Last night I watched The Iron Giant with J. I love his taste in movies. He likes animated stuff just as much as I do, which is no mean feat. And what a good one this was. For sure, I cried with my head on his shoulder. "Superman." Ach.

After the movie, we had a good personal conversation, about people in our past and the things we believe in.

I mentioned that I think the relationship we have with our past mirrors the relationship we have with other people. Psychological studies have shown that people can be more different from themselves at various points in time than they are different to other people. I use the idea of past lives a lot. And I don't necessarily mean a life before I was born, although that could be true too. What I mean by that is, personalities I've been and am not now. I mean, easily, three years ago in Santa Cruz was a past life. A different person.

So the way you look at those past personalities is the way you look at other people who themselves move into those roles. They are easily as different or less different from you-now.

I mentioned how I thought it was a neat idea, that all the different people in the world, everyone you come across, you are surrounded by your past and future lives. J said that sounded kind of creepy. But I think it's a hell of an incentive to treat other people well. I mean, if you're affecting your past life for the positive, aren't you affecting your present for the positive too? Absolutely! And wouldn't you want to be that amazing person in your past life, that wonderful one who inspired you, helped you, gave you that crucial break? Think about the most wonderful person in your life, the one who changed you for the better, how good that felt. It would be sweet to be that person for yourself. So easily, that other person is you, and you are that person in your life.

And if you look at it that way, it's not hard to imagine how time fluxes, the past affecting the future and the future affecting the past. It's actually pretty easy, if you're not thinking that time has to be linear.
That's going to be one of those things in the future that they'll laugh about. Not they--we. "Ha! Can you believe we thought time was linear! A straight line, as though you couldn't touch the past and future! We were delusional! Insane!" I know I'm smiling.

Oh yeah, so the thing about time, I didn't mention that to J. It's implicit though, right?
But after he left, I was on a roll. I remembered this quote that someone's aunt said, "Do your best, and Be Kind." And I went off on a etymological trip. Here's the record of that:

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"Do your best, and Be Kind." --from the cushion of someone's aunt

Be Kind.

What is that supposed to mean? We know it as Be Nice. What is kind?

We are of the same kind.
Of like kind.
Kindness.

Kin?
Be Kin?

We are of the same kin. We are family. Be family to them. Be family to others.
We are of the same family.

family n. 2. The members of one household. 3. A group of persons related by blood or marriage. 4. A group of like things; class. [from the Latin familia, household]

What is family?

Famished. Famine. Oxfam, the organization that feeds people.
Food. Hunger. We share the same desires, we need to eat. We exist here together. To continue doing so, to stay alive, we must eat. If we value this existence together, we must eat.

Family: those in a household. Those who share food. Food is life. Sharing food = sharing life.

Communion. To commune, to be together. It is not about bread turning into skin and sinew. The point is that we eat together. That we are family in the same house. To remember that we are kin.

Eating together says, I want to be here with you. I want to stay, I do not want to die. Even if it means I have to work to pay the mortgage. Even with uncertainty and burdens. I will stay, I will eat.

And I will feed you too, because I want you to be here with me.

Shared life. Shared experience. We are hungry together. Family. Be kin.

Be Kind.
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I know, I'm so hokey, but that's really the thought process I went through, almost word for word. And then I sent it to the fam+friends, to let them know that I'm a sentimental genius.

My banner was just approved. It just says, "We fell into a perfect waltz step." That's from the last entry. I figure, okay, that covers people who are in love and people who like dancing. And people who like being mystified. So the bases are loaded, and I'm stepping up to bat.

11:32 a.m. 2003-10-04�