My Dad's Magic Powers

1. Grabbing the Bull by the Balls.

I was in my 20's and we were on vacation near Indiana. And we had stopped the rental car for some reason.

My Dad and stepmother had walked away from the car for a long while. I stepped out of the car, and looked and saw a bull over the other side of the fence.

I was daring enough to sit on the fence there anyway, although I kept cautiously looking to see if the bull was making any movements.

Then I noticed some country folk over to my right, also near the fence.

One of them gave me an insulting look.

"Think you're a hotshot? Try grabbing a bull by the balls!"

So, I said, sure!

I poked the bull's balls, and when it started to turn, I quickly jumped over the fence.

(Which was a low fence, and I now noticed, not very sturdy.)

The people had cleared out, but I shouted after them that "I bet you wouldn't have the guts to pull the bull's balls either."

I was just rounding the other side of the car, when I heard a dull cracking noise.

The bull had broken the fence!

I was terrified, but I got into the car.

Just then my Dad and stepmother got back. I didn't see what happened, but my Dad said, stay in the car.

Then we drove to the rental agency.

He said, 'Lynn is in the hospital.'

Then he asked the guy at the counter "Can we collect on insurance on this one."

And then he said, like he wouldn't usually say because he is an atheist and says he doesn't even believe in Calculus although he teaches college:

"I think it was an act of God."

Then the guy at the counter said, "No, we collect all the insurance."

Then my Dad gave a soul-rending look, and the next thing I knew I was awake in bed, and only about 10 years old.

My Dad was reading a story.

So, what is the lesson, he said?

"I don't know" I said.

"The lesson," he said, "is that you're glad to be alive."

Then he shut the book, and I never learned which book it was.

I decided at that moment I could invent perpetual motion, because I was the one who had grabbed a bull by the balls and time-travelled to prove it.

2. The Ship of Terror

I was in my twenties.

We were at a carnival, and for some reason my younger brother the genius was not there. As we passed a ship-of-terror ride, I became more and more obsessed with the idea that I wanted to go on that ride.

"Well, okay" my Dad finally said. "But you'll regret it!"

So, we got on the ride. The ship was not moving. Dad handed over the tickets, which suddenly seemed like leases on life.

Then the ship began to swing, first slowly, then far more quickly.

"I think I need to get off!" I said.

"Then there's only one option, take off your seatbelt!" he said.

But then I realized I hadn't put my seatbelt on to begin with.

I clinged to my Dad as I began to fall through mid-air.

After what seemed like seconds, I landed on my shoulder kind of hard. I (or my father) had 'timed' it perfectly! I had not broken my neck.

I kept low for as long as I could, glad to be alive, although not even sure I really WAS alive.

Then the ship seemed to disappear.

I got up, and walked over to the edge of the carnival-style fence partitions, like you see around celebrities.

There was my Dad.

"Whew! I'm glad to see you alive!", he said. The wind was knocked out of him.

It was just like a scene from a video game in which the hero emerges from total danger.

I told myself I had only escaped alive because I fell off.

The strange thing to me was that my Dad survived.


11 ... ... ... 11

10 10

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Unforeseen Hurdles on the Path to Greatness...

HOW TO WIN BACKGAMMON IF YOU'RE THE DEVIL(O)

PATIENCE LLO

HOW TO WIN BACKGAMMON IF YOU'RE THE DEVIL (ISTO NOT WINO OTHELLO)

Here is a list of some major (or minor) intellectual hurdles I have passed through, some of which I may still be dealing with, on the path to greater quotability and ~monetary excellence (excuse my language).

ROUGHLY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:

1. My childhood accident. I fell off a changing table, and later my father and brother 'tested' my head with a carpenter's hammer. I come from a very intelligent family, but I'm brain-damaged.

2. My rejection of Spanish. When I was 3 or 4 years old I refused to speak Spanish ever again... until I took it up in middle school. Still not much of a linguist.

3. My childhood obsession with weapons and armor. This was probably the biggest hurdle to learning mathematics and studying the classics. It continued into my teens.

4. My father's statement that he was a Determinist. This seemed blind stupid to me, because there was no ethics without free will.

5. My obsession with computer games. My senior year of high school I was often late for class and did not complete assignments, because I was up late, and all day wanted to play computer games. One time (later on) my face even turned blue while I was sitting at the computer screen. I had to literally crawl to the bathroom sink, and gulp water to keep from dying.

6. Unlucky at finding genius poetry. At the Dodge Poetry Festival I fished around in some books, and found nothing I liked. I also feel unlucky in not discovering Dickinson until high school, and not finding the Romantics (except for Blake) until college.

7. My differences with the Existentialists. I'm neither a French speaker nor particularly disillusioned in my attitude. And yet the existentialists are the most intellectual movement that ever existed.

8. My rejection by Brown University. I thought I was Ivy material. Then I had to 'guess not'. My scholarships weren't great either, amounting to about $2500 and some loans.

9. My reliance on my mother. I didn't feel like I owned my own clothes or bookshelf until I was at least 29 years old. Although my mother let my younger brother do shopping at an early age, she held me back for some reason, thinking I couldn't do things on my own. Part of it was my own fault, or resulted from the brain damage.

10. My un-willingness to be frank about my interest in magic and mysticism. This may stem from my father's Atheism, and my physical distance from him. I first took interest in the Tao Te Ching when I acquired fragments of it in a calendar from my childhood friend, who was Valedictorian in high school. For a long time I thought I couldn't really study it, because it was Chinese and somehow beyond my intelligence, and that held me back in studying the magical importance of any type of writing. It wasn't until about 2013 that I started writing about magic, even though I had had an interest in enchantments and elves as a child, and once dressed as a wizard for Halloween.

11. The Neo-Classical Disaster(s). I keep running into people and websites who are obsessed with classical Greek philosophy, and this has largely held me back about my own (what I take to be modern) philosophy. However, I have produced a number of dialogues that I eventually plan to publish as a book. (Another story: my current philosophy honor society mentor is a classicist: frustrating missed opportunity for modernist mentorship).

12. Failure to win the genius awards. I had my heart set on this one, and a lot of papers put together. But apparently a few of the other participants were more deserving. So much for pretending to be a chair of philosophy.

66(6 33T 22T)T

Statements of the Reincarnation of Aaron Burr

"I remember myself as a British spy. When I was young I was in England, and I was elected to go on a spy mission. My original name was Todd Oxbridge. It was my interest in spy craft that pulled me into military conflicts and service in the military."

"One of my fondest possessions was a picture of Mary Wollstonecraft that I hung over the mantle piece. Even now, the memory of her makes me cry."

~1820

Statements of the Reincarnation of Ann Bolyn

...

UNLUCKY GANTRY

...

"When I traveled from France I had a thought that I was a little witty. Not very witty, only a little bit witty. When I got to the king, he did not think this was very funny. He got very angry, and we tried to commensurate it in bed. But I got to joking about how his piscin was very small, and he got to thinking that I had a roll in the haycart down the lane. It was a big mess. He thought the best thing was to be off with my head."

"I fondly remember the king. I loved him, and he loved me not. Not enough to keep my bonnet on. What I remember are the good jokes, But, I'm afraid, no one thought I was witty enough to keep my head. They wanted to throw the book at me."

"Do you really think my spirit SINNED? Then let's call it: the spirit of sin of Ann Bolyn! But you don't believe in that, do you? It will come to pass! You will get your way!"

~1450

Statements from the Reincarnation of the Inventor of the Book

"I was a girl who lived on a junk. And my 'brother' was always telling me to sit on the toilet. And I sat on the toilet until I got sores. And then, when I was infected, they tried to sew me up. It was very painful. And eventually we decided that it was un-necessary. We would find some other way."

"I invented a new thing to do with the thread. We could sew pages of silk together to make a 'book'. Then we tried to sell the books to people on the mainland."

~1000 A.D.

Statements from the Chinese God Zheng Guo (Kuo Kwang)

"Some people remember me as the inventor of Kung-Fu. They don't know that I was washed in the river by a woman. They don't know that I invented Bushido, too. It is the same martial art, only with a worse name."

"What I remember is the time I used the power from the dead sorcerer to make a flower wilt. The children couldn't believe the miracle in front of their eyes. They wanted me to repeat it again and again. But I said no."

"There was another time where I became invisible. And the people don't know the limitation of the god. I didn't know how to change back. My friend told me to see a prostitute to cure the spell."

~5,000 B.C.

My Willful Abduction by Seth Rogen

(Partly regrettable, perhaps).

One day I was walking the streets of New Haven when someone approached me who I thought I was supposed to recognize.

“Hi! I’m Seth Rogen” he said. “Want to go to California and ride a motorcycle? I’ll bring you right back!”

“Well, okay, if that’s all it is, as long as I understand what you mean.” I said. “You mean, innocent as milk, I go to California and ride a motorcycle with no additional obligations, and you bring me right back?” I said.

“That’s right!” he said.

“Okay, I’ll do it. Although I might regret it” I said. This was a period in my life when absolutely nothing was going on. I had some art projects, and occasional philosophical leanings. But I didn’t talk to anybody, and my mother didn’t always notice if I went missing for a few days. At least, that’s what I thought.

So, I was in a car, and then we went into a private airplane.

“You can sleep if you want” he said.

We touched down somewhere in what I thought was California, but which according to the video link I posted later, may have been Portland, Oregon.

“I don’t want a motorcycle, I want more like a motorbike” I said.

“Well, that’s what it is. But you don’t get to keep it” he said.

We drove very fast in the car. We weren't there yet.

Then we were in what looked like an abandoned lot. There was a motorcycle.

“Well, here we are! Let’s shoot!” he said.

“Get on the bike” he said.

“I don’t even know how to ride one” I said.

“Well, why didn’t you say so!” he said. “The hand-levers are for acceleration. And you turn the bar to steer. You can use your feet to stop. Try going around that little circle over there”

“Okay, when you’re ready.” I said.

“Anytime. Go, now!” I dimly recognized one of Seth’s friends smiling in a condescending way on the sidelines.

I accelerated as lightly as I could, and went in a short loop. The noise of the motorcycle prevented me from hearing whatever they were saying. But I could sense the same innocent-as-hell attitude they had been playing the whole time.

I had already realized, fortunately, that I needed to reduce acceleration way ahead of the stopping point. So, with difficulty, after I had completed the loop, I came to a stop, some distance down the road.

When I got back, Seth greeted me by saying “Good job!”

“Do I get food?” I said.

“You get a sandwich and this Orangina!” he said.

“Thanks.” I said.

I ate the sandwich like it was the answer to life.

“Now we’re going back” said Seth Rogen.

“That fast?” I said.

“Yeah!” he said. “Get in the car.”

I felt a sense of exhileration as the car accelerated abruptly.

Then we were on a plane.

"Now you've ridden a motorcycle in California. What do I get in return?" Seth Rogen said.

"Nothing I said. I don't like motorcycles."

"That's too bad! You should have told me..." he said.

"Unless you want rights to my biography" I said.

He seemed not to notice that statement.

“I’m not gay” I said.

“Well, that’s ironic. I’m not gay” he said. “But I was hoping to get a confession out of you…”

“I’m not gay, not even a little bit” I said.

“Well, I must say, that’s very ironic” he said.

About that time the plane touched down. Soon I was back home.

Needless to say, my mother never believed this story, although the video of me riding the motorcycle is now available on Youtube HERE (or at least something similar. And maybe it wasn't Seth Rogen after all).


OTHER STORIES:

The Story of How I Was Offered a Time-Cube

Real Life Encounter With the Philosopher Colin McGinn

My 5 Seconds with Warren G. Buffett

Abducted by John M and His Father

The Casino

Past Life Concepts by Nathan Coppedge

I have deduced that I have had little experience with therapy, little experience with emotional happiness, a limited amount of education (e.g. at elementary level), and a surprising amount of influence in shaping history, usually through a contrapuntal inventiveness that means nothing in the short term.

Based on these conclusions, the types of lives I might have lived are vastly narrowed. If there is a danger, it is a danger that I haven't lived, or that mere information has been confused for a real role in history. However, I suspect that if information were the problem, I would have more education by this point. So, the conclusion is that the most conservative case is that I haven't lived very many lives. The second best option, however, suggests a lot of importance that has been neglected by historians, or perhaps a history which would contradict the one being written by politicians.

1. A. Perhaps this is my first life, lived again and again through Nietzsche's concept of eternal return. In that case, I might be learning something more than previous examples of myself, but only incrementally. Perhaps there is a hidden 'clone army' of these selves, permitting hive-mind learning. But these kinds of theories are just as bad as straight historical importance, and in some ways more absurd. They depend on a modern millieu, or a non-chronological set of events. This is not my favorite choice, just perhaps the most likely, according to physics. However, in some ways it shows a lack of imagination as well.

1. B. Perhaps I had one prior life in which I received a minimal education and some comfort food. But why wouldn't I be more perverse than that? Or, why wouldn't I have more historical importance, if an earlier period in history means more energy, according to the laws of entropy? Apparently, something needed to happen, and it wasn't just other people. Either I had one life and it was interesting enough to contend with this one, or I must have lived more than one previous life.

2. A. Perhaps I can 'sketch out' a concept of one prior life, the one most memorable to me, probably one less impressive than the current one. I can imagine being a homeless bum nicknamed the 'burgher king' --- who just tried to find his way home and constantly thought about hamburgers. But in some ways this is merely a trope, and it wasn't the first prior life I thought of (or the second, if I count my childhood attempt to compare myself with King Richard).

2. B. Perhaps, instead of the most reasonable life to remember, it is the life that I actually remember. In that case, it might be the first life I remembered, the day I picked my first four-leaf clover: the life of Pippin son of William Tell. Perhaps I am not that famous: maybe I would be more socially conscious by now. Maybe I would have loads of wit and witticism to shunt off others' concern for me. Perhaps I would be very rich by now, or more educated, if, as I remember, I studied a little Aristotle around 1515...

2. C. Maybe, however, if I remember one prior life, then I can remember more than one. Maybe life was more magical in the days before the computer age. Maybe it was a time before the public acknowledged dimensionism and evolution. Maybe I was even a God to compensate for discomfort (since I had concern for myself, and engaged with the myths of the time)--- or, more likely, the basis for the myth of a god. Hence, I remember the life as Aston-I-Shed, the boy phoenix. But didn't I read Harry Potter before I thought of this story? Indeed, I did.

2. D. What if I really did have prior lives, but they are very hard to remember---via the sleep of Lethe, caused by drinking ordinary milk, etc.? Perhaps the sleep of Lethe only affects people between lives, not during a single life?... If it's about the sleep of Lethe, then it's obvious: I was Marie Antoinette, or some virtual counterpart of hers. Of course, doing my hair and being ruler of France is what I would do with my diabolical powers and good intentions, if I was half unconscious and gaining confidence about the meaning of history. But, really? Doesn't this depend on a theory that language is acquired naturally during the nurturing period? Was Marie Antoinette much more gifted with French than she could ever learn in a lifetime? Perhaps not. But perhaps I am not really that brilliant (wouldn't she think she was brilliant?). But more likely, I have to adopt a natural language view, which is that most of my prior lives involved some form of English, or else not much language ability at all...

3. A. Now what if I'm serious? If I'm a man, I have to predict that I was a boy. If I'm a commoner (or not very rich), I have to predict that I was always at least this poor, or perhaps didn't earn my keep when I had a lot of money. One theory is that I was a gambler. But gambling in the big extravagant sense is a recent phenomenon. I will keep this in mind, that I may have gambled, but I wasn't very good at it. What does foolishness bring to mind? Surprisingly, it brings to mind the idea of being a cad named Aaron Burr, who was not very good at being a spy, and was finally executed by the British on an island off of North Carolina. Are these historically factual details? Probably not. After all, there are many people who (for stupid reasons, I think), consider it possible that I was Nathan Hale, the American spy, who upon his death said that he would give his life for his country. Perhaps he was stupid enough, is a nagging thought. But what if stupidity is partly taught by the context in which it develops? And, when have I ever been motivated by patriotism, except through accidents? Would dying as a patriot really lead me to study philosophy? Or, would it more likely lead me to feel angry and rebellious? My impression is that Nathan Hale is much more physically-minded than myself. And immaterialism speaks of hidden secrets about my history: things I merely forgot, that were highly significant.

3. B. Now what if I'm NOT serious? What if I try to trick myself into remembering my past? If Nathan Hale is realism (and a bit stupid or overwrought), then perhaps there are lives which are less realistic, but still better choices --- or, at least, more meaningful ones. Two ideas spring to mind: a life in virtual reality as a kind of Google-soul inside a supercomputer (doing very basic things), or a madman taking the name Euler and believing he could solve math problems. Either of these lives might have a grain of truth, except that I haven't ever been very passionate about math, in my memory, and today people don't tend to believe that people get reincarnated in virtual reality, at least not before it was created. But perhaps these lives could supplement a much longer history. Perhaps I had a half-life in which I did some physical therapy to recover functionality. That might be possible if I had been famous, but dysfunctional. It also seems possible that, given the length of many lives, the Euler scenario was a small detail in a quasi-modern life, in which I had heard of the name Euler.

3. C. Now, what if I'm a little bit serious, and agree that it's possible that some ridiculous things happened (although not very often)? For one thing, the past lives that I do remember (whatever they are) might have echoes in other past lives, creating a more rational picture. I'm keeping the principle that education improves over time, but I'm not ruling out that I had some kind of role in history. After all, my current interests in perpetual motion, philosophy, fiction-writing, and making quotations speaks of some prior experience in influencing history---perhaps something more overt, and less intellectual. Maybe 'God learned his lesson' so to speak: which seems like a rule for all prior lives. Now I think that I might have been in Egypt more than once, if I really was the basis for the myth of the chief god  of Egypt. My other life must have involved the other significant thing in Egypt: the Library of Alexandria. However, I didn't know how to read, so the only thing I might have done is burn some books! Similarly, if I was Marie Antoinette (although I did not remember this life first, by any means), then perhaps I was also Anne Bolyn --- who I remember as making a bargain to be '(only) a little bit clever' --- much to the chagrin of Henry VIII. That would explain the karma for having my head chopped off twice --- royal edict.

3. D. But what about my current good fortune? Why am I not depressed? Why do I have a good-hearted interest in intellectual pursuits? Following the rule of entropy again which says that prior history had more power, perhaps there is some intellectual mythology that I have not uncovered. After all, the Egyptian mythology strikes me as superficial. And, how on earth did I bargain to become a god in the first place? Surely I either did some mythological explorations, or already had become a god? What I am predicting at this point is a mixture of significant and insignificant lives. What were my insignifcant lives? How insignificant could it get? Perhaps I was a vagrant. Then, how did I survive? Probably for not very long. So I remember being an Urchin in the city of Ur, who also had his head chopped off (unpredictably), therefore explaining the later instances in which the queens had their heads chopped off (physical karma / chain reaction). I also remember being a very stupid Chinese boy who thought to invent a book of bound pages. His relatives thought he was stupid, anyway. But the idea caught on in Europe. I imagine that the boy's (or girl's) name was Poverty.

3. E. If my insignificant lives were so significant, such as discovering a city, or inventing a book (my current sign is libra, suggesting a connection to books---and who has authority over books but the Chinese---, and I have a kind of soul, so I must have some authority over books), then there may be a major life that I am forgetting, which explains how I made good on misfortune in the least fortunate cases. I began to remember my life as a Chinese god who lived for at least 350 years. I reasoned that things weren't as they appeared in that life. I did have magic powers, but it was basically imagination, and I had some very basic problems. I wasn't as good with herbs as people remembered. I even poisoned some of my friends. And I needed a woman to help me wash my behind in a river. This seemed authentic enough, if that time in history was not the age of information.

3. F. What, however, was more reasonable, if I already believed in magic? I could return to part 1, and believe that I watched a stage magician, and later invented the story of Guo the Immortal. Or perhaps there were some legends in my life that didn't involve magic. So I remembered my life as an orphan child who invented the story of Rip Van Winkl --- somewhere near Baltimore and Appalachia. In that life I was motivated to escape the Civil War, and mostly succeeded: a real example of heroism, also involving a kind of Libran laziness. I can remember formulating the idea that I would become an Esystementologist, a kind of metaphysician or logician. However, at that point I was mostly illiterate, so that would explain my current development into a quasi-educated person.

3. G. Somewhere along the way I started to look for details that would help to explain the cohesiveness between the lives. I remembered a life in which mostly all I did was invent the name Gilgamesh to keep the big brutal soldiers from massacring me. I developed a small reputation as a sorcerer, by using rhetorical powers to convince people that big brutes had turned into pigs. However, mostly I was very skittish, just trying to get food in a very muddy location.

3. H. I still wonder if I ever enjoyed myself by indulging in pleasures. But mostly my conclusion is that unless I was Marie Antoinette, I didn't do much of anything like that. Maybe I had one life in the Mediterranean that passed very quickly in which I drank wine and thought about women, but I'm starting to doubt that that happened. It seems to be based exclusively on a painting I saw once of women posing on a building in Morocco. I have also thought about what I might have been before I was human. Perhaps all of this is a deluded dream, and I made a hard bargain in a kind of hellish place to avoid becoming a meat animal again. Or perhaps I was once a spinosaur dragon who ate a small man: I can sort of remember this. I remember having red scales. I also remember being a boneheaded dinosaur who crashed heads and then 'mated' with some large green eggs. These memories seem to verify that some of what I remember is real --- maybe not the same reality other people share, but at least something that influenced my development, in some concept of history.

All of my past lives (possibly including some future ones) are recounted in a story called Dramatis Personae Available on Amazon, including a fairly detailed account of the life of Marie d' Antoinette (perhaps that is a first).

Some of the stories are also included in a 320-page volume called the One Page Classics, along with a lot of philosophical literature and other types of stories.