Continuing Trends and Thoughts
As I wrote a few posts ago, I've been realizing a certain overarching movement in my life towards religious thought. The destination of this movement is neither clear nor important. The journey, even if not defined, nevertheless offers stimulating ponderances and intriguing insights.
Star Trek, in all its years, has tackled the issue of cloning very little, if at all. Yet the new movie,
Nemesis (released yesterday) is about cloning, doppelgangers and the question of the self. A clone can't live peacefully until "the original" is destroyed. A prototype being can't survive without the thoughts and memories of an offspring. Even an entire world's population can not live in peace until it destroys, not just overpowers, its oppressors.
Is any meaningful growth possible without pain, sacrifice or a rising from the ashes? Is the existence of a "God" or something grater than
us possible without scientific proof? Often we perceive things as binary choices. Yes or no. Up or down. Dead or alive. The December issue of Wired magazine has a series of interesting articles on the questions of science and religion. Check out the table of contents
here.
These thoughts will continue to hound me and stay at the top of my consciousness as I was just informed of my acceptance into a very cool program:
Birthright Israel - Power, Politics & Peace. This free 11-day trip takes Jews 21 - 30 years of age to Israel for interesting seminars and meetings with politicians and policy makers. I leave for Israel on January 1st and hope to report here often about the trip. Wish me luck!
22 CaughtOne casualty of so much happening in my small, humble life is my DVD rental queue. I now get to watch only 1-3 movies a week instead of the usual 10-15. But I proudly announce that last night I watched the DVD of Mike Nichol's classic 1970 film adaptation of
Catch 22.
Most beloved of all humor to me is humor based on wordplay. I love words, I am intrigued by communication styles, the words people choose from myriads of synonyms and how we choose to understand what we hear. The excitement
Catch 22 wrapped me in was based on its clever and profound play on words, phrases and synonyms.
Anyone interested in language and quick wit needs to see this film.
