Into the 59th hour of sleeplessness and other things I wish were fiction

It's entirely true that as I write this, I'm now past 58 hours of sleeplessness.

Being an experimenter, I wanted to see what I could do in this state, yet I don't even know what to test out.  Thinking in preparation or any type of project is hard.  It's exactly like looking into your mind for answers your know are there and they've locked themselves away down in a locked part of your subconscious.  The conscious mind itself is devoid of activity, mostly.  I'm only relatively aware of my immediate surroundings.

None of us are strangers to fatigue--the monopoly on insomnia is not mine--yet this is a level that I have only passed maybe 10 or 15 times before.

Typically, as is the case tonight, the force that keeps me awake is physical pain with some arthritis problems that I have in my spine.  What happens isn't all about pain, though.  For some reason, as my lady would testify, once I've gone 36 hours awake, I often get very nervous about sleeping until after 48 have passed, and then I can (or have to) crash.  It's this odd feeling, like since I'm so exhausted from having been awake for 36 or more hours, I fear I'll sleep so hard I'll die.

Ever heard of anything like that?

Well, might as well try a few experiments here or descriptions.

I'll start with one truth here; the importance of any opinion piece--of any blog, really--is immediately diminished after only being awake for just 24 hours.  One begins to wonder, "Why bother?"  While I can easily wonder that while fresh, I can quickly answer, "Because I like it.  I like to share the experiences of life and get feedback and maybe help to spread understanding in my own little way, through my own little insights; one more flavor of chips in the vending machine, Kevin's mind tries to be."  That's generally the feeling, but right now, it's like I can't even understand what a blog is.  I wonder if I ever really did.

The TV is on; I usually watch stuff on NetFlix because I can get my WWII stuff and science stuff through that, and it's a really cheap subscription of around eight bucks per month through the Wii, added to our meager satellite plan.  I hear and see it, but it's harder to understand not only what I'm looking at, but to figure out what I think I'm looking at while also taking in the auditory information simultaneously.  I find myself watching this Hitler underground caves/roadways special and although the story is well-told and quite factual, I often forget what the documentary is about.  Is it about bread lines?  Wait, that was more of a Russian thing.  Oh, it was his bunker; no, shit, this is about his larger underground factory, transport and hangar systems.  Ok, got it.  Now they are talking about gas penetrating into the shutters  yet before that, they said why it wouldn't work, and I can't remember why that was.  And this was literally stated to me 20 or 30 seconds ago.  Every frame is starting to look the same; rocks, caves, underground with modern-day scientists/flashback to WWII, sometime in early 1945 before they surrendered, those clips mostly come from.  The narrator, who speaks perfect English with only the very slightest English accent, seems to be saying nothing.  I catch words.  "Rejected, empty, nothing, shelters, air raids, humidity, authorities."  In a sentence, this documentary, which I would normally rate about an 8 or high 7 on my need-to-know scale as it applies to my interest in that part of history, isn't making sense, and won't be remembered by me, I suspect.

As I sit here typing, I'm making more mistakes than usual.  My fingers are moving slowly, compared to my normal medium speed.  I often don't look when I'm typing, right now, with my head laying back on my recliner as I type.  To look, as I am again now, makes my neck feel like it's trying to support a pallet of cinder blocks   The typing mistakes, normally limited to one word I have to fix in a paragaph, are popping up every 3rd or 4th word on average.  I'm losing my ability to think and execute the motor functions of the type required to type.

There is a general fuzziness to all I see and hear, like it's not really happening here, but in a recording from a week or two ago.

I'm disturbed more by sensory issues.  While the normal moderate to severe pains of my conditions rule the largest block of my perceptions, still, it is not them that make my skin crawl right now.  It is other things.  It is the feeling of my socks on my skin--I don't like it, they feel like sandpaper and they are actually very nice, padded, Carhart socks, not a month old.  When I put my right hand on my mouse pad, I can feel a cool dampness from where I have sweat on it, and I can't stand it.  I have to get up now.  It has been about twenty minutes, I think, since I started this post.  Time--the accurate perception of time... that's the first thing to go after even 24 hours.  At this point, I nearly have no concept of it.  I just guessed that I had written about six paragraphs, with lots of pauses and mistakes.  (I just counted; it was technically eleven paragraphs, and that tells me a lot).

I'm taking a break now; just for one moment.

While on a break, I tried to remember what the date was and couldn't.  I guess the 21st, and that was only one day off, and that's actually not bad for me.  I also realized on my five minute break that I was writing this whole piece more for me.  It's a reference piece--not just to show my difference in thinking and writing performance but so that I can look at areas of the novels that I have written and possibly recognize when I was writing tired, for better or worse.

If I honestly try to compare this state of mind, right now, to my state of mind when I've had rest and a coffee, I can actually do that pretty well, at least I think.  I realize how broken (I just had to think for at least 15 seconds to decide on the word "broken") my thoughts and the resulting writing is between the two states of alertness.  Not just from paragraph to paragraph (if you asked me to summarize, right now, what I had said in my first few paragraphs, I have no idea and I'm not cheating--I think I introduced the challenge of the fatigue as I saw it and how it would affect my writing, but I don't remember.  I literally cannot remember what I wrote 20 or 30 mins ago in this very post) but from word to word and sentence to sentence.  A regular question that rises in my mind as I write all this tonight is, "Where are you coming from with this sentence from the last, and where are you going to go?"  I have yet to answer it, except on the break, when I sat in a dark room with no stimulus other than cold (an enclosed back porch).

I know I should write more--I know that this could become valuable to me, this knowledge of how the sleepless Kev has written--yet it holds dramatically little importance in my mind.  I need to get the socks off, and stop thinking for a while.  Maybe I'll write another post hours from now.  I know I should.  I know, deep down, there is value in it, however trivial.  But right now, the dominating thought of this state of mind is the constant thought that I don't care.  So, until later.  (I will spell correct; there are many to be done, which is not at all normal for me--I will not move paragraphs around, restructure, or correct for dashes, hyphens, or other silly stuff).

If you bothered reading through this, I hope you don't feel your time was wasted.

Tonight, I May Tell You a Lie

While the true date was January 31st, 2013, I entered a time warp.  And everything I'm about to write must, therefore, be a lie.

I was instantly in WWII, leading a group of four other commandos, like myself.  Our objective was a simple reconnaissance mission, and although we had to leave it earlier than we would have liked to, we did accomplish the mission.

That was secondary to the action, though.

It was 11:00 p.m., and as I rode my super-stealth scooter, muffled and quiet by its inferior engine size, I was late, but had already communicated with the four commandos I would end up leading, even though we all went into the mission as equals.  They forgave me early.  As I sat in a mess hall, before the mission, I had a feeling--a gut feeling, which I always listened to but didn't on this night--that the enemy would spot our transport vehicles and be on our tails soon after we entered their territory.  I kept this feeling in as I rode toward our rendezvous point, where they in a car and I on my scooter turned our motors off and began our deliberate, camouflaged, quiet march directly past enemy guard shacks, as we had before, and into the heart of enemy-held ground.

You never really get used to the nervous feeling of going past those shacks--it's not that you fear they will do anything, per se--you fear that they will notify some larger force that then really has a chance to take out your squad.  That was the real fear.

On this night, that's exactly what happened--that fear had been realized.  A bigger force had been notified, and was hot on our trail.

But we wouldn't know it until the search lights boomed on, shining through the windows of the building we were in.

But well before that, at 11:20 or so, we confidently entered the building, snapping our reconnaissance photos and recording sensitive audio signals.  We ran ultra-high technology tests to see if a certain type of enemy was present--an enemy that had proven extremely elusive in prior missions.  While we were satisfied that we had captured more than enough information to call the mission accomplished, for the operational part, anyway, we weren't satisfied with the amount of data and wanted to stay longer.

That's when one of the commandos, whom I'll call the Scot, said, "Lights."  We immediately dimmed our own sources of lights and stepped into a hallway, out of the range of the lights, between doors and windows, just barely.  Being the oldest among us at 40, I did feel a responsibility and thereby did start advising on what to do.  "Keep perfectly quiet," I said.  "Your camera is still emitting light," said another commando, who I'll call the Black Irish.  I said to her, "Just leave it on but drop it into my bag."  I didn't want her to accidentally snap a photo, setting off a flash, if she tried to turn it off and made a mistake, and the search lights lit up the whole of the building as the patrol moved around it, lighting it from both sides.  They were 15 feet from us at their closest point.

Three lady commandos and two men, we were.  The ladies all seemed very calm, and so did the Scot.  It was me who was the most energized--I suspect because I felt that for our survival, I must come up with the right plan, but I was not the leader.  We were just a group; just a team.  After the lights turned off and the patrol seemed to move away, I knew better--I had seen the tactic used before.  I said, "They're pretending to be gone, to see if we'll come pouring out.  We have to stay here, dead quiet, with no lights, for a while."  They agreed.

As we sat and whispered incredibly quietly, I could not help but tell them what was on my mind.  "I knew it!" I said with as much of an exclamation as you can have in the softest whisper.  "When I was there tonight, in the mess hall, my gut told me that a patrol would come, and would know we were somewhere near.  And I didn't listen to it, and it's always right--I knew it!  I will never ignore that instinct again."

We sat there, silent, in the dark, listening to our own hearts beat in our ears, wishing it wasn't happening so we could hear the outside better.

"Here's what we can do," I suggested.  The Scot and I knew the area already, whereas the Black Irish, Daughter of Elder, and the third woman whom I'll call the Silent Thinker, had seen the area few times before.  "If we go out the way we came in, taking the lane out to the main road, we can just do our normal routine of pretending to be civilians since I still believe the patrol is waiting out there, by the main road we followed in.  Or, we can go out the back way, loop wide around the building, and move through a patch of trees to the beach, which is neutral territory, and then we can re-join the main road some distance up the beach and certainly pass as civilians.  The problem is that if we go and loop around, there is terrible barbed wire that will probably cut us up a little."

Daughter of Elder asked, "What does your gut tell you now?"  She caught me off-guard with the question... I had not yet considered my gut feeling.  I had only just begun weighing the two options.  After a moment, though, that feeling crystallized to some degree and emerged.  "To be honest, my gut says we should loop around and go for the beach."  "If they find us, though, just leaving down the main lane out to the main road, won't we just as easily pass as civilians?  We should hardly be arrested," she said.  "Probably, but civilians on enemy ground are far more suspect than civilians on neutral ground."

We all agreed to go for the beach.  The weightiest factor was probably that my gut feeling had already proven perfectly sharp that night.

I said, "Follow me; we're going to move slow."  I believed that the enemy patrol may still be as close as 20 or 30 feet away, and now we were walking only with small patches of light that the gibbous moon leaked through some of the broken windows, into the hallway that led to our exit--every step on broken plaster or wood fragments worried us... every creak and groan and crack sound was certain to be the one that would give us away.

We moved slowly and deliberately to the exit, looping long around as planned, and then looked as best we could down the lane to see if the patrol was still there.  We could see none, yet we knew that the beach would be the safest bet, even though we would have to pass more guard shacks to get there.  After a brief discussion of options, it was a unanimous vote to continue on the path to the beach.

The guard houses we had to pass were ones we had never even reconned before.  We didn't know if they would have dogs, or if they had automatic trip wire that would illuminate an area where it was activated.  As we moved down a small road toward the beach, between two guard shacks, I stopped them just before we got to the shacks.  My gut was speaking again.  "I have a feeling this area may be rigged with alerts, so I think we should run these last 30 yards to the beach."  There wasn't agreement, but no disagreement.  We ran for it.  The moment we started, I could feel my legs vibrating and going numb as the pain of my conditions shot through my low back and up my right knee.  The truth is that I had been ordered not to run, at all, but if they had known that, I would have been pushing papers in some supply depot somewhere if the word got out... but it went off without a hitch; there were no alerts, no dogs, and no guards saw us.  We were out of harms way for the moment, but deep down, we knew we would face the patrol eventually.  Lady of Elder was attacked by the rare creature on the beach known as the Dock of Prey, but she quickly neutralized it and shook off her pain.  While my own pain was still growing by the second, I masked it with occasional stops in our walk to shift the weight in my body away from the most painful areas.

We came up with a new story since we couldn't use our original cover story due to the area we would be emerging from when the patrol found us.  We batted the details back and forth--discussed what curve balls the patrol might throw our way in any line of questioning.  We molded a plan, whispering as we walked.

After the tension of the previous hour, which included our penetration of enemy lines, strategic reconnaissance  and impromptu escape, I noticed a thing that we had all been ignoring.  "Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers," I said.

The moonlight, so bright then, was just dimmer than a setting sun, casting a wide, white path of ripples on the bay.

We did stop, and look, and admire.  We all know from previous experience that it was these moments that life was made of--these moments, of seeing beauty at a time when the odds wouldn't even have you alive--these moments were the fruit of defying the odds.  The moonlight, on the small waves, was vibrating like a thousand glowing violins moving to the same conductor.  Even in the cold breeze, it was a remarkable and spell-casting sight.  We were stunned by the beauty of the moment in every way.  And then, as commandos do, we marched on to face our fate.

Not two minutes into our walk as civilians down the main road, the patrol spotted and stopped us.  As I saw it approach, I think we all considered finding cover, but I said, "Be calm, and just act normal.  You are entirely within your right to be here right now; you are just civilians, and you know our story."

The pulled near, and questioned us briefly.  We stuck to our story, and while they didn't seem satisfied with it, they didn't have enough reason to waste more time interrogating us.  As we continued on down the road, we told quiet jokes among ourselves, mostly about how ineffective the patrol had been in not finding us, and then in letting us slip right through their hands in plain sight.  It's hard not to joke about it--it's entirely unbelievable.  But it happened.

Those four commandos went on their way in their vehicle and I went mine after some chat about the war and other odds and ends.  While I don't believe in destiny or predetermined futures, I couldn't help but find the strangest irony in this night.  As I rode my super-stealth scooter back down the road to return to my base, I remembered thinking back to when I said, "Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers..." That sentence reverberated in my head, mesmerizing me even as I rode down the road, thinking back to saying it while seeing the moonlight.  "Smell the flowers..." and it was in that instant that I ran over an already dead skunk in the road, which made my scooter smell just like him, even after extensive washing.

Was it a balance?  Was it required that if one got to smell roses one night, he would have to smell a skunk on the same night?  Is the price for moments of beauty simply moments of ugliness?  I don't know, but it seemed like more than chance was at work that night for the five of us.  There seemed to be an unplanned perfection in it.  Those are the nights people remember for a lifetime, where the full range of the senses is employed, the full range of emotions crosses through the heart and mind, and the full meaning of the utter simplicity in existence gongs like a church bell in the highest tower... that night was a symphony of flawless effort and perfect balance that I was happy to have conducted, for a little while, back in WWII.

Let's Give Reality a Little Bath, Eh?

Nobody is coming to take your guns.  The moon landing was real.  9-11 wasn't an inside job, nor was Sandy Hook.

I studied psychology, but I'm not a PhD., so I have no professional reputation to protect, meaning I can be real, which means I'm here to set some of the paranoid or otherwise incorrect folks straight because this is getting a tad bothersome.  Let's cut the shit, huh?

Nobody at work is planning your demise; people are consumed with their own lives.  If you refuse to learn enough about your constitution to know how well it protects you from your government, fuck you.  I and others are tired of explaining it.  Small people dislike other people for the simple infraction of not thinking exactly like the small person thinks.  How much were you worried about Y2K and Dec. 21st, 2012?  Was it worth it?  

The government isn't building FEMA camps to lock you up so they can take over.  The Anunaki are not returning (but aliens are real, and it's time to get real about it--whether they've visited here is still up for debate, but some awful respectable eye witnesses have seen much...).  We will be permanently established on the moon and Mars before 2050.  We'll be on other moons by 2100, and on our way out of the solar system by 2150.  That's a good thing, because giant asteroids are real.

There is not a small group of secret society people running the world.  The world is run by demand, trust, religion, and raw military strength.  No white person alive ever owned a slave in America, and no black person alive ever served as one.  While America is and always will be a great center of possibilities, the dollar has taken her over.  With religion dwindling here and the power of money growing, it's time for people to make sure they have a personal constitution of goodness within them and that they are teaching it to their kids; a constitution that is loss-of-faith-proof and corruption-proof.

There is no grand evil going on in Washington.  Our government is an assembly of people we grew up beside, not machines.  They are your neighbors.  While they are highly susceptible to influence, there are still plenty strong enough not to sell out your clean air for a pair of tickets to a basketball game.  Think about this; every 2-4 years of your life, the American government has changed.  Has your view of them changed every 2-4 years?

Before you post anything online, would you please have the common courtesy to Google it and make sure it doesn't pop up on one of the scam sites?  Spreading false fear is worse than generating real fear, and I hope a day comes when people are accountable for it legally.  Neither the Chupacabra, nor Bigfoot, are real.  The jury is still out on sea monsters.  I before E except after C?  Bullshit.

Your company can't make money by paying everybody a million zillion bucks a year.  If you feel like you are getting screwed, go start your own company and hire some people and pay them what you wanted; tell us how that works out.  Dr. Phil is a prick.  Dr. Drew isn't.  999 out of every 1,000 things you are scared will happen won't.  And stop fucking with skaters/cyclists/scooter and motorcycle riders/pedestrians.  Somebody is gonna pull out a gun and cap your ass.  Keep playin.'

Learn to park in a single parking space.  Learn to stay to the right if people are trying to go faster than you.  If somebody stays in the left lane on an empty road, zip around to the right, pass them, cut them off and ride the brakes for a while.  The message will get through.  You can always try high beams first.  If you are a tailgater, I hope you choke on cut bait.  If somebody is tailgating you, go slower, and slower, and sloooowwwwweeerrrrrr until they give you a car length or two.  People will learn.  

You are no more or less important or meaningful than anybody else.  Anybody.

Hanging around negative people and harboring negative thoughts will guarantee that you do not attain happiness.  Either let them go, or let happiness go; it's a simple choice.

If you play your music so loud in your car that I have to cover my ears, you are probably a tiny-pricked teen male, insecure in every way, and I hope you shit your bed every night for the rest of your life.  The world you are on?  That's a shared deal.  Somebody's gonna snap on you one day, and your life will never be the same.  Turn the shit down or get some headphones if your mark of success is the implosion of your own eardrums.

Your religion is not one bit more legitimate than any other religion out there that can't be proven as fact.  Don't try to sell me anything you can't show me.  Seriously.  I will embarrass you.

Women can do anything men can.

Global warming is increasing because of mankind's behavior.  Do us a favor; if you're going to believe in any conspiracy, please, please, please don't let it be global warming.  If it turns out to be a giant hoax, I'll let you ridicule me and throw fruits at me in a public square for the rest of my life, but at the very least, entertain it as a possibility, and live as such.  There are 1,000 easier ways industry could have created spoof needs.  They could have run with West Nile virus protection or the skin cancer rates that are shooting through the roof.  They could be opening entire malls dedicated to personal self-defense or water treatment.  This is real.  It is measurable.  Carbon emissions have never been as high as they are today--nowhere even close!  

You'll never be perfect.  You'll never be happy if you keep comparing your life to the illusions people are showing you about their lives.  Assume you'll never win the lottery, and if you're blowing the grocery money on it, you deserve whatever happens.  Take a damned statistics class.

Just because you see somebody standing, walking, or smiling, doesn't mean they're ok.  There are a million very real problems or conditions they could be suffering with.  If you get nothing else from this blog post, please take away this fact--you do not know what any other human being is going through at any time, regardless of what his or her face may say.

Class dismissed.  Read chapter four of "I Actually Fucking Started Thinking."  There will be a quiz.

Get Ready for This, This for Ready Get

Do you remember learning about the true speed you are moving while at rest as a kid? The true speed after Earth's speed is calculated in? If you don't remember it, you're not alone. If you do remember it, what you learned was wrong. Tonight, I went stumbling down a path that led me to a place where philosophy, psychology, physics, and astronomy came together for a little party.  

I don't remember learning how fast we are actually moving through space... I remember reading somewhere when I was young about the Earth's rotation speed, but that's it—or maybe I wasn't curious enough to read more.

As an adult, I have been. It's funny because when my dad was alive, we weren't very close and when he found out I was majoring in psychology and English, he was surprised. He said he would have guessed I would major in astronomy. I never understood that. I wasn't a space guy; I thought the Star Wars movie was cool when it came out, but I only saw it once. I never owned an action figure or anything else related to Star Wars. I saw a few episodes of Star Trek which, like any Western, put me straight to sleep. My dad died a few years back, and I never really thought about his statement until recently, because over the past 10 years, I've taken a fairly strong interest in what's outside of our atmosphere, and it had nothing to do with the power of suggestion or wanting to somehow please a parent.

It started with ghost hunting.

Back in 2000, up in Vermont, I was looking for a hobby because I had just had a back surgery and had to figure out something to do, besides write, that didn't involve too much physical activity. I would stake-out local paranormal hot-spots, investigate hauntings that made people afraid and occasionally train my time-lapsed video camera on houses that had had suicides.

A friend that I met after I formed a little internet group called Paranormal Research America (gone now) ran a popular online magazine called X-Project (I don't know if he's still adding content; it seems to have frozen in time). His name is Davy Russell. I had gone to look at his site, and I noticed a lot of interest around UFOs; probably more, at least on his site, than the interest in ghosts.

Although I had always had some small interest in UFOs, it jumped up a bit around 2000 when I met Davy. He actually attended a ghost hunt with me at Emily's Bridge (he documented that hunt on the internet here; it was also cited in this article which includes a video from Discovery Kids about the bridge's history and legend) and was truly interested in just about anything unexplained. To me, like I expect is the case with many, the most fun unexplained phenomena are ghosts and UFOs. Some take to Bigfoot; others search for vampires or the Chupacabra or sea monsters but I think UFOs and ghosts are still the most popular. In that way, I'm entirely average among those that would like to learn more about the unexplained, but where I leave average behind is the sheer volume of thinking I do—thinking which usually produces nada. Most of it accomplishes nothing, but then there are nights like tonight, when I feel like I've really got something, and whenever I think I have something, I share it, because for whatever reason, I'm interested in the advancement of science and I want to get the next idea into as many thinking brains as possible.

I've believed for as long as I can remember that life is all over the Universe, but now I believe it may even go beyond that. I still ghost hunt for a hobby, mainly in Old House Woods in Mathews, Virginia, which is a popular spot for ghostly sightings, but I've never UFO hunted. My belief is that the chances of seeing one around here, because of the lack of local reports and the likelihood of mistaken identity with the odd weather and many airports and military bases with flying craft, was and is minute.

Regardless of all that, my interest in our Universe took a jump that has not slowed down for me at all. So, tonight, I'm going to write about something that may change your thinking forever. Let's start with what I mentioned in the first paragraph; speed.

You've been taught that our sun just sits there, and we rotate around it. You may have learned since then that the sun is actually moving through space as it rotates around our galaxy, and that instead of a nice, neat, flat-planed rotation, we planets are really chasing our sun around the galaxy. People will argue that we are in a constant state of “falling” toward the sun and that only angular momentum keeps us from falling into it; that is perfectly consistent with what I'm explaining tonight, but even the way they are thinking about it is wrong.

According to our current authorities and standards which are always subject to change, our spin rotation on Earth is around 1k mph, decreasing as you near the poles. Our rotation around the sun is around 67k mph. The sun and the planets chasing it are also flying around the galaxy at a speed of 43k mph. Then we have our idle-speed, I'll call it, which is the speed that we're moving side-to-side or circularly within our movement through the galaxy. It's like kids running in circles in the back of a tractor trailer that is moving down a highway--the sun is shown as traveling a straight line in this video but it's actually doing its own spiral-like thing, because if it was moving in a straight line, it wouldn't “pass through” the galactic plane, unless the sun somehow has a perfect rotation around the galactic center and the galaxy itself is wobbling (though it's probably true that both the galaxy and the sun have their own little imperfect movement routines). So that “idle speed” is a separate speed, just as our spiraling speed around the sun and our spin speed are separate speeds. Moreover, our solar system has a united movement going on, because it can be considered a unit in a cluster of solar systems that, as a cluster, have their own movement within the galaxy, moving varying distances away from and toward the center of the galaxy as forces act upon them, and varying distances away from and toward the galactic plane.

For a pure content analogy, you have a spinning marble, Earth, on a gravitationally-controlled roll inside a Mason jar (the solar system). The Mason jar's controlled flight path is as if it were tumbling in a dryer (solar system cluster). The dryer itself has been rolling around in the back of a fast-rotating cement truck (galaxy).

But we're not done yet.

The galaxy itself is moving through space--the cement truck has been picked up and is being tumbled by a tornado. Moreover, the galaxy's relative speed shows that our galaxy is among a cluster of galaxies moving in the same direction which can be convincingly proven. The proof for that has really only come relatively recently as we figured out how to measure speed using gamma rays from the Big Bang theory. The popular belief is that space is expanding, and it's being forced to expand by the gamma rays, and that as it does, those rays are weakened and become less powerful and, grouped, are called Cosmic Background Radiation. The first part of this problem is that many people believe space is being added, while the theory is only congruent with current space being “stretched.” I could write an entire book around the premise of those last two sentences, which I can't go into more here because I need the ideas for another presentation I'm doing. At any rate, pardon the pun, our galaxy is moving at an unbelievable speed of 1.3 million mph though the Universe. Or so they say.

And right here is where I'm gonna take you on a trip. While I have no proof that somebody has never thought of this, I have seen no proof that anybody has. And you'll soon see why I believe that disproving proof, while irrelevant to this paragraph, is not just backing up in knowledge, but also stepping forward.

Scientists fully stand behind the measurement method used to define our speed through the Universe. While using the center of our galaxy as a reference point to measure our speed around it is fair, the method of using gamma rays and Doppler shifts to measure our galaxy's speed through the Universe is hardly more than a theory, and I can prove it.

The way scientists are measuring the speed of the galaxy right now involves no absolute reference point. They use a “rest frame,” which means, essentially, nothing. I'm going to try to break this down, for the point of this post, to its simplest form. A “rest frame” is nothing more than a cube or sphere or chunk of space--let's use a giant cube of space for this example. Scientists have taken a huge cube of space and are measuring the speeds of various bodies and groups of bodies, relative to each other, inside that cube. The problem is that, because there is no absolute reference point, nobody knows how fast that cube is moving.

Scientists will tell you that there is an absolute method because if you have enough references in motion you can calculate an absolute still point. The equivalent of this thinking is that the scientists could sit in the back of that tractor trailer, with the kids running around in circles or ovals, while the kids spun around and tossed balls up into the air and caught them, repeating, and with closed doors on the back of the trailer, they could tell you the tractor trailer's speed by simply doing some computations from the kids' speeds of rotation and movement and of the balls' speeds of rotation and movement within the trailer. My answer to that is it isn't possible—not with those methods they use (which actually involve “rest frames,” radiation speeds and relative speeds between the two). 

If you have any solid proof that this analogy is inaccurate, please post proof in comments. Until you find that proof, you should believe me, because all I'm doing is proving that some proof has not been proven, and that leaves a big pile of questions that we think have been answered in the unanswered category, which is incredibly misleading by those who call these theories "proof," but it's also enlightening when any of us can pounce on a proof (and I won't even get into what "proof" really is--only that it's relative, like everything else except for relativity, which is absolute). After all, when you force a thinking train to derail by destroying the tracks, it must find another path to follow, which is ultimately going to be one of forward motion, or progress.

That galactic speed computation is the first major problem that I'm presenting, but not the last.

What if they did figure out how fast the cube was moving? It wouldn't matter. Recently, the Hubble Telescope took a photo from a patch of space that appeared to be almost empty, yet detected galaxies for as far as it could see in 11 days or so (this is where time and space get confusing, with some saying that it isn't space limiting our view of the universe, but time because the speed of light is what limits us, and the more days we leave something like the Hubble in a fixed spot, the further we can see). The galaxies it found were not “thinning” as one might expect as the debris from any explosion thins as it moves away from the source—as the strength of those cosmic rays thins as they move away from their source. But the Universe, while expanding, does not appear to be thinning in any direction. Therefore, we can't even conceive of its size unless we just go with the theory that it is infinite. 

To say, as scientists do now that it is exactly 78 billion light years across, is insane. That would be analogous to saying that the scientists in the back of the tractor trailer calculated that they must not be moving at all, since everything looked still except the kids and the balls, and that the only space that existed was the space in the back of the trailer, which they could observe. In other words, what they should be saying is that the currently provable distance is 78 billion light years across, but because we have not measured further than that, we actually have no idea, and if the thinning/spacing/weakening of the presence of matter or waves is any indication, 78 billion light years wouldn't even be one inch in the back of that tractor trailer that they're now calling our fixed Universe, and may be a number that is infinitely small, as is any number compared to infinity.  In order to know anything is 78 billion light years across would require that the measured thing not be changing--these are the same scientists who fully believe the Universe is expanding, and many of those believe it will contract, as well (i.e. Newton, minus 1 point, because there is no proof that everything moving will necessarily come to rest without a force acting upon it--that is a strict limit proven only on our own planet).  While fixed estimates now range from that number to over 90 billion, all they really show is a pattern of enlargement of the size of the Universe.  A little bonus mind bender; how can we know if our measurements in distance are moving slower or faster than the expansion of the Universe?  And, until we do, even if it were fixed in size, how would we ever know?

But wait!  If you call in the next ten minutes, I'll throw in a double-bonus mind bomb.  

We only have five senses—six, some say. How much is out there that we do not know about because of that limit? While theories and beliefs based on those theories abound about multiple Universes, or the “Multi-verse,” we are seeing two more problems with knowing our true speed, and therefore, our concept of time.

If there are multiple Universes, what if they are moving? And if they are moving, what are they moving in relation to? Is it just each other? Is it the unknown, true source? Is the Multi-verse, if it exists, simply another step up in size on the endless ladder we're climbing to try to find a fixed point in space? What is the Multi-verse a part of? And what is that thing a part of? And what is that thing a part of? This could go on infinitely, and if it does, then that means that true space itself is entirely irrelevant to true speed! That also means that our concept of time, while still in perfect relation to our more “local” space, relates to nothing absolute. And that means that we can't possibly know what time is or isn't.  Even using our popular definition of time, we can't know which direction along its scale that we are moving.

It's really very conceivable; do you have proof that we aren't moving backward in time? Do you have proof that we aren't moving forward and backward in time on some cycle—maybe even some cycle that we are stuck in until we figure out how to escape from it? And if we did find that and figured out a way to escape, why would we? The only thing making you believe that we are moving forward in time is your mind calculating changes in what you can sense—that's it. There is no proof that those changes must necessarily occur as they do while moving forward in time, and you would never be aware if we started moving backward in time. Moving backward in time, at least relative to our definitions, would simply be stuff unhappening. Your total knowledge would decrease, medical conditions aside, and the total number of changes and developments would decrease. Things would grow younger and while it's perfectly sane to think, “Wouldn't I notice things growing younger,” it's incorrect; you would not notice things growing younger, because your mind is unlearning as you go. Think about how this might help explain déjà vu (an explanation that nobody has mentioned here, including in reference material)—perhaps some residual learning that failed to unhappen is with you, somehow, as you go backward, through the experience, for the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, or millionth time. And maybe that is where true growth is happening.

Time may be on an expansion and contraction cycle, and why not? Many now believe that the Universe is as well (because "local" space and time are inextricable).

I think that this impossible concept of which direction in time we're moving is, even with our uncertainty about what time is, in some part, why many believe we can travel forward in time but never backward. The concept of things being undone, meaning things that happened actually unhappening, is not comfortable in our thinking. The belief uses various theories and paradoxes about why backward time travel isn't possible, yet no proof. The underlying belief is that we can move forward through time while, perhaps, gaining no new knowledge until we get there and start observing again, but that we can't have things unhappen. My view is that we need to stop staying comfortable in our thinking and truly let our thinking run free, whether we're talking about our true speed as humans or anything else, which brings me to my only sensible conclusion.

The onus is upon scientists to let go of their egos and stop trying to be right about something that cannot be proven right (and that goes for anybody else, myself included). If they start thinking that way—if all of us start thinking that way—the explosion in the speed of learning for humankind WILL be absolute because we know what “no learning” and “learning” is, and now we have a concept of what “unlearning” is, and that absolute gain in speed will be relatively impressive compared to our speed of learning today.

Thanks for reading!

We Are America.

This election, as somebody said on CNN, is a backlash against a backlash. The raw hatred that typical Obama opponents direct toward him is new; we haven't seen that kind of anger before 2008. The people that "hated" Bush2 tended to almost feel sorry for him. The people that "hated" Clinton just saw him as a dishonest, dishonorable trickster with southern charm in an otherwise deceptive person. You can pick a random 20 other U.S. presidents and see the differing causes, definitions, and depths of "hatred."

If you remove racism (which I'm sure a lot of people toward the right/center-right are tired of being accused of but I hate to see a blindness toward the larger race-favoring tendencies of many from all races), then all you have left is a fear of socialist policies. People who want to leave the country are having trouble finding an acceptable place to go that doesn't have the same policies as his administration has introduced, as one of my friends pointed out (health care systems, free, high quality schooling and college, a commitment to infrastructure, a protection of ecosystems, a will to go into debt to make investments instead of waiting until you have the "cash" and watching the world pass you by in every core area of meaning and strength, equal rights across the board, etc.).

So now if you remove racism and a rational fear that we are sliding into Socialism and toward Communism (neither of which most people can even define), what remains? Why so much hate? It makes you walk backward and figure out what's really going on.

What I do believe is that nobody can force us to be united; we have to decide to be united in any fight, or in any peace. Nobody wants a government controlling them, but nobody wants to welcome social Darwinism either. The even split in this country, as indicated by yet another close election, indicates that we are at a crucial point; we have to welcome new ideas and employ them, while holding on to our belief systems, religions, freedoms, and constitutional guarantees. This is not easy--maybe we should all give ourselves a pat on the back that a real civil war hasn't broken out and that we can discuss, solve, and unite to move forward without losing our history, both good and bad, and without shedding American blood just to define or redefine America's meaning.

What bothers me more than anything are the social screamers against any party who have not educated themselves on where, exactly, their tax dollars go, if they even pay income taxes and how little that even contributes to national spending, how strong their constitution is in protecting them from tyranny, and most of all, when they refuse to learn how to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. It bothers me that races don't typically share churches on a broad scale even as their religion preaches about tolerance and love--it bothers me that America is driving a very powerful car full of people who are bickering and throwing hot dogs at each other instead of focusing on the road.

What bothers me is when the social screamers rant and rave about immigration when, with the exception of Native Americans and Mexicans in the south, we are all immigrants--we took land to be born. We enslaved people to make us grow. That part is nothing to be proud of, but where we've come since then IS something to be proud of. Equal rights are becoming real and solidified. We have fought worldwide to protect the freedom and basic human rights of others, as we've learned and grown. Minorities have realized that slaves were present in all races and many societies for thousands of years before America was born but that no amount of past behaviors can justify a present or future wrong behavior. And there is nothing wrong with enforcing our immigration laws; we have a system, and people need to go through it--to wait in line like everybody else. Watch a fast-forwarded tape of America's birth and growth in your mind. Imagine, as you do, that you could hear everybody's private thoughts. Warning; doing this will shake your brain around a little bit.

What bothers me is the social screamers who refuse to realize that there is a world outside of America, and that we don't own it. We own America, and that's IT. As the reigning strength among countries worldwide, the responsibility falls upon us to not be bullies--to help at any time that we can--any disaster for any country--any problem for any struggling nation that we're in a position to help with--that falls upon us. It's true--you could just say to Hell with the world and not help anybody and live a prosperous life right here in the United States of America, but no country in the history of the world has remained a world power indefinitely. They have come and gone, some returning to power, and some not. No form of government has proven to be the perfect one--the one that couldn't be beaten. They have risen and fallen like the waves in the ocean. I think of my British friend, Jason, and I wonder what he really thinks about us. It matters to me. My family comes from England and Norway and I wonder what they think of us. I wonder what Africa and Asia really think of us. I wonder what Canadians and Mexicans say behind closed doors about America. Does Europe, as a whole, see us as a threat? Getting too big for our britches? Are China and Russia talking about uniting to conquer us because we have grown so powerful that we honestly scare their people?

What bothers me is how I've heard lots of my fellow citizens say that when it comes to helping other countries, we need to spend that money at home--that people are hurting--yet those same people do not support programs that help hurting Americans.

The truth is that it's just going to have to keep on bothering me, unless I let it go, because people believe what they believe for a million different reasons, self included.

When it all comes crumbling down (which won't be any time soon), all you really have are the people you care about and the people that care about you. Like Reagan, I hate that it takes a real threat to unite this country. Like Obama, I believe that we are not red and blue states but, in fact, the United States. One day, we are going to start spreading out in the universe. These ideas that you are helping to shape and mold right now will travel out with those people. I often wonder if, when that time comes, we would really just be more of a virus than anything; a constant conqueror, we humans. The only thing that can make us better than that--the only thing that can make our outward growth as humankind a force of good--is to help where we can and have the wisdom to know when we can't. As Americans, if you could stand there to see the news when we land on and populate our first planet in a new solar system, what values would you hope those people carried with them? I almost take Mars and the moon for granted now; I know we'll populate those, probably before I die. If America is still so strong, though, when we really start spreading out, do you think our system of existing and governing would be a good one to start life on another planet? If not, which system?

I've voted Republican and Democrat before and seen some very intriguing ideas among Independent and Green parties (sometimes too advanced for us to really grasp, I think), and I am the true definition of an independent voter, because I believe our country has to bob-and-weave to excel and survive, and really, none of us should be so fastened to our ideology or parties that we forget what changes had to occur to make us the undisputed, strongest nation in the world or what beliefs a man or woman in uniform had to hold true to rush an enemy in the face of the ugliest odds. It's in THERE. In that pile of reality and information, after truth is separated from lies--inside you, where that "thing" is that assures you that yes, you would die to defend your country--inside of all that, the true definition of America lies, waiting to be pulled out, dusted off, and shined up, because although it's a growing, changing definition, it is and always will be the child of an idea.  

Why Computers Are Fast and Slow

My friends that know me know that I'm a writer, deep in my heart, but I have never found a way to make a decent income writing (along with 99.8% of all other writers) so I have my other trusty skill; PC (and copier/general electronics) repair.

Years working in IT departments, Tech. Support (actually both of those with Gateway), as an online repair tech., with my own business now for the second time working on PCs--years of hearing people say, "It's too slow, I can't find my files, my mouse is upside down, can you see into my house?, how many CDs can I put into one drive?, I'm a woman and I'm tired of getting ED pop-ups, I'm a man and I clicked on some boobies and now my all I see is flash images pop up in the thousands of cow births; I don't understand: HELP ME!"... years of that led me to this quick little post.

This isn't something you can't Google to learn, but maybe I present things in a more understandable way--you be the judge.  I'm just trying to help.

*NOTE: don't click "yes" on anything you don't understand... don't mindlessly sign up for contests, especially if they require ANY type of software download, and guys, if you are going to get into the porn., all I can do is wish you luck and say that I and others like me are here to resuscitate your pc when it all comes crumbling down...

What makes a PC fast?
Well, what kind of "fast" are you talking about?  You could open Word, then open a modern, resource-hogging PC game, then open the internet and start having video conferences all at once and never notice any difference in PC performance from when you're just writing a note in Notepad.

Are we talking internet speed?  That's signal strength, bandwidth, and transmission/receive methods.  Cable and fiber-optic connections are fast. Then we step down when going to dsl, wi-fi, satellite, or (gulp) dial-up.  But even the fastest connections can be slowed down.  It depends on what programs, apps, or bad stuff on your PC (viruses, malware, spyware, adware, etc.) are using your bandwidth to either update themselves, send themselves, or otherwise intentionally clog up your bandwidth while you try to do the thing that is now moving too slow to make you happy.

I hear from people a lot: "My internet is too slow.  I can't even play Farmville."  When we do a speed test, they are moving at Mach V.  So why?  Well, apps like Farmville and others can be slowed down/stopped by a need for updating your Flash Player for that particular browser (what are you using?  Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari?  All are different).  Could be 100 other things causing that, too, which I won't go into (give too much away, and my job is gone).

If you're talking more about fast in general, like closing, opening, and operating within programs, and we manage to rule out all the "bad" stuff (for example, you are up-to-date on anti-everything-bad and you've traced down resource hogging background apps) then we need to look at which operating system you are running, how updated it is or is not, how bloated it is or is not, and, sometimes most importantly, the hardware, which is where we'll start.

Why is mine so slow?
If you've got a 5-year old pc or older, don't expect much out of it unless you bought a very unusual PC (you can still pay $50k bucks for a PC, getting the quantum-jump on latest and greatest).  What limits speed?  Well, I'll be honest with you; really, it's heat.  The closer we try to get "transistors," which really aren't transistors but behave like them, onto a chip, the more one's heat affects the other, because we are, essentially, jamming them together to fit more on; usually, the goal is to increase computing power without increasing size (as a matter of fact, one of the goals is decreasing size which increases heat problems).  But with your system, we can look beyond that because although that is the fundamental source of slow computing, it probably isn't what is causing your hardware-related slow-downs.  Why?  Well, chances are you have 2 or 3 or 4 fans blowing at any given time to keep those cool.

What your problem is, more likely than not, is your processor's speed, the amount of its Level 1 and Level 2 cache (which is faster than RAM but always in a much smaller amount because it is memory that is actually cast directly onto the die of a CPU; precious space, indeed), its bus widths and speeds (consider them the highways in your components that information travels down--an old system may have a two-lane highway with a 35mph limit while in a newer computer, there's an eight-lane interstate with an 80mph speed limit), the speed in the operation of the RAM (random access memory), the efficiency of the CPU chip itself as well as its cooling components (heat sinks, which dissipate heat away from the chip and/or fans which do the same--heat in an actual CPU chip will lock up a computer faster than you can say wiggles), the capacity/speed of your video card or chips (many video "cards" are now on the motherboard in the form of chips rather than being separate cards, which is called "integrated" whenever you're dealing with add-ons like video, sound, or wi-fi), the power output, stability, and temperate/cooling efficiency of your power supply, the tightness of your cable connections and the integrity of the cables themselves (many get brittle or have a pushed-pin from people fiddling with them and putting them on wrong), the health of your hard drive (a dying, overheating, or otherwise failing hard drive will lock you up regularly or just cease to allow you system to function), and it could be a few other things.

Many times, on more modern computers, the problems that I fix to speed up computers are related to software and cleaning.  For software, there is usually a battle I have to take to the viruses, malware, spyware, and adware to pull them up by the roots.  This takes many "re-boots" which is the worst time-killer in computing but necessary for this war.  After I get those out, I have to go remove anything in the background which isn't necessary/desired but that is hogging your resources and get it out of there.  After that, I have to do a full software/hardware clean which I won't go into because, again, I need my job security.

Moral of the story?  If you have an older system, keep it clean and protected and don't expect too much out of it.  If you have a newer one, especially if it's under warranty and there is no cost and the problem is something you can't fix AND the shipping is free (I can fix these sometimes for less than the shipping), send it back.  Get it fixed free or get a new one.  If you don't have warranty coverage or don't want to bother hunting all the paperwork down and make the calls and do the packaging and (...), then bring it to me (local people only; remote people, I can work on yours remotely for a flat $35 IF you have a speedy internet connection).  $45 gets you in and out the door (as of this date) repaired, cleaned, protected, tuned, and happy in 24 hours or less with a 6-month guarantee.  If it requires hardware, we talk.  If it's not worth fixing, I call you and tell you and you pay a small $10 diagnostic fee.  (E-mail me at wutzthedeal at ya plus hoo dot com; hope you get that--have to put it in code language anymore or spammers' sweeping programs aggregate and snag yours, multiplying the amount of spam e-mail you get).

*NOTE: if you have a work PC that is slow, it could be any of the above but it could also be their "monitoring" software, which, very commonly now, is watching and recording every move you make on the internet, or their proprietary "firewall" whether it's software or hardware-based can be a choke point, and finally, the software that you run to do your job is often not designed with allowing a pc to maintain its speed and functionality outside of that software.  It's designed to take as much as it wants (in the way of computing power/usage) to get the job done, and that often leaves loose ends on it which cause the software to be a real resource hog.  A good IT department will know all of this; they'll order software that includes a focus on having a "small footprint," if they are required to use monitoring software, they'll find the least resource-hungry, and they'll have a physical firewall that doesn't limit incoming traffic a noticeable amount as it analyzes who might be a hacker or what might be bad software, etc.

Hope this was worth something to you.  

You Don't Need a Mars and Venus Story

(I'm writing this from a heterosexual POV: for the gays, you'll have to change the he's and she's as necessary and the truths will vary slightly, but this article can help you, too, I believe).

I see couples of all ages shaking their heads.  The man tosses his hands up when he's talking to his friends and says, "I don't get it?!"  The woman does the same, talking to her friends, saying, "He's impossible!"

We are either at a very strange point in an adaptation process as humans, perhaps moving toward asexual alien-types or some greater force had a sick sense of humor to make men and women need each other and then dislike each other, all on the same day.  Sometimes within the same minute.

I'm going to break down two common things that are happening--not the whole answer to the woman/man crisis, but the two biggest ones, in my opinion.

1.  Testosterone

Guys have it.  We have it in high levels, too, depending on age, and women have it in lower levels with few exceptions.  Our man-nature tells us (and most of us have no effing clue that this is even what's driving the desires) to go dominate the gene pool with the most fit women--the ones most likely to have healthy babies that allow our genes to spread on.  It's kind of a selfish natural tendency if you think about it.  And both men and women share the desire to find the mate with the highest likelihood of passing on the "good" genes, even though men alone, with few exceptions, carry enough testosterone to want to try out as many partners as possible.  And even as men look for the ideal partners to spread their genes with, they will settle.  Oh, child, listen to me: they will settle on any given night as the chemicals flow.  Settle they will.  ANY genes that involve 50% of their own genes moving on is good; if theirs can move on with good genes, that's great.  If they can toss their seeds into a chance of moving on with great genes, that's nirvana.

As men become older, the testosterone drops, and, in a surprisingly high number of cases, maturity grows.  We men back out, sit down on the park bench instead of running those laps, chasing desirables.  If we have a good lady in our life with whom we have a good relationship--a definition of which will never be the same between two men--we respect her.  But the testosterone remains, clinging with its nails into our veins, hanging on for dear life, forcing our heads toward the 21-year-old girl washing the car even if we couldn't give her anything more than a gasping whisper and a request for an aspirin.  Even if all we can offer her is a ride in our non-tricked-out, half-rusted Gremlin with it's non-thumping AM radio, we'll damned near wreck a car and break our necks to get that glance.

That's nature.  That's not anything else--it's is a very, very strong force in human nature.

For the younger man, it's what he does with that nature that defines his will and constitution; what is he made of?  With nature throwing him around like a baby sock in an industrial dryer (and you're damned right it's that bad), can he avoid a hoot and a holler if he's in a "committed" relationship?  It really comes down to his beliefs.  Does he believe in monogamy?  Men can "justify" tossing a seed out into any garden if they can just think of one thing their girl did wrong--if they can just convince themselves that maybe she has already cheated?  It comes down to his honor, and in a young man, strong honor can be defeated.

I like to believe in older men that strong honor cannot be defeated, usually.  Mine can't.  You can find whoever you think is the prettiest girl in the world, put her in front of me with a bikini on and have her tell me to have a blast, and I'll walk away.  Now, a man who has never had such an opportunity will have his honor challenged.  At that point, for him, it's not just the waning-but-ever-present testosterone at work--it's not just his honed honor and the knowledge that he has a good woman in his life in a committed relationship--it's curiosity jumping into the now complex mix.  Maybe he's never been that close to a "perfect" body, set aside for a few nights out in which he came home with very few dollar bills left.  "Is it that good?" he may ask himself.  "Should I throw away my good relationship [at this point in his life, he knows she'll find out--he's no longer naive enough to think it can stay hidden] to get just one evening with this elusive type of lady with a "perfect" body that millions of women around the world long to have?  That millions of women have surgeries to try to get, because they know that the results equal flat-out power?  Is it worth it?"

Women may find themselves challenged nearly as much as men, though rarely to the same degree, and they may succumb for different reasons.  As nature was tossing us baby socks around in her industrial-sized dryers, it is a different force working on women.  Any of the following can produce the break in honor with women: revenge, lack of attention from her man (or if she doesn't have a man, lack of attention from any man), finding a desirable, an unfulfilled need for shoe-shopping, a surge in testosterone caused by any of 100 different things, often from that biological clock's alarm going off at unpredictable times, or any of 1,000 other complex things.  What, you thought I could fit what might make women cheat into one paragraph?  I couldn't fit the reasoning behind women's ink-pen preferences into one paragraph.  Give a brother a break, man.

 If you cheat (for men or women) it will come out.  It will.  It always does.  Always.  Just know that if you do it, the clock starts ticking for the countdown of the other person knowing.  Good luck with that.

2.  Thing X

It's very complex.  Sometimes it's a growth away from each other in interests.  Or in political or religious beliefs,  Sometimes it's the inability to forgive things that may be said in haste during an argument or a misunderstood word or action.

Ultimately, though, as I try to describe Thing X, which I'd bet you ten cents you thought was going to be about exes, what I'm describing is a failure on one or both members of the couple to identify, understand, and respect what is important to the other person.  Please, trust me on this, and I believe it so deeply and care enough about my fellow humans that I need to repeat it: you have to identify, understand, and respect what your other half finds important if you want your relationship to succeed.

Women, your men may love a sport, or cars, or collecting coins.  If you want to do your half, you have to first identify (not hard; just observe and learn) what they are interested in outside of yourself, then understand it.  That means read a little about it.  Go on the internet and you'll probably find that your man's interest isn't so uncommon.  You'll probably find that very normal people have the same fascination with his interest(s) as he does.  So, learn a bit about it.  Find out what the attraction is.  If he's a car nut, find out why he loves the car that he loves so much (the one he talks about buying when he gets rich).  Be able to hold a 5-minute conversation with him about it.  Do not act.  Men aren't as stupid as you think we are--we'll pick up on it in half a second.  We've had to act from the age of 13 on.

Now that you have identified it and learned a bit about it and, HELL, maybe even had a conversation with him about it, respect it.  Respect that he has an interest.  Respect that HE respects it, and if you mock, ignore, or otherwise marginalize the importance of that interest to him, it will hurt him.  Literally.  It will punch him in the heart, it will invigorate the fuck-you part of his ego, and it'll be the beginning of a lot of silence that wasn't necessary.  His thoughts from then until (when?) will be, "Bitch," or, "She just doesn't get it," or, "I sit there and listen to her talk about fucking Tupperware for twenty minutes and she can't listen to me explain a car I saw at a show for 30 seconds?"  This is where it starts, couples.  This is where silent couples are born from.  It can alllllllll be traced back to this.

Men, all of the above goes for you, too.  Don't act; women always know. And for us, since our mind works a bit differently, we may have to actually burn some brain power to discover what she finds interesting.  But we're pretty good at researching/learning about it once we find out and we'll do that if we care about her.  As for showing respect, same as above; you never belittle her, her interests, or her beliefs.  Her interest is just as real to her as yours is to you.  You respect that in any person that you hope to remain close to.  If you don't, you're simply saying an early, subtle goodbye.

In closing, you're probably pissed that I didn't produce some one-line answers to solve your relationship problems.  Well, if that's so, I'm about to piss you off some more; there are none.  It's a big, complex ball of emotions, thoughts, and actions.  If you can only take one thought out of this article to remember how to do as much as you possibly can to make your relationship survive, remember to RESPECT while DEMANDING EQUAL RESPECT.