Analog vs Digital

This weekend, thanks to a lucky invitation from my wife's uncle Mark, we ended up at the Madras Airport in Bend OR.  My wife and I slept under the stars, watched sky divers in squirrel suits, saw Nasa's setup, visited an air museum and watched some amazing war birds fly into Madras returning to the museum all in awaiting for the main event, the total eclipse.

None of this could prepare us for the main event.  After the eclipse reached about 30% the temperature started noticeably dropping and the lighting changed dramatically.  The lighting started to look like the lighting in many video games.  Sun-like but redder and far less intense than normal sunlight.  The temperature kept dropping and as the sun diminished to sliver we started to check out eclipse goggles more frequently until we finally watched the last moments to totality.

When the sun went completely behind the moon, it was a completely different world that I was not prepared to experience.  Suddenly, the sun was just a black disc with an aura of light emanating form it that you could no longer see through eclipse goggles but only with the naked eye.  You could see a few other stars in the sky which was uncannily like twilight.  It was cold.  Not quite as cold as night but I wished that I had left my jacket on.  I could feel this experience changing me as it passed before my senses.

Our house would have seen a partial eclipse of 99% and it would've taken no effort to watch from the deck in the back but this wouldn't have been seeing the eclipse totality.  I had a lot of time to think about the eclipse on the long ride home, six hours actually.   I sat in the car, completely covered in dust from two days of being in the dirt and gravel and rolling up the tent, my extensor digitorum longus aching from the brake, release exercise it wasn't ready for .  I never once had the feeling that it wasn't worth the effort and discomfort.

In this long ride, I began pondering the nature of our analog and digital universe.  The eclipse was a good analogy of my thoughts. I had seen a few eclipses before and although they were very interesting to me, they did not leave an impression on my like this one did.  This one was a completely different experience.  In fact, within the eclipse, there were completely different experiences.  This eclipse felt like both a digital and analog experience.  Analog in that every fraction of the sun that was covered was incrementally better and more exciting than the previous one but digital in that you either see an eclipse in the path of totality or you don't.

Analog and digital in co-existence is the nature of our universe and life.  It is a paradox that cannot be unraveled in our existence.  Scientists and theologians are equipped to intellectually unpack this for us and yet completely at a loss as to help us experience it.  It is something you just have to experience and identify for yourself and at the same time can be experienced in degrees that are your own.

The Source of Ambition

If you've ever accomplished something that took a long time and great effort, you have received a taste of fulfillment.  For me, unfortunately, this feeling is usually short lived without continuous effort unto some other difficult task which I deem worthwhile.  At which time, I subject myself to suffering to learn and accomplish something new.  There are others which seem to derive a lifetime of pleasure from their accomplishments and are still living off the memory of something long ago accomplished or something bigger which they had a hand in.

Until recently, I have known little bounds to my ambitions.  Really, though that ambition was to seek a new accomplishment which would give me that feeling of accomplishment which would comfort me during times of suffering or great effort.  I know compared to some, my life has had little suffering and much of it in the past ten years has been self-imposed and pushes me toward some greater goal of learning, skill or accomplishment.

Only recently through the study and further acceptance of God's will have I found any kind of lasting fulfillment.  The more I learn, the more questions I have but the more fulfilled I feel.  It's the normal paradox that stems from the familiarization of yourself with any vast body of knowledge or skill, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.  This lack of knowledge to accomplish a task is often what drives me to further study and practice of the field.

This paradox and motivational method does not spread to spiritual growth.  Spiritual growth asks something of your spirit and in doing so fulfills your spirit which transcend even my own powerful desire to master a skill or knowledge.  Thus by the fruits of the Holy Spirit, I am driven onward, not by my lack of God or spirituality.  One nibble on the spiritual bread is enough to get me from here to Mordor and back.