The "big" of it all

Time (featuring Gabbi)* - 090212

I want to focus on the big picture as a conclusion to my series of posts on time.  It is easy to focus on the now, the world within a few feet of me, and the people I can see around me.  Even though I have a well established sense of object permanence, I still tend to disregard the big world around me that I am not immediately interacting with. 

My mind knows that my wife is at a church a few blocks away.  I know that my parents are probably getting in the car for their trip to their church.  I am sure President Obama and Governor Romney are talking about the election to some other people.  Even though I know all this stuff, I am not really thinking about it. 

Right now I am looking out at grassy area on the UC Berkeley Campus, drinking a tea (trying to soothe a sick stomach) and writing this.  A wall is behind me, a number of men are sitting in a random pattern in tables facing away from me.  My whole world can easily be summed up by what I am seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting at this moment.  This sense of "immediate-me" creeps into all my senses, including one of the senses we don't really count as a sense - the sense of time. 

When I was getting my first undergraduate degree**, I took two influential courses in the same quarter, geology and and astronomy.  It was in both of those classes that my concept of size, space, and time were challenged.  I held a rock that was over two billion years old.  I learned I was made of dust from stars long dead.  One night, my astronomy class used a telescope and I became a speck.    We looked at  a very faint, distant object and my professor mentioned that it was a very old star and that I was looking back in time, probably a few billion years.  He then told us that star probably didn't exist anymore and if it had a solar system, all its planets were burnt up and dust.  After looking back in time, I let my eyes adjust to the dark while standing in the cold mountain air and looked at the Milky Way floating above.  I got a glimpse into how long time really is.  The enormity hit me and I had to sit down and felt tears run down my cheeks due to the magnificent grandeur of it all and how damn insignificant I really am.

Someday you will have to say "goodbye" to the sun.
You will bid farewell to the moon, the sky, the clouds, and the stars.
As all things that live, we dim out to a smoking wick, our quiet goodbyes to those things that were  always with us acknowledge we were the grain and they were the beach.
They may not hear our goodbyes, but their existence in our beings need to be recognized and bid proper adieu. 

After that moment, I felt so insignificant in the great sense of time and space.  In the universe, I am less than a grain of sand and in the dimension of time I am less than a atomic flash.   When compared to the extreme greatness of both, there is no microscope powerful enough or time piece precise enough to measure or observe my existence.  This was (and sometimes still is) a pretty depressing realization, until I learned of another truth - the order of it all.

Our universe is spread across time and space.  It isn't haphazard or random.  Invisible forces keep it in order and can help us theorize on what has happened and predict what will happen.  Stars form from the dust of other dead stars.  From that, solar systems form, life my grow on a few planets, then the star dies out, one way or another and it starts over again.  The same is for humans, we are born, we grow up, some of us procreate, and we die.  All I have to do is live in the time I have, try not to harm others, help where I can, enjoy and experience the awe of it all, and die.  In the grand scheme of things, I really don't have much to do.   The weight of the universe is not on my shoulder and I am a tiny piece of lint on its broad shoulders.

* Please click on this to see the big picture.

** I am not bragging about my number of undergrad degrees.  I pissed away my first (psychology) by not getting good enough grades by being lazy.  This laziness cost me the chance to get into grad school and finding a job.  I went back for a second degree and did much better because of the hard lessons learned from my first one.

Lady Justice decides...

Judgement on the roads of indulgence I choose to travel down - 071312

I am currently working on a few art series of photos and collages.  The first is on my objectification of women (more on that at a later time).  The second concerns the justice that is coming upon me, my gender, my race, and all of humanity in the next half century as epitomized by Lady Justice. 

I visited Dublin Ireland in July 2006.  One of the interesting things I saw was their statue of Lady Justice (see photo at this link).   What do you notice is different about her?  No blindfold.  I guess justice is not blind in Ireland.  She got me thinking about that iconic statue that is present in so many cities, states and countries.

Lady Justice - Las Vegas - 0717

Last year we discovered the Lady Justice statue in Las Vegas.  To be fair, she isn't in the courthouse, but at a law office building near the courthouse.  I love how her sword is almost as tall as she is.  You can't tell from the photo, but I would guess she is about the height of the average woman.  As for the pose and extreme drama of her stance, I will let you make your own observations.

After seeing the Las Vegas Lady Justice, and all the other Lady Justice statues I've looked at,  I am starting a series on how justice will pass judgement on the sins of the list I mentioned above - me, my actions, my gender, my race, my sexuality and sexual decisions, my transgressions,  my country, and all of humanity.  In this new series I plan to have different models play the role of Lady Justice.  She doesn't always have to bare a breast, be a woman, or be blind folded.   The Lady Justice must though be passing judgement on something I feel must be brought to trial.

I believe all of the personal, group and humanity areas that I listed above are going to be judged soon for what we have done.  Beyond my personal things, someone will have answer for the transgressions against women, other races, differing sexual orientations, religions, cultures, economies (the creation and treatment of the poor), and earth as an environment.  These can be as personal as my decisions, choices to as grand and global as genocide, oppression, environmental destruction and war. 

The top photo is my first such attempt at capturing Lady Justice in judgement of me and my personal decisions and choices I made.  It isn't finished, but I am liking the mood.  Special thanks to Fae for giving me the perfect expression I needed for this image.  Any feedback is appreciated.  You can click on the image for a larger view of it.

As for judging - here how one man judged and sentenced Lady Justice.  Back in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft was offended by the Lady Justice statue he had to see at the Justice Department that dared to have an exposed breast.  He had her covered up.