Sunday, March 17, 2013

Data Vision


Not to be too dramatic, but just trying to connect with the deeper meaning and connections behind every day work. Enjoy.

Select. Copy and Paste. Sift through data and label it. Separate the data by year and total it. Compile totals for regions. Look for blips. Look for trends.
Searches sift through news.  News yields names and events. Events point to dates that shift the path of time. Social networks and keywords yield positions and people.  Data  stars shine from the constellation of truth from a distance. Long travelling starlight strikes the eye and a spark moves from the retina to the constellation of cells that are mind. Starlight marks positions that have long since been abandoned and the laws science predict  their present even as the present fades away.  From the laws we know and the light that strikes our eye we try to trace the arc.
Significant historical events wed to the numbers that reflect their passing yet their passing shadow affects other disparate elements.  Effect is not limited to proximity nor is proximity limited to the spatial dimensions. A glimmer of “God vision” bids understanding come forth.
                Create a pattern in your mind to transform standard into custom. Create a macro to transform the pattern into reality. Pages of indicators must yield their secrets. Search for commands and learn the syntax. Record the subtle dance of addition and subtraction.  Science still seeks clumsily to capture the interplay that makes us human. Surprise and crisis  lurk, unleashing undetected forces and invention and corruption governed by laws, as of yet, still to be formalized.  Dark matter and imputed particles fill in the gaps of our theories.  Is faith in that which we cannot see so different?
Insight explodes from the universe of data. Another year of data, lightly crunched connects with a constellation of data points. Secondary and primary meld. Intermittent regional crises explain massive swings in capital equipment.  A coherent picture fills the center of the frame. Edges remain out of focus, but the dominant themes shine clearly.
                Numerical representation of realities shifting across the globe. Homes and babies, pallets and pocketbooks painted in Arabic representation undergirded by machine precision of binary architecture. Van Gogh in black and white. Impressions high above Arles of countries and times that are past and yet to come. The promise that more data will yield to knowledge is forced through the prism of mind and subjected to the limits of collection, connection, and causation. Correlation tricks the uninitiated into gauzy certainty. Synthesized order must not shatter the reality of chaos. Mystery, equilibrium, growth, decay, and the cost of it all beg numbers to put on their human raiment. 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Place I like to Be


The world just got smaller and infinitely older.  The pressing urgency of today’s news fades into the sleep deprived haze of the father of a four week old baby.  My thoughts sweep inexorably into the future through my two baby’s eyes. My worries of the moment shrink toward irrelevance.  Shrill voices shilling the next  extreme conspiracy sound like the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher.
                We have food, and we are warm.  I have a job, and we have doctors for the boys. The price is dear. Does owing a few more dollars to mastercard dent my shining moment of unity with reality? No. I feel a connection with my father and his father as they worked to care for their kids.
                I realize I am closer to the farmer who owed the bank more at the end of the year than he did at the beginning of the day. The coal miner whose rent and food cost more than his salary. Figures no one taught me about in history class become real and the history of the world stretches into the past as well. I don’t want the government to give me money; I want them to give me justice.
                The connection with those “others” may not be the same as my connection with my family, but my love of them sows the seeds of connection to a wider world of struggles across a long sweep of history around the world and in our backyards.
On Sunday, the theme of providence and acceptance clash with my indignance and desire for progress. Crystallizing clarity brings into focus an acceptance and joy in the moment wrapped within the Christian demand that the present  includes a peaceful struggle for a just and caring future.
I admit that I love to cuddle my boys.  I love to feel Charlie’s little, nearly bald head, tucked against my chest. My favorite moments of the day is when out of dead sleep  a footy pajama clad toe kicks me in the lip.  Mikey is just big enough now that if the swaddle, shush, and tummy message don’t work, I can tuck him against my side, too, and he drops instantly into slow deep breathing sleep. I am surrounded by the most intimate targets of my loving intention. . My favorite moment because after they wake me and before I fall asleep, I hear my wife’s steady breath and the unven noises of our children.  This is my favorite moment because I know at the most profound level that all is well in the world. The universe stops for a moment. Nirvana and heaven come incredible close to a small rented bedroom in Ohio.
That isn’t a bad place to end each day. That isn’t a bad place to start each day. It’s a great place to live.  It’s a great place to find a taste of paradise and know not just the face of God but the heart and mind of God. The experience kindles  a subtle slow burning intense love that sees through barriers to the unity woven through reality.

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