What's in a name?

It's been a long, long time... Had to go back in time to take care of a few matters in Ancient Greece, but I'm back now.
And guess what I find upon my return?
My descendants are fighting over one of our most famous names with those squatters up north!
Yes, I'm talking about Macedonia, of course.
Between you and me I never really liked Alexander too much. Too quick to take out his sword, too eager to get good men killed in senseless wars, too uppity for my tastes. He was, however, a good Macedonian and a great Greek. He spread the ideals and the culture of Greece throughout the known world - and that was no small feat for that time and age.
But back to our current problem. Let's analyze it in the manner we would have done back in my time, during my first incarnation.
Why would a tiny upstart "nation" want to call itself "Macedonia", and more importantly, why should Greece care?
Apparently, neither one of these questions have simple, clear-cut answers.
FYROM (the Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia) was apparently named that way by Tito, with the excuse that the land area was originally part of the Ancient Macedonia. And it was.
After World War II, Macedonia was split into three pieces. One-third was kept by Greece, one-third was given to the Bulgarians and one-third was given to Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia under Tito apparently never had any serious designs to reunite Macedonia, he simply called this Province Macedonia to get on the nerves of the Greeks - and he succeeded.
Tito went a step further. Not satisfied to simply usurp the name, he patiently undertook the long task of teaching every school child born in FYROM after 1946 that they were the actual descendants of the Ancient Macedonians,ergo Alexander the Great was not a Greek but a Slav!
According to Tito's version of history, FYROM is the true Macedonia and all the people who live either in Bulgaria or in Greece are conquered people! Never mind that the Slavs did not appear on the scene until the year 800 AD, never mind that Greek was the spoken language of Macedonia in ancient times and that the Macedonians shared the same culture and the same religion as Athenians and Spartans.
FYROM youths are convinced that they are the true Macedonians - they bought into Tito's propaganda. Therefore, it's only logical that when the time came to choose a name for their newborn country, they would choose "Macedonia".
So what? you might ask. Is Greece afraid of this new, tiny country whose people would be starving if it were not for the financial aid sent by Greece and for the jobs created by Greek businessmen there? It's kind of silly, isn't it? If anything, Greeks should be flattered that their ancient civilization was of such importance that a whole nation would fight hand and tooth to be named as one of the city-states of yore. And the Greeks would indeed be flattered if FYROM was located in the US or in Australia or even in Asia. But hey, guess what? FYROM shares the Macedonian border with Greece. And Bularia next door shares the other Macedonian border with both and is keeping a close eye on what is happening. Of course, they are all gentlemen. No one would ever go so far as to imagine that there would be a dog-eat-dog fight in the Balkans over a piece of land! These things just don't happen on this peaceful Earth!
I do have a vivid imagination!!
Enter the Americans, the Russians and the Europeans. Each one of these super powers have special interests in the Balkans. The Americans would love to have a NATO military base in the heart of the Balkans to keep an eye on Europe and Russia, Russia and Europe don't much like that plan, plus they all have interest in the oil and gas pipes coming in from the Caspian Sea. Hmmm... a quandrum.
How does the silly name of such a small country manage to provoke such passions?
Here it is in a nutshell:
1. Both countries lay claim to the name and passions rise high over it.
2. No one really wants trouble, but no one knows how to avoid it.
3. None of the parties involved have any imagination to come up with an original name for this place.
I suggested "Pseudo-Macedonia" and the Greeks were enthusiastic about it, but it didn't go down too well with the Slavs!
So what's in a name? Possibly the match that will light the fuse to the biggest bomb of the 21st Century.

Time Travel

Believing 10 impossible things before breakfast may be naive... OR it may be required. Certainly, it's the only way one would accept THIS time travel tall story!

This is my story.It all happened on the afternoon the 30th of August. It was a beutiful day and I was on my way home from a job in Färjestaden. When I got home, I found water on the kitchen floor. Somehow there was a leak. I got my tools and opened up the doors to the sink. And started to work.When I reached in to examine the pipes, they seemed to be futher in than I remembered. I had to crawl inside the cabinet, and as I did so, I discovered that it just continued. So I kept on crawling further and further into the cabinet. In the end of the tunnel I saw a light, and when I got there, I realized I was in the future. I meet myself as 72 years old, the year was 2042. I did a lot of tests on him to see if he was really me. And the strange thing is that he knew everything about me. Where I hid my secret stuff when I was in first grade, and what the score was in the soccer match against Växjö Norra in the summer of -88. He knew it all.We even had the same tatoo, although he's was a litte faded. He told me some of the stuff that will happen, but not so much. And I promised not to tell anyone. I made a film with my mobile phone. Unfortunately the quality is not the best. But it´s what I have got. Actually I dont´care if people thinks I am a lier. I know I'm not. I met myself in the future, and I was fine. That's all I know.But if it happened to me it probably must have happened to someone else.Read more about me and my story at www.ingentrormig.nu/Håkan Nordkvist (more)

Reality - the Holographic Universe

We live in very exciting times, possibly the most exciting since the Renaissance! Almost every day that goes by, someone discovers a new phenomenon that forces us to rethink our view of reality.
I ran into this article today that made me review the way I look at the world yet again. Everyone who has a questing mind must read it!
To make a long story short, subatomic particles can communicate with each other over vast distances. So what? you may ask. Well, based on this single fact alone, man as an entity becomes simultaneously much more insignificant and much more significant than ever before.
The insignificance of man stems from his inability to perceive directly the wonderful tapestry of possibilities our universe is. In such a context, nothing that we have considered important really matters - not money, not our job, not politics and certainly not our perceived physical environment.
Still at the same time, man becomes extremely significant. The findings suggest that each and every one of us may be co-creators of the universe we live in, in a dynamic and constantly changing way. Our thoughts and our dreams may be influencing directly both the physical reality we dwell in, as well as the broader cosmic reality that exists beyond our perception.
This gives meaning to the Christian belief that "the one is more significant than the many", a credo that is very much a part of the mystery of the Confession.
We are standing on the doorstep, facing a half-ajar door that leads to tremendous revelations. Some will want to turn their back on the door, afraid of what lies beyond. Others, the more daring, will take that tentative stgep forward, and from that point on our world will never be the same.

"300" the movie

Well, I finally went to see "300". Like most Greeks, I was curious to see how Hollywood portrayed one of our most revered heroes, especially after the botched up jobs of semi-truths and senseatinalism it did with"Troy" and "Alexander".

I was not disappointed. The tradition of Hollywood semi-truths continue in this movie, where Xerxes reminded me of the caricature of a Hindu deity and the Spartans were portrayed just one step from barbarism. Not to mention that monsterous beings abounded, giving more the sense of a "Dungeons and Dragons" game than a historic tale of valour!

Of course, I realize that the move was based on a comic inspired by the historic tale, so I will give it leeway for that. On the other hand, visual impressions stick in our memory, as opposed to historical texts that fade away right after the test, and this worries me. Not that the sight of dozens of muscular men, sacrificing their lives for their country and their beliefs was not exciting. Not that this ideological part is not the truth. It is. Generations of Greek men for thousands of years have gone off to war with the sacrifice and devotion of Leonidas vivid in their mind. The valour they inherited from Leonidas' Spartans, drove Churchill to exclaim after the resistance of the Greeks who were attacked by Moussolini in 1940, "Greeks don't fight like heroes. Heroes fight like Greeks!"

I have read several negative comments in blogs and postings, poo-poohing the idea that the Battle of Thermopylae was heroic or even true. It's a pity that present day cynicism wants to destroy anything that even smells of idealism. I resent that. I confess that I'm a hopeless idealist and have remained one no matter what life has thrown at me. I can understand how the 300 Spartans felt as they stood poised to face thousands upon thousands of armed enemies. I can only aspire to such valor and heroism and sheer stubborness in upholding my ideals.

I wanted to go into detail about the inconsistences of the movie in comparison with the true historic account, however, as I was surfing the net, I found someone who has done it better than I can! Please take a look at this blog I am linking to today, it's worth your time:

"300" the movie: facts and fiction, by Konstantinos Kyriakis. This is one of the best analyses I have found!

Slavery in the 21st Century

We live in the "enlightened" 21st Century. The time many of us dreamed about as the age where man would have matured and become just a bit more noble, caring and responsible. How wrong we were!

As I watched "Blood Diamonds" on CNN two days ago I was dumbfounded by the enormous greediness that has replaced the age of idealism we who are a bit older, grew up with in the 60's and the 70's. The report started my mind to meander back into the definition of slavery and look around a bit to find how Slavery in the 21st Century is being handled.

I found this well-researched but quite disheartening survey by BBC that I believe everyone should study thoroughly. The following paragraph stuck in my mind and darkened my soul:

"Forced labour affects millions of people around the world. It can be found in every region, in almost all countries and in every kind of economy, according to the UN. It is defined as work which is exacted under the menace of a penalty and undertaken involuntarily. Forced labour can be imposed by the state or private agents and takes different forms, including debt bondage, chattel slavery and prison labour. A growing proportion of forced labourers are victims of human trafficking."

Very sombering thoughts.

I can no longer look at the few pieces of jewelry with diamonds I own, without remembering the image of the diamond buyer, who offered one-third of the low price the African was asking for. Only ten thousand dollars for dozens, maybe hundreds of carats of the coveted stones - stones that will sell at four to eight thousand dollars per carat to the starry eyed couple who will want to buy that eternal diamond ring for their engagement.

And that is only one way man is exploiting man and keeping him in slave-like conditions. Modern day slavery takes many forms as the BBC survey shows. It exists right next door, no matter where you live. Men and women are being exploited for gain, for sex, for slave labor and probably for a host of other reasons I cannot fathom.

My thoughts went to another kind of covert slavery very few people realize exists yet in which most of us participate. I am talking about the type of slavery we are inadvertently pulled into in the modern day consumption oriented society. The type of slavery that arises from the urge to buy, buy, buy in combination with banks eager to loan us the money to feed our buying habit with, until we end up owing the value of everything we own, plus almost our entire life's earnings to the banks that so cheerfully gave us those credit cards and loans.

We live and work solely to survive and pay our bills. There is very little opportunity for the majority of people even in the so-called developed countries to actually save or invest. Saving and investing is limited to the small percentage that keeps getting richer by exploiting the rest. You don't feel exploited? When was the last time you bought something you didn't really need? For me, it was yesterday!

If you get up every morning, go to work for someone else, and your paycheck just barely covers your basic needs [and your loans] until the end of each month, then you belong to that nameless, faceless mass that falsely considers itself free. If you have not borrowed money yourself but your government has borrowed so much that each of its citizens would have to work for 30 years to pay off, you too have been indentured.

A few days ago I discussed the Mutable Multiverse. I proposed that we can change our reality by simply focusing on what we want. I still believe this. In society, however, there are group dynamics that interfere. You may be focusing on a good life for yourself and your family, but there is a whole bunch of other people who are focusing on ways to profit in every way they can from you. Which vision will prevail?

The Mutable Multiverse

Only a few hundred years ago, people believed that the Earth was flat and that if you traveled far enough you would fall off the edge. Maps were made of the known lands with Terra Incognita (unknown land) marked at the edges, and if you are a bit fanciful, you might have written There Be Monsters in the margins! Of course, at the time, people also believed that the sun travels over the Earth (possibly in a golden chariot, who knows?) and so did the moon and the stars, which were simply lights in the sky, or the souls of loved ones looking over us or whatnot.

Do you laugh when you read this description? Why should you? It was the belief of millions of people for over one thousand years! In the Orient, people believed that the Earth rode on the back of a turtle, and even Ancient Greeks, who knew the world was round (Eratosthenes had calkculated the circumference of the Earth almost precisely), had a fanciful myth about how Hercules replaced Atlas for a while, probably because Atlas was tired of holding the sky on his shoulders for such a long time.

In time, the thick veil of the Dark Ages was parted and Science began to win ground over Religion and Superstition. Columbus tried to prove that the world was round and found America instead. Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, and a long line of other scientists have been changing our view of what the Universe we live in is like almost continuously, through their research and hard work. Einstein told us that time is relative and that matter is actually energy. Schwartz's, Green's, Hawking's and others' string theory has changed our reality completely, by telling us that everything we see, feel and perceive is nothing more than myriads of invisible strings or chords oscillating in various frequencies bunched in various formations, plus those darn chords never sit still! OK, it's a simplification of a very complex theory but it is the essence of it all.

The solid earth under our feet has become very unstable lately! Our macrocosm has grown immensely, stretching out to encompass millions of new galaxies, while our microcosm has grown just as immensely, digging inward to discover more and more quantum particles and subdivisions of those, trying to get to the essence of it all. We, humans in the middle, have grown tiny and isignificant in comparison, a long way from the anthropocentric cosmos people lived in 1,000 years ago.

Perhaps one of the most exciting theories being dissected at this point in time, is the idea of the Multiverse. This is the idea that the universe around us is not the simple three-dimensional structure we perceive, but is rather composed of 11 or even more physical dimensions that co-exist but could only be perceived if you too were an 11th dimesional being!

Poppycock! you may exclaim... You can comprehend a fourth dimension - time - because you can measure it, but what are 5 to 11 or to infinity? Frankly, I know as much about it as the 13th Century peasant knew about the spherical Earth! For all HE knew, if he travelled too far, he would fall off. For all I know, anything above the 4th dimension is the creation of people with overactive imaginations. Still, the mathematics of it all can't be solved in four dimensions. And why should it be so easily solved after all? Are we humans so self-centered as to imagine that the cosmos is created solely to be perceived by us, with our limited senses?

If we accept that there are an infinite number of dimensions, why not accept that each one of these dimensions can hold a complete other universe, just like the one we live in? As a matter of fact, it has long been theorized that is just exactly what it does. That we don't live in a single Universe, but rather in a Multiverse made up of an infinite number of universes, some of them with physical properties like our own and others possibly ruled by completely different laws of physics.

Now let's take another look. Is the Multiverse static? Of course not. We already know that our own universe is expanding and it is in constant motion. It is constantly changing or mutating with vibrant energy. We can assume that the same or something similar holds true for other universes. Therefore, the Multiverse is not static, it is mutating perhaps quite rapidly.

Let's take this one step further. If the Multiverse is mutating, is it possible that we can effect this mutation - this change? How is it possible that the tiny and insignificant human can effect the infinite Multiverse? One hint is given to us by Dr. Quantum's Double Slit Experiment. I suggest you watch ALL of Dr. Quantums films, they are very informative and quite amazing. The Double Slit Experiment in fact proves that the behavior of matter is effected by the observer. That means that you - your eyes or your instruments can actually change the way the Universe behaves.

How does all this new information effect our daily lives and our immediate, rather boring world? For one thing, it shows us that our world is not boring at all. Rather, it is a miracle occuring continuously and unpredictably! If matter and energy can be effected by the observer, there are probably as many realities as there are observers. This takes us to the very old quandery: If a tree falls and there is no one around, does it make a noise? After all we have learned, we may answer: yes and no. The tree does create a vibrational change when falling, but unless there are ears there to hear it, it's not really "a noise"!

It brings into perspective thoughts and ideas expressed by philosophers through the ages. One that comes readily to my mind is Emile Zola's theory in his novelette "Huis Clos" (Dead End), where he surmises that "truth is in the eyes of others". Do we exist if there is no one there to observe us? DesCartes boldly stated "Je pense, donc je suis" (I think therefore I am), but perhaps in view of our new knowledge, this should be amended to "I am observed, therefore I exist"!

Let's assume that all of you who are reading this DO exist - what does the fact that you live in an ever-changing Mutable Multiverse have to do with you? For one thing it makes you responsible for your reality! You are influencing your environment as much as it is influencing you. Your reality can change, if you only will it to change. Perhaps not in a magical, hocus-pocus way (think of a car you want and it will appear in front of you), but in small imperceptible ways that set the course that shapes the things to come. Your world can be a good world if you believe it is so and act upon that belief, or it can be a bad world if you do the opposite.

We have taken a long journey today from a flat world to an ever-changing universe we can influence to suit our needs. It is a lot to digest and perhaps for some hard to swallow. It makes no difference, because each one of us lives in the world we are constantly creating for ourselves, and truth is only the truth we believe in - for us!

The Value of Health

Some years ago, I translated into English an old Greek series called "Loxandra" (pet name for Alexandra, f. for Alexander). It takes place shortly before the expulsion of all Greeks from Constantinople at the beginning of the last century, and is a fantastic portrait of the way of life of the Greek community in Asia Minor at the time.

What does all this have to do with health? I'll tell you. Loxandra's husband relates an old adage about the value of health and since health is a huge concern of mine, I thought I would repeat it. It goes like this...

"When you have health, you have one (1).
When you also have a house, you add a zero (0) and it becomes a ten (10).
If you have money, you add another zero and it becomes one hundred (100).
The more things you have, the more zeros you add.
However, if you don't have your health, you no longer have the one (1).

All you are left with is a whole lot of zeros."

I wish you the best of health!