The stuff of life

A nod to food lover’s celebration of National Croissant Day.

Last night, while I was working on the computer, my wife watched a television show centered on competing celebrity cooks.  One of the cooks, named Rachael, commented that a guest on the show, her publicist, was her closest friend only because she paid him to be (or something like that).  I’m sure she was joking but the look on the guy’s face…well, I won’t watch another show with my wife when that particular celebrity cook is on.  Either her jokes fall flat or her friends are being paid enough to pretend to like her.

Besides, here in the States, the quinessential professional sporting event that centers on husky guys bashing their minds to pieces is coming up — the NFL Super Bowl, of course.

Speaking of which, will the Indianapolis Colts survive as a/n inter/national brand if a new quarterback takes the helm from an elitist school like Stanford?  It’s one thing to be good or even great at the position — it’s another to be the complete “regular guy” package, John Elway an example of the exception rather than the rule.

Enough of the chattering.  Time to give the reluctant leader his word on the state of the world economy:

Last night, as the Committee debated whether Greece should be more intricately tied into the global indebtedness scheme or cast aside as worthless chattel, I looked at the Committee members’ face, hooded as they are beneath a variety of caps, hats, hairstyles and heavy eyelids.

What were they thinking?  I can look back at supercomputer analysis of their previous behaviour and make a well-educated guess as to what they’ll do/say next, but in those moments before they speak or act, can I assess, can I surmise, can I imagine the vast difference between how their brains work and how the brains work of non-Committee members?

Therefore, I turned up the sensitivity of the brain readers mounted in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room to answer my question.

The results amazed me.  It was not only the individual brains that astounded but also the smooth transition between chemical emissions of the individuals, basically how their/our whole bodies acted as one at the molecular level, that impressed me.

Which made me realise we are one species on one planet as always.

No matter how we decide to treat the disparity between the Greek economic output and monetary inflow, we must still deal with them — the Greek people and their in/efficient enterprising ways — as part of our species’ total interaction.

In other words, if the density of people per square hectare in certain parts of the world — I’m thinking of India and China, especially, but can think of other places, too, such as Bangladesh — encourages them to continue their outward migration, would Greece remain Greece if the traditional inhabitants loosely associated with descendancy from those Greeks who formed what we think of classic Greek art/architecture/philosophy/science (i.e., “Ancient Greece“) were completely replaced with people from other cultures, who may or may not have completely assimilated?

You get where this going, don’t you?  Are the Committee members dedicated to preserving Greece as the seat or foundation of Western Civilisation even if the people of Greece are no longer related to the founders of Ancient Greece?

Ultimately, are economic decisions purely economic?  After all, we aren’t unemotional robots moving numbers in a spreadsheet.  Culture still plays a part in our daily lives.

How do we want sub/culture — past, present and future — to influence us at the superficial and molecular level?

I guess the reluctant leader would like a view 1000 years from now to tell him which decisions worked best, wouldn’t he?

Let’s save that view for another blog entry.  Time for more music…