A Conserved Quantity

It occurred to me that while I was going on about not using scientific terms in a way that they would be misused, my blog title is still luminal celerity, the speed of light.

Whoops.

And I still like it that way.

I suppose that I'm always going to go back to figuring out something that I don't know, by using what I do know. Is a metaphysical force a finite resource, or is it something that can only be transferred and not ever destroyed? I recently read this interesting tidbit about power being like a voice. It doesn't settle in your larynx or gut when a person is not speaking, it's simply there when it's active, and not when it's not.

It reminded me of this interesting motivational doodle for artists, where the writer warned that "bad art" tends to settle at the tip of the pen or pencil, and the only way to get to the "good art" is to keep making doodles so the "bad art ink" or "bad art graphite" gets used up or worn down. Then, the artist can start making good art... because that "good art" was innately present in the substance of the ink or graphite.

That's patently untrue, of course, ridiculous and even insulting if you're in that mood, but that's also a quite clever way to say, "Keep practicing, even if you think you're producing something ugly, because you'll get better." If I were a singer, I could treat my voice the same way: the "awful song" sounds could stick to my throat like some digestive gas, and have to be cleared out by vocal warm ups. It wouldn't be true, it wouldn't be the correct way of thinking about it, but acting on it would be just as likely to bring about actual results, as knowledge of neuroscience and fine motor skills, or the respiratory system.

I haven't had an OBE or lucid dream in a long while, and when I've set to walk the imaginarium I just... don't feel it. I wonder if it's an experience that someone or something else lent me, some invisible and inaudible genie that said, "Three wishes only" -- a conserved quantity, and I only thought that it was a skill that I could get better at with practice. I don't know why else I haven't been feeling it, lately.