There Will Always Be Dragons In the Ocean (Or, Where God Came From)

In ancient times, a map's unknown spaces were filled with drawings of dragons. In modern times, maps appear rather complete and the dragons are all gone.

While a complete map might seem like an improvement over an incomplete one, there's been legitimate concern that as we humans learn more about the world, we tend to question less. There are fewer mysteries to inspire a sense of wonder, fewer dragons in the ocean on the map of our imaginations.

I'm hopeful that wonder will continue. I'm a believer in the observation that the more answers we learn, the more questions we open up. Despite all the knowledge, education and information we have access to, we've created new unknowns. My novel, Where Did This Come From? speculates on the mystery of our everyday possessions.

Look at all the seemingly mundane items around you at this very instant. Where did these items originate? How were they made? What resources were used? What methods were used? What people made them? What effect was on the people living near where they were made? Were the working conditions horrible? Did the economic boom help a community, or only a few elites? What are their stories?

On and on and on the questions go. Devising fiction from there is easy, just answer those questions in the most unusual and entertaining way. Everything has a history and we know so little of it. For all our education, our access to knowledge, the previous questions can never be fully and completely answered. Where Did This Come From? is a novel based on those unknowns, but the title-question's speculation could be a separate sub-genre.

The more we know, the more we know we don't know. It's like chasing the true shape of a fractal. Your eyes focus on the rough edges and you think you know it all, but in the process of focusing, more detail becomes visible and you realize you don't know as much as you thought you did. So you zoom in. The rough edges have rough edges, and you zoom in again. The rough edges to the rough edges have rough edges. And so on.

You could go on forever, or you could accept a certain loss of detail. You could say "Good enough," and call it a day. Or you could just make something up. What's beyond the ocean? Dragons. What's beyond the stars? Aliens. Where did this come from? Read the book for one possible answer.

Using imagination to fill in the gaps left by our ignorance is one of our instincts. Where do you think God came from?

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at www.LarryNocella.com.

Hell Yeah, Let's Fight Them Here!

Cliches, memes, talking points, ideas. Whatever you call them, they are the DNA of thought, the summarized core of a philosophy or approach. If they are correct, they can be a foundation for a solid philosophy. Example: "A stitch in time saves nine." If they are incorrect, that DNA becomes a cancer. For example, in justifying the Iraq war: "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here."

Before I continue, I won't get into the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The premise of the meme is that it would be worse to fight terrorism at home, that Iraqi civilians can act as our shields, that American troops act as more convenient (but better-armed) targets or some other twist of logic. The "fight them there" approach is to advocate staying in Iraq.

There are some ready-made memes that advocate against "fighting them there:" Home-field advantage. The best offense is a good defense.

The Home-field advantage: It would be better to fight them in a land where we know the language, the culture and the populace is on our side. Instead of righteous reminders that soldiers are heroes, they work hard, etc., we could see it right in front of us.

The best offense is a good defense: The world is a big place. The USA is a smaller place – therefore, it would be easier to express control over the USA than the entire world. Why travel to Iraq? That's like installing a security system on a stranger's house across town so as to protect your own home. Ridiculous!

Give logic a chance and suddenly "fighting them here" seems like a good idea.

If the government can boldly spend (meaning, go into debt and leave future generations with the bill for) one trillion dollars to mess around in Iraq, we could easily spend that amount to beef up our nation's security. Imagine that! We'd have more than one baggage scanning line, a zillion security guards, locks on cockpit doors, armed flight attendants, even enough money to bail out airlines while they continue to go bankrupt! (And that's a lot of cash!)

If you have to be in a fight with someone, how much better to have the home crowd cheering for you, even helping you out, or understanding: "Oh, you've got to check my luggage? Well it's a pain, but okay, security." In Iraq, no matter what searching is done, it's bound to be looked at as annoying because the U.S. is the away team. Any security check is seen as a violation by an occupying army.

But wait, there's more!

Another hot topic in the USA is concern about immigration, about undocumented people flooding into the country. Open borders is one of the things that makes the USA a great country, but freedom of movement also was exploited by the 9/11 assholes. Imagine the trillions wasted in Iraq going to more secure borders, programs of assistance and/or enforcement for immigrants.

Tracking who enters the country and preventing terrorism have over-lapping solutions! Hell, if you wanted to, you could even over-pay the same military contractors: Halliburton, etc. That might not satisfy Dick Cheney's obvious blood-lust, but it might satisfy his obvious greed.

Given a choice, anyone would fight a stranger in their home: you know where the floor is slippery, you know where the knives are, where the hammers are, where the guns (if applicable) are. You know others will rush to your aid. You know everything about your home. A stranger knows nothing.

When it comes to kicking someone's ass, there's no place like home.

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at www.LarryNocella.com.