My ears are in ecstasy.

And now, for the promised "real" content. (Although some of us might argue as to what actually constitutes "real" content. Call it what you will.)

[Bitscape .... very ...... nearly .... goes .... into ... an ........ aural ..... trance . . . . . . . ]

[nods off into a conscious state of unconsciousness for a few minutes. returns.]

Ahem, yeah. THIS is why I seldom listen to music at work. If I were to bring in the good stuff, how would I ever get any work done? To me, good music is an expecience of total immersion.

...

And THAT was over way to quickly. Dare I put another on, and risk never getting to my main content? It's Friday. The weekend. I think I dare.

[Bitscape removes more shrinkwrap, lets it dangle to the floor, inserts disc, and allows his ears to be filled with yummy vibrations.]

As was indicated on content solutions earlier, I was having a bit of trouble sleeping early this morning. Very early. Awoke at 0300, and lay awake. After a few minutes of that, I decided that if I was going to be awake, I might as well engage myself in something interesting. An idea was hatched.

I sat down at Argo, and proceeded to the excellent image archive. ("the" might not be the proper word to describe it; there are quite a few other really good ones too. If there's one thing Xenites rock at, it's getting large masses of material online. Of course, it also helps when the producers aren't suing fans for web content, like certain other quality shows have been known to do.)

I knew what I was looking for, so executed the query with maximum efficiency, and downloaded a nice little stash of selections to choose from. I then went on to produce some of the sloopiest Gimp work I've ever done (for public display, anyway). Got together a bunch of the ones that worked the best, threw them in a directory together, and made a bunch of hyper-minimal html files. After everything was confirmed working, a single call to iptables opened it up to the outside. And the result.

Needless to say, after that bit of fun, I went right to sleep. And the time to wake up came waaay too early for my tastes. Too much time on my hands indeed. lol.

Oh, and I said it before on content solutions, but it bears repeating: Jaeger is hereby awarded 10 bonus points, redeemable at any certified bonus point recepticle. (As an extra feature, they can also be converted to karma!)

Switching gears. After taking the much discussed religion test the other day, I've been doing some thinking. It wouldn't exactly be a revelation to say that my life has been lacking in much spiritual direction or focus lately. Make that the past several years.

"I'm an agnostic." "I don't really have a clue as to the existence or lack of existence of supernatural forces." "The divine is beyond my comprehension, therefore it is futile and pointless to try and figure out that which cannot be known or proven." "I don't care."

These have been my lines. My mantras. Not explicitly stated so often lately, due largely to my absence of religous discussions of any kind, but when I was attending ucollege.edu, and the subject of religion would come up, I would explain that I didn't really believe the same as most other people there, often making statements similar to the ones above. Most people were cool with that.

Some, especially those on the faculty who were more ministerially inclined, would present the reasons they had their faith, often laying out very reasonable sounding propositions based upon assumptions I hadn't made, or even better, employed some very clever bits of circular logic to enforce the points. (I think many were accustomed to talking to people of other Christian faiths, which allowed some common ground to start from, but with me, it was like a totally different sphere of philosophy, so I was probably a tougher case. Nope, mere quotes from the Bible, no matter how authoritatively worded, aren't going to convince me. UNLESS the idea makes sense.)

So from there, it goes into the realm of what "makes sense"? Invariably, the discussion would come down to a question of basic belief. They believed in God to be of a certain nature, Jesus as the manifestation of that God, the truth of the Bible, Heaven, the Second Coming, et all. For whatever reasons (differing from individual to individual); their hearts felt inclined that way, things they had witnessed convinced them, personal prayers that had been answered, etc, etc. It ultimately came down to what they knew, sensed, and believed for themselves. Things I did not know within myself. My insides were not giving the same signal. I could see that others were sincere, even though I had not been convinced.

Anyway, I'm going way off on an unintended tangent. Way off. So, the topic at hand is my lack of spiritual direction. At ucollege.edu, I had the opportunity to experience again the religion of my childhood as an adult, see it through more mature eyes, and concluded once and for all that it is not for me. The obvious question that follows: So what is for me?

Do I want to stumble through my whole life in a state of "I don't have a clue" meandering, without a center or a focus, chasing any butterfly that crosses my path until I trip over a rock, get up, look around again until something else catches my eye, and essentially maintain a perpetual state of spiritual uncertainty? Always in a fog. Never a clue as to what it is I'm ultimately seeking in life, flip flopping on convictions because the basis for them was never very sound to begin with. Is this the existence I have doomed myself to with my Scully-like skepticism? (Ignoring, for the moment, that Scully actually does hold a faith.)

A quote snippet from the artist I was featuring at the beginning of this rambling (Note that I am not using it merely because it comes from a Goddess (which it does ;), but because the words make sense):

"For girls and boys, study your mythology. In that are ancient secrets, rites and mysteries that you probably aren't taught by your teachers and parents. In the different mythologies of cultures you begin to see mirrors, and possibilities of what might be lurking in your soul. Some mythologies won't resonate with you, so you observe them, respect them and move on. Once you begin to resonate, it's probably telling you something."

So... where to start? Well, I decided to take my test results as a starting point. Neopaganism. Prior to this point, I had never really thought much of it. Well, I had been fairly ignorant, actually. Still am. :) I suppose it could be considered a natural idea, given my history of fondness for pseudo-Pagan myths, symbols, and charcters in pop culture. So why not check it out, delve a little deeper? If it works for me, go with it! If it turns out to be no better than previous encounters which have claimed to have spiritual insight and turned up hollow, no harm done.

Of course, the first step for anyone wanting to learn more about a topic in this modern age: follow the links. :)

Having read one the core beliefs according to one prominent individual in the Pagan community, I say so far, so good. Of course, I want to know more. When I got ready to read the laws of magic, my first thought was, "Oh boy. Here we go with the hocus pocus mumbo jumbo." Actually, at least based on this initial description, it presents a set of sensible, coherent methods for dealing with life (that does include paranormal phenomena -- i.e. some non-scientific methods and ideas which would involve the ever unprovable "faith"). I want to know more. I want to acquire that guy's book. And read it. (Contrary to popular belief, Bitscape has actually completed a book cover to cover within the last month. Now let that trend continue.)

Can I prove that these explorations will lead me to a higher state of spiritual existence? No. Will this just be another short-lived goose chase, to be abandoned as soon as something else that looks interesting comes along? Time will tell. Will it even make sense for me, or will this turn out to be no more sensible than the Trinity, once I get farther into it? Only one way to find out. :)

(Actually, if the core beliefs described in the link above are an indicator, many of these are ideas that I've already believed for a while anyway, floating around in the vague and scattered rim of my consciousness. Observing others codify, put them into words, and turn it into a method for living simply re-enforces, solidifies, and helps clarify what my mind and heart have been saying all along. I take that as a good sign. It resonates, if you will.)

So..... switching gears again. Sort of.

Walked out of the office today, bonus check in hand. (Employer saw fit to reward hard working engineers for their recent efforts. Even ones such as myself, who chose to go the extra centimeter instead of the extra mile, got a very ample chunk of cash. That was cool.) I headed to the bookstore.

(I DO intend to finish this thing by midnight. Really. After I take a piss.) [Bitscape exits the room momentarily. Returns and starts another disc. Music.]

Barnes and Noble did not have the book I was looking for. They offered to order it, and said it would probably arrive in 3-5 business days. My reply: "I could do that myself over the Internet if I wanted, couldn't I?" There's no refuting that. (I neglected to name which company I would buy it from if it comes down to that. There was once a time I would have unquestionably bought it from their major competitor if it came to a choice between the two. But now, in the age of one click shopping, I might just prefer two less ethically burdensome clicks.)

I traveled to a brand new bookstore -- Borders. Yep. The one right next to that pretentious new mall with the scribbly writing. (I have to say I'm less hostile to that mall than I once was, having eaten in its awesome food court, seen the plasma HDTV displays which feature a higher price tag than Tobias, and visited the Wizards of the Coast store. To the Magic The Gathering enthusiasts who might be reading this: That store is has a better selection than your wildest manna-tapping dreams. Really.)

I searched Borders in vain for the title I was looking for, and concluded that I would most likely have to order it. Or maybe there's a store in Boulder that would have it. Boulder's that kind of place, ya know?

All the while, I was plaing cell phone tag with mom in an attempt to arrange a place to meet for a family evening meal. Organising people to go to a restaurant is always such a crazy ordeal. That's a reference to both work and home. The simplest things become so complicated and involved. Getting everyone's timing, method of transportation, venue of choice, and all that coordinated. It's crazy! Nuts, I say!

I took the opportunity to wander around the store, noting its strengths and weaknesses. Lots of books from every genre, of course. Very large DVD selection. A cd area covering as much square footage as a typical record store. And it was there that I met my weakness.

I would have considered buying an album, except for the prices. I think this sets a new record in my experience. The standard price for a new disc: $18.95. I don't think so. But.... but... the singles section. An ENORMOUS variety of semi-esoteric maxi singles. (At least from some of the artists I care about.) Madonna... rows full. Mostly stuff I've seen on various occassions in the past, but never this many in one place. Tori Amos: Ditto.

I considered going on a splurge and plundering the site, but chose to exercise some degree of restraint. I bought one of each. Madonna's Bedtime Story, which features 5 tracks of funky remixes. $6.49. The Tori Amos Cruel single -- Shady Feline Mix, with a couple very nicely done Rhaspberry Swirl mixes (had me in a trance), and the Ambient Spark. $3.49. Awesome.

Happy bank account depletion card got to have a little fun, and then it was off to Applebees. Riblets. Mmmmm. Yum.

And home. [2 minutes to midnight according to Argo's clock.]

Now I ponder whether to break down and order my book online, or continue the wild bookstore goose chase tomorrow. This is one compelling argument for online shopping: When one is searching for more esoteric, less mainstream things, it can cut search time significantly.

We'll see. Bye.