After all the endless Hollywood movies depicting violence, disaster and tragedy, people become desensitized and it often times takes something extreme to make us react or feel. The earthquakes in Japan and Haiti were very real, very extreme and very tragic.

In my awareness it has always been clear to me that it is important to allow myself to feel the events that happen around the world. Sitting here in Florida, USA it can be easy to have a sense of calm and content, as if nothing could ever happen where I live. It would be easy to shrug off the earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, starvation, bomb killings, hurricanes and move on with my life. After-all, there's nothing I can do about it, right?

WRONG.

The United States of America

United states. Multiple states united as one. A group of many states banded together as one. Unity. Well, maybe so but, what about its people?

Yesterday I returned from my first trip to the Philippines and it has been culture shock. Yes ~ it was culture shock arriving in the Philippines, but it's also been culture shock returning to my home country.

In the Philippines it's all about family and friends. You rarely see Filipinos alone, they're usually in groups laughing and enjoying each others company. At dinner, lunch, shopping, whatever. They're always hanging on each other and taking care of each other. Children are sometimes born at hospitals but more commonly at home where the whole family is gathered to greet the newest member of the family. Children are raised not only by their parents, but also by their siblings, cousins, nieces & nephews, aunts, uncles, grand parents, neighbors and friends. Therefore, people are very social and comfortable touching each other. It is very common to see two guys in their 20's walking along with their arms over each others shoulders.

What is real?

When we look around us, we see our environment, those around us, nature, life. When we WITNESS something we have a strong sense that it is real. No, this isn't a blog about illusions, it's about possibilities of what MIGHT BE REAL.

Tonight I had an interesting thought and there are two main subjects that comprise and work together to express this thought ~ this idea.

The first is data storage. The second will be revealed later.

It was only about 20 years ago that an average person at home could create and save personal digital data. When the first personal computers came on the scene, people were able to create digital writings, paintings, and pictures and save them to a floppy disk. This was a big step in our evolution as a species. The first means of saving, or storing, information was done by scratching on a cave wall, right? Then we advanced to creating inks and paints and we learned to write symbols to convey ideas. Of course this evolved into creating scrolls to write on or books to write in. In the late 1800's we invented the camera and phonograph. Sometime in the 1900's magnetic tape was invented followed by the first laser discs. Then came the personal computer.