i went to see _Bringing Out the Dead_ tonight. found it a bit 'discomfitting'
because, although it's a 'strange' flick, it was all so 'clear' to me. it's
closing scene so-powerfully touches the spirit.
afterward, since it's a no-clouds-in-the-sky, chilly and full-moon-lit New
England night, i took another walk to the Childhood baseball field. it's
'funny' how that one 'moment' so 'sticks' in my mind... part of it is that not
only the 'hit' was locked-in, but also everything that i, then, was. recalling
it all is a 'comfort'.
i remember the bat i'd used, purchased with a great chunk of my 'savings' :-)
when i held it, it was so amazing. it was a good, stout bat, but it was so
well-balanced and well-proportioned with respect to my 11-year-old's hands and
arms that it was like it was just an extension of them... it's mass just did
what my hands and arms did, clean and True.
later in that Little League season, i came up against the same pitcher again,
and he threw the 'same' pitch that i'd hit out of left field, over the
basketball courts, over the fence on the other side of the basketball courts,
and into the the street, beyond.
this 'time', however, i didn't swing at the 'twin' of the first pitch, and was
called out on strikes. our team lost that game, played at the Lincoln Grove. i
remember this 2nd pitch photographically, too. play it over and over again in
mind's 'eye'... 'swing at it!' but it's memory is True, and it 'just' flys past
me.
another had borrowed my 'perfect' bat during one of the pick-up games we'd play
'in the field', and the bat was cracked. i'd put screws in it, and taped it,
but it was never the same. my 'baseball career' was over :-)
but the lesson inherent in my allowing that beautiful pitch to 'just' go by me,
has stayed with me, all solid-stuff... reminding me what 'the game' is all
about... and i 'swing' without fail, when opportunity comes... it's a good way
to go at Life (and is probably some of why Baseball is so dear to the hearts of
all Little Leaguers, grown old... this teaching of the importance of
taking-action in the 'moment' that 'opportunity' comes.)
when i wrote the 'Automation of Knowing...' ms. (AoK), i understood that what i
had to do is 'hard' for most folks, and 'frightening' to others. i carried
forward the lesson in that just-watched-pitch, though, when i worte the paper.
it's why AoK is written the way it's written.
folks have 'difficulty' with Attribution to Jesus in a Science paper. but,
'you' see, i knew what was in the theory =before= i wrote AoK, and i understood
both the Obligation and Responsibility, inherent. this is why the Epilogue, and
other, similar, things, are in-there. knowing what i had to do in AoK, it was
all great-tumult within me. everything that's Base within me wanted to write
AoK 'insensitively' (i've had Reason to provide some 'samples' of how it
could've been in msgs during the recent
'taking-the-difficult-stand-against-manipulation' msgs i've posted.)
i left something that's relevant out of my earlier discussion of what folks
perceived to be my 'anger'. i did experience genuine 'emotion' at the refferant
'times'. it was with respect to my konwing what had to be done, juxtaposed
against _The Way That I Am_. i was taught to serve Willingly, and to not 'rock
the boat'. it was it's being so 'hard' to get myself to 'break-out' of this
familiar stuff, and just do what needed to be done, that showed itself in my
'emotion'.
it's the same way as i write these msgs... it's all 'hard-to-do', but it must
be done.
the thing's outcome depends on this 'swing'.
i expect that, when some folks consider-deeply my 'difficult', but
in-Accord-with-the-Honor-Required-in-the-doing-of-Science Attribution of Jesus'
Priority, they'll find comfort enough.
'hard' stuff... think of it all in terms of the
'talking-to-unseen-others-before-and-after-the-invention-of-radio example
that's at the end of AoK's 'short paper' section...
...only this stuff is the "writing-to-unseen-others-before-and-
after-the-gaining-of-understanding 'example'".
the understanding enabled me to 'look-ahead', a bit, to 'see' things that were
likely to unfold. if folks read AoK with 'an eye-out for such', they'll see
that, sprinkled throughout it, are passages that Embrace the Reader and say,
before the fact, "It's OK. I understand that you didn't understand."
all of those passages are in-there because of Jesus' Teaching with respect to
Forgiveness' needing to be built-right-in, to which the Neuroscience
points-right-at, too.
such is Sealed in the Epilogue.
without Jesus' Being in-there, the possibilities of Ab-use were just
Unthinkable.
my understanding is that it's the same in Life, and i invite folks, and folks
in Science, in particular, to consider such, deeply.
K. P. Collins (ken)
