Annoying? Yes. But dammit!

When you really don't feel like doing housework, or something, these old maxims can indeed change your attitude to help you get the job done.

• A place for everything, and everything in its place
• A stitch in time saves nine
• And ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
• Make hay while the sun shines
• Well begun is half done
• Work hard. Play harder.
• Just keep swimming

Society to Inform a Far Future

Announcing my creation of the "Society to Inform a Far Future" aka STIFF.

The objective of this society is to develope ways to inform some future sentient beings of the mistakes that lead to the extinction of the current so-called dominant sentient being - the human race - in the hope that they will not repeat these mistakes.

Assuming the current human culture messes up the biosphere - Gaia - to the point where humans become extinct, I predict it will take at least two million years before another sentient species arises to a similar level of debatable intellignce as humans are now.

Gaia is currently collapsing as a result of human activity and will return to a state of not much more than simple bacteria.

I also assume evolution will once again result in a sentient species, but this will not occur until Gaia has once again reached a suitable state.

It is one task of STIFF to develope ways to leave behind information in some form that will deteriorate only a little over the next two million years to tell the new sentients, or even visitors from another planet, what happened to us, why it happened, and how they can avoid the same mistakes and repeat the same successes.
My ideas include such things as embedding part of the human genome in bacterial cultures, carving messages inside mountains - since the current mountains will erode, the messages need to be buried where they will be exposed in two million years, and sending radio waves off to an object one million light years away where they will bounce back and return to earth two million years from now.
The other task of STIFF is, of course, to decide what messages to leave behind. Please post in the comments your ideas on how to accomplish these task and indicate whether you would like to join this society.
Á Gaia

An Actually Important Moments (Topics) Database

How about a website (let me know if there is one already) set up like that I M D B dot com of actually important topics and the people involved.

Yes, instrad of a movie as the main grouping for a cast of charaters, it could be an important topic, like Conservation, say, for example; or climate change, or civil rights.  And the list of characters would be populated by the individuals (or groups, or critters, or what have you) who had a major influence on that topic and the year(s) of their involvement.

"Conservation" starring so-and-so, directed by you-know-who, music by that-group-that-wrote-a-song-about it, and so on. Set up with links and bios, photos and trivia, and major quotes just like the movie database.

I mean, wikipedia is great but the layout is too textbookish to make it truly browsable.  Topics set up like the movie database would be more fun to click around.  The fun things about the movie database are seeing what else that actor has been in, seeing who they worked with, and maybe a bit of gossip in their bios.

So, really important stuff - a different format for history subjects and current issues, and the history of thise issues.

After A While by VS

"After A While"     © 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall

( Author's note:  This poem has been plagiarized, bastardized, renamed, reworded, redesigned, expanded and reduced.  But it is my work, which I wrote at the age of 19 and had published in my college yearbook.  Why anyone would want to claim it is beyond me, but for what it's worth, I wrote it, and if I'd known it was going to be this popular, I'd have done a better job of it. - V.S. ) 

Her website:  Her Link appears no longer functional.

---

"After a While"

After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn't mean leaning

and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down

in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn...

© 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall

And so the dream continues

And so the dream continues

All awareness comes to this

All is distraction, all is dreaming.

A special insanity, some would say.

A day, a day, a day.

Hold the valley

Hold the valley inside you

Awash between your bits, strobed by memories flowing

Hold the fragrance of orange mandarin honeysuckle and red ripe strawberries

     The gently-piercing buzz of clay-coloured sparrows

          drawing attention to the trembling air

For the dark winter

Hold the smell of wet, fresh, early-winter snow

          Ozone mixed with seeped iron

     The sparkle of cold snowflakes

     The muffled world-sounds after a heavy snow

          Together alone, this city

For the hot summer

Hold the bright mountain storms of high clouds and fine rain

For blinding August afternoons

Hold the comforting cup of Steeples and Fisher

     Nigh and Teepee and Lakit, and Bootleg

     and Puddingburn

For thick forest and other places

Of the valley and clay grasslands

For, whenever hidden, to call forth, to bide
In dusk and dawn and mid, and other vicinities

Hold these always

Every day is a beautiful day