My first encounter with a live Anthropologist was a university professor. He was known to cut his lawn with a push mower that had a flashlight duck taped to the handle tongue. In his defense for his family, he was in the Who's Who of Anthropologist Journals. From there, it was pretty much knowing what an Anthropologist was until I meet another one some many years later that taught at U Mass, Boston. We meet on Twitter. I must say that our Twitter conversations have been not much more than bantering back and forth, but the man and I have much more in common that the world knows when it comes to facing our own mortality. I have been thinking about that a lots lately since my nearly half year of surgeries and hospitalizations. But, also, he lost a brother at a young age and I lost a son at about the same age. He gets emotional. I get emotional, when it comes up in respectful and loving way in our conversations.
Over the few years that I have know of him, I read his blog. He covers his field of Anthropology in his specialized area with professionalism and gifted spirits! I happen to like that ability. So much, in fact, that when he wrote in one of his last post that I have read, it struck me much like it had taken him from the writing of Dr. Emile Bruneau, a neuroscientist, who recently passed. I'm going to use that quote, which you can read from my Twitter friend and Anthropologist's post at:
The Bruneau quote from the above linked post says:
"I just had a thought: I learned in physics that our physical mass never actually touches another – the outer electrons of each repel, giving us the illusion of touch. As a neuroscientist, I learned that our brains don’t really see the world, they just interpret it. So losing my body is not really a loss after all! What I am to you is really a reflection of your own mind. I am, and always was, there, in you."
Ironically, I had read something to that effect several years ago. Where, I cannot remember. But, it did stick.in my brain for some unique reason. So, when I did see it in my Twitter associate's post, it rang a bell and I became more interested in the context.
The brain is more than just an amazing organ.The scope of what it can do is mind-boggling in or of itself. But, the fact that we can live on in the minds of others is amazing as we remember people of ancient Rome and Greece that we have never meet, but some 2000 years later, there they are. Even just learning about them in a class from high school or college or even a program on the Discovery or History Channel implants something of importance into our mind and we carry that with us and someone behind us does as well. It's a never ending cycle.
Recently, I had also read a quote by Terry Pratchett that read:
"No one is actually dead until the ripples they caused in the world die away."
Mr. Pratchett is none other than Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE.so, here is another example that we live on and as God has proclaimed, through His only begotten son, Jesus, life can be eternal if you believe in Him. That part has never been a problem for me, but the thought of death has not really been a problem either. Yet with the loss of my son, seeing my parents and grandparents pass, has set off a few ripples in my mind. That's why I want to set into motion as many good ripples in the time that I have on this planet that I can send rippling.
Also in my recent readings, I ran across an article in Space that said that our sun has about another 4 billion years of life before we become a black hole and all matter on this planet is used to fuel the nursery of future stars. How do you like them ripples, folks?
