberrant behavior"

Yes. Thanks. You remind me of what I have been considering from the highlights I read to get the gist of Vaclav Smil's latest book, "How the World Really Works".

Basically, it doesn't. Not very well anyway and I think what you just wrote is that in a nutshell. (If I am understanding correctly your intent)

There never was any design at all was there? Stuff happened. Only the Christians are trying to hold onto design as a life raft, or, we really need to stretch the definition of the word design.

"Tabula rasa" - the idea we are all "blank slates" was a revolutionary and hopeful philosophy when first introduced by John Locke in 1689. It has since infiltrated all of western thought so as to be unconsciously accepted as fundamental truth - an unconscious dogma, if you prefer. One need look no further than to examine the philosophy and approach to primary childhood education, and its influence shadows over higher education, governance, geopolitics today. It is smack in the middle of (non, dare I say) "culture war" struggles, intersexual dynamics. It's so much a part of our marrow as to be accepted prima facie and not even held consciously. That which is at the core of it, is never even seen.

The question is: was John Locke right?

Are we in reality and truth, blank slates?

What are the implications of it, and if an error, consequences.


This crux makes all the difference

Dr. No Wrote:
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. . . It's so much a part of our marrow . . .




I think that's the key.

I have never believed we are blank slates. Quite the opposite. And knowing we come into being as a composite of millions of years of genes being passed down, I personally assume, that we each randomly get our own personal set, and, we are stuck with them. Propensities and all.

As for nature vs nurture, I am on team nature--not that nurture is useless but mostly just good for keeping you from dying in your first ten years.

My parents raised their children treating them all the same. Or so I thought. So I assumed. So we should have been more similar if we were blank slates. We are not. Looking back we were not treated all the same. In hindsight I realize our parents reacted to our individual personalities from day one that we already had at birth and adapted their parenting to us. We ended up an arrogant over-achiever, a renegade who became a team player later, the wind beneath everyone's wings, someone who is virtuoso at getting her own way, a wild child, and me (two of six). I will spare you the glowing terms I use for myself, haha.

For me, believing what I wrote above, is the best reason to deploy as much understanding and empathy as our genes can muster. I can't seem to change myself, and even less, change anybody else.

The only hope is that our minds, our essences, can be infiltrated with myriad bits of information that as an addition to the conglomerate that is us may steer our propensities in a better direction. New information as a rudder for the boat you cannot re-build?

Done & Done Wrote:
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> The only hope is that our minds, our essences, can
> be infiltrated with myriad bits of information
> that as an addition to the conglomerate that is us
> may steer our propensities in a better direction.
> New information as a rudder for the boat you
> cannot re-build?
===============================

. . . and being an empiricist your boat will never end up on the rocks -- at least not stay there.
It also is what is at the base of the questioning; the nature of which is highly discomforting. Can't turn off the seeing.

"Design" was a poor choice of word, being shorthand for:
the machine was optimized to a specific environment - "lag" being: that environment no longer exists.
Call it engineering, call it design, question is what forces shaped the machine to be what it is.
Australopithecus with a brain half our size found fire - yet walked the earth 1.5 million years ago. It has taken that long. The forces that move so deliberately simply cannot "re-engineer" to the complexities of today. A bipedal mammal with a brain optimized to navigating a savanna will get into real problems in a cockpit with the visual and vestibular illusions inherent to flight; but there we are with the equipment we have. (It's what got JFK Jr.) And what are they, what are the other design features and inherent limitations we are barely conscious of, with which we are endeavoring to courageously navigate this strange world. What problems stem from existing today as a machine designed for a time and place that no longer exists.

None of this applies or is of even passing interest if John Locke was correct

" . . . what are the other design features and inherent limitations we are barely conscious of, with which we are endeavoring to courageously navigate this strange world."

Ignorance, being bliss, allows us to stumble along without a clue apparently--with the law of averages at least making it possible to get by anyway, mostly?

Luck. Still the best thing going.

And 'down hill' is the easiest direction to travel, especially if you've got a piano.  



"Gravity compresses, while laughter explodes."

--Judic West, happily buying a smaller belt

Judic, a smaller belt size and you might blow away . . . Then we’ll all have to load up in my flying car just to find you !

I'll bring the butterfly net and ride shotgun.

Wile E Coyote is feeling ignored slighted & mental anguish, shopping for an attorney…

:D