So they did this with me recently at the Harvard Medical school, during a recent neurological scare I had (more on that later), where they looked into the very structure of my brain. It was a longish process and I spent the better part of a day going through the various injections and preliminary examinations before they put me in the machine. I’ll honestly tell you that it was a little scary as I really didn’t know what to expect…and I was already frightened so that didn’t help the process at all. After about 90 minutes in the machine running through various scenarios that I was supposed to think about and scripted scenes I was supposed to mentally act out, they came back with an amazingly realistic 3D model of my brain.

Really…truly amazing.

Apparently, my brain is shaped almost exactly like a 7-11 convenience store located somewhere in Reseda, CA where the only things on the shelves were condoms, KY Jelly, silicone breast implants, various pieces of black lingerie, Purina goat chow and oddly enough, 8 pack cans of Bumble Bee Tuna (in spring water). The glass-door coolers only had beer (Corona) and frozen pizzas (Red Baron, pepperoni) except the one by the ATM machine which had the full frozen body of a supposed alien…with its big eyes open. Behind the counter there were even fewer items including liquid Rohypnol, scratch-off lotto tickets and 5 hour energy drinks….and 19,000 bottles of vodka.

I had originally gone to the medical center because I was very concerned…scared even…as I truly felt that there was a small Australian rodent, possibly a fawn-footed melomy (Melomys cervinipes), that had burrowed into my brain and was repeating everything people said to me but in an Ozzie accent.

I felt so much better after hearing the truth though.

http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/brains/index.html

I’ve thought this about UFO’s for a long time but this is the first time I am writing it down. Um, what’s up with all the blinking lights? I mean whenever you read about UFO’s they are always described with at least some blinking lights. Sometimes lots (Like Close Encounters) and other times just a few but definitely bright enough to make a visual impact. Now I’m not saying that people didn’t see the lights, what I’m asking is why they are there to begin with. Think about it…what a blinking lights meant to accomplish? Well, down here on earth they act as warning lights, or directional (i.e. the red and green lights on a boat are side lights and assist in determining the direction the boat is facing. Red lights are on the port, or left side, while green lights are on the starboard, or right side) but always to convey some information about the craft they are attached to.

The point is that they are they because someone will “visually” see them and get information from them. The question is then, who is going to see a UFO’s blinking lights in the depth of space? And if they do, what kind of information are they going to get? You can say, “oh, it’s for when they land on other planets” and again, what kind of information are they conveying? And will the planets inhabitants even have eyes? Will they understand the visible light spectrum?

That seems like a lot of big “ifs” in which to base an interstellar spaceship design on considering the expense of all design characteristics. I mean anything that is not directly tied to; a) keeping the spaceship inhabitants alive, and, b) powering the ship forward, is nonessential so why the blinking lights?

Just askin…

I look at the calendar and see that it’s 2013, I look down at my desk and see the splayed out gadgetry and technology of 5 assorted computing devices that connect me and allow me to communicate with an entire planet if I so wanted. I look at the constant barrage of scientific, technological and medicinal innovations and discoveries coming at me non-stop from uncounted websites, newspapers and cable news channels and I then look at these photos…

…and I cannot help thinking to myself that we are not so long out of the trees after all. That if we are removed at all, we are not that far from the wretched barbarians of 10,000 years ago, scratching out subsistence living on the plains and savannas of Africa. Viciously competing—because we were still more animal than anything else—man against man for every calorie found or hunted, scavenged or gathered…for every acre of food supplying territory.

I look at these photos and my brain screams that we s…till do this to ourselves! Human against human, with the accumulated knowledge of a billion billion peoples who have come and gone since the dawn of time, we are still viciously competing for every scrap, for every acre…only now we define those atrocities with religious factions, with political parties, with ideology used as a mask to cover our base desires to rule and to take. I look at these photos and ask the question who’s answer I don’t want to hear:

“Is progress, technology, innovation and all the things we think of as a separation between us and who we were as a species 10,000 years ago merely superficial ideas and illusions that cannot truly mask our nature. Are we perpetually destined to revert, when political/religious/ideological push comes to shove, to those grunting beasts fighting over carcasses and killing each other in the process of trying to stay alive?”

I truly do fear the answer…

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/04/syria-in-ruins/100488/

You are beautiful.

Three words with 7 billion different meanings, all personal and unique…and all as true as breathing. Where do these simple words come from? A TV show? Your parents? A website? Lover, husband, wife? Where are these words found when you look for them? When you don’t? When their mere suggestion would be the difference—the only difference—from no to yes, from none to all…from alone to not alone.

The person you need to validate your existence, to say that you belong, are beautiful and worth loving is you. No one else. But while it’s easy to say, easy to write that these words can only ever come from inside you, it is hard to understand, difficult to convey when those words, in that combination, are said so many times and in so many ways from other places. From the TV, parents, the web, a lover, a husband, a wife…they come from all angles.

And all meaningless without them first coming from inside you.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

OK. So I just binged the 3^rd season of Spartacus; War of the Damned. Yep, 9 out of 10 episodes all watched today. The last one is next Friday and I have 1 word to say about the last 9 hours or so; Slo-mo. Glorious, magnificent, instagram-like, blood spewing in huge goopy arcs across the room, sweaty bare bodies thrusting, thrusting, thrusting, super, sometimes stuttering slo-mo. I love this show, I should say, although I think you’ll figure it out anyway just from the writing here. I love it not just because they all talk in upper-class British accents and pseudo-iambic pentameter and they all look amazingly beautiful in a best porno you’ve ever seen kind of way but because if a character is introduced, you know that within 10 minutes you’ll get to see them naked. Definitely….and it will always be in that sweaty bare bodies thrusting, thrusting, thrusting slo-mo. That can be both a good and a bad thing, depending on how progressive you are (see what I’m talking about in a later section). Oh, did I mention that it’s all very artistic? Well, artistic in a best porno you’ve ever seen kind of way.

If you have been watching the show then you know about ol’ Tiberius and the right good ass-kicking he got…but, again, I was hoping for the “spear through the back of the head” death (a show favorite) as he was a prissy little pissant of the highest order. I mean, he did do the ol’ spear thrust through the stomach thing to Crixus so why not the same for him? And speaking of him, I have to say that Crixus is a huge asshole who basically just wants to run in and fuck everyone up or “die gloriously” which, at least from my perspective, is not a very good long term plan. I never could see why Spartacus put up with the jerk-off and the whole “just a head on a funeral pyre” when they gave Crixus his send-off to the other side was a little sad…but couldn’t of happened to a nicer fella. Also, Crixus’ girlfriend Naevia is a total See You Next Tuesday (um, spell it out in your head) who I really wanted to see a Centurion push a razor-sharp spear out through her face. With super slo-mo splurty-red blood blasting out with it of course.

Another thing that was kinda interesting was that it seems Italy (they range all over the country, not just Rome) back then was a very progressive society. Not only was there some very artistic, non-gratuitous (did I mention artistic?) sex between impossibly fit and muscled men and women, there was also some muscle on muscle action. Yep…that’s what I said; sweaty bare heavily muscled boy bodies in thrusting, thrusting, thrusting super slo-mo for your viewing pleasure. Or maybe for the viewing pleasure of someone you know. Actually, tell that someone you know that the whole show is basically an hour long homoerotic love fest of sweat sheened muscles and black leather. Like I said, interesting…at least the camera angles had to be a little different versus the hetero sex scenes.

Next Friday the 12^th is the final show. It’s on Starz which I know not a lot of people get but I think it’s worth it if only because it’s so damn artistic.

Good intentions gone bad…I imagine a scene in some small town west of here, maybe Ohio or Indiana. A woman is admitted to the ER with multiple lacerations on her arms and wrists and when she attempts to explain the cause of her injuries, she stumbles on the words and can barely get them out. It was an animal, she mumbled, in fact a young beaver that had caused her such grievous harm. No, she had never owned a beaver before—actually, not any kind of pet animal—and had only purchased him the day before so there was a significant learning curve no matter what the animal species.

She was doing a favor for a friend, her boyfriend in fact, but when asked by the ER doctor, she was unaware why it was being done, only that it seemed very important to her boyfriend as he had insisted on it on several occasions. She was going to surprise him so he didn’t know that she was in the ER, didn’t even know that she had purchased the animal. It was all done in secret.

In her doctor-induced delirium, morphine and codeine dripping into her vein, she said again and again that she didn’t think he even liked animals, certainly not dogs or cats because he owned neither. She explained in a meander that she was in the small confines of her upstairs bathroom, and that when she turned on the electric razor, the animal just went insane with fear, flailing about snapping, scratching and biting at her…thus the extensive tooth and claw damage to her arms.

Why her boyfriend would want the small rodent looking thing completely shaved, she said, was still a mystery to her.

I was walking across the street earlier this morning, I *desperately needed* a toasted bagel from the bodega down the street, when a huge Tow truck came speeding out of nowhere and barely missed running me down. When I say “barely” I mean that the door handle of the truck grazed the tip of my nose. Literally grazed my nose…as in touched it. But just before I stepped off the curb though and even though I was the only one there, I felt a hand on my shoulder tugging me backward. That small tug was just enough to slow me that the truck missed me. The truck was going so fast that it was truly a miracle that I wasn’t killed. I doubt the driver ever saw me.

After the truck passed and I was standing there in a daze, I suddenly felt my body get lighter and I felt filled with a light that glowed from the inside out and I heard a voice. It was like a voice from the kindest, most wizened grandfather…the voice said “Trevor…I have saved you for a purpose, your time on earth is not done yet.”

I was stunned and I started shaking and tears were flowing down my cheeks…I was talking to God! Or he was talking to me but I felt him in me, I was warm all over from my insides out and I felt how real and close he was. A lifelong atheist I have never imagined that this would happen to me…I had eschewed organized religion for years just because I couldn’t imagine that God existed and that, if he did, why he would care about us. I was on the verge of believing in something that I had spent my entire life arguing the opposite…I could feel the faith rising in me, becoming a part of me…it was truly amazing. I felt so loved, so needed and wanted…

I could still hear the tow truck speeding away into the distance and I didn’t want to lose the moment, the opportunity to talk to God (who knew if I ever would again) so I spoke back to him. I didn’t know what else to say so I asked “God? Are you real? Are you talking to me from inside me?” and I knew he was immediately, I felt his realness all around me. I felt that the world was finally in order, that I could ultimately understand why we are here, what our purpose was…what we, what I was meant to do.

I saw how wrong I’ve been about everything…how we really need to protect and save the helpless among us and that no amount of help is too much, that the rich among us have a responsibility to help the poor. That taxes are a small, infinitesimal price to pay for trying to create a heaven on earth, for spreading the word. I saw how misguided I was about people…that they shouldn’t be allowed to make their own choices because there is a higher power, a much higher power—PRAISE THE LORD!!—and that it’s our role to make those decisions for our fellow man.

The faith inside was rising ever higher as I saw and felt these truths grow and replace all the heathen-istic and hedonistic crud that had filled my life up to today. I must have looked insane standing on that curb, arms upraised, tears streaming down my face as I looked to the heavens and I shouted “Tell me Lord!! What am I meant to do?! Tell me what you want of me!!” and in that same loving resonant voice I heard into the very center of my soul…”um, you gonna eat that bagel?”

It’s now known that our memories are not like a VCR or DVR, we don’t record everything, store it in our brains and then later, simply recall the correct video when required. No, we only record specific and meaningful parts of a memory—like a person’s face but not the color of the wallpaper behind them—and then, later, our brain brings back the meaningful bits and fills in the rest with a good guess…basically it lies to us. There’s simply too much information for our brain to handle so our brain inserts things that it already knows about; things we’ve experienced, lessons we’re taught and influences of people and environments around us. Basically, our upbringing.

For example, If what you’ve grown up around is all about fundamentalist Christianity, then when you try to recall a memory about a conversation (i.e. about homosexuality), your brain will insert information—for the ideological stuff it has nothing specifically in memory—that has to do with fundamentalist Christianity because that’s what it knows. Or Jewish tradition and history…or progressive liberalism…well, you get the point.

Whether you believe it or not, your memories are directly influenced by what you’ve experienced in your life and not exactly what happened. Two people remembering the exact same event will have completely different stories in their head when they recall the event later…

…and sometimes that mismatch can start literally a war.

The next time you’re arguing with someone about an event that happened in the past, think to yourself how your memory might not be as accurate as you’d like…and listen to the other person’s story…you may find that you’re both closer to believing the same thing than originally thought.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

We can be virtuous with
grandeur and aplomb
laughing with, begetting
truth in all we do, we
can arouse and select
through distant memories
and never know how far
off we’ve ever been
how close the moment is,
the one that might one
day set us free, we can
be internal and external
but always in transition;
we vibrate, covet, we
are the shadow of
the love we’ve learned
to share…to spread
with word and deed,
touch and song, the
perfect signature to a long
forgotten dream
signed and sealed,
delivered in our sleep, we
more than are, we were…
written of, sang about
lived and died, we survive
past the idea of us, of
living itself and become
an equality, a congruent
motion, moment and
always we will conclude
we are additions—never
subtractions—in this long
running equation some
call life, some call living,
some call god, some call
hell, some call subatomic,
some call and call and
never get a reply.

It is in my mind, this
life this unforgiving, this
line to walk…and I see you

Walk with me?

We have the luxury, the
moment waiting, seeing
us knowing nothing

Talk to me?

I will create you, will
celebrate you and while
I do, you should too

Sit with me?

There is nothing left, not
what we think, do, or
have made

Breathe with me?

Hold this hand, this small
point in time, this
smudge of matter

Exist with me?

Let go, smile not and
we will join the dust, the
soul of the universe

Die with me

Stars are birthed, die
fade wax and wane, they
always have.