Universe Surfing – Page 2 – surfing the universe

2025 Day 20: RIP Carmel

2025-0120M-2219 Austin, TX

Monday night before 10:19pm, I got a call from the one good friend who knew me when I met Carmel.

“Have you heard from Carmel?”, V asked. “I saw a post that she died.”

In that moment, I felt myself in between realities. One in which the post was true and the other in which it wasn’t. I found it difficult to accept that Carmel was dead. I had just exchanged birthday greetings with her a few months ago.

It’s now Tuesday as I write this. I have had time to verify from her son D that Carmel decided to leave this world. I am both in shock now and also in acceptance. Carmel impacted my life greatly during the time that I spent time with her. I met her a couple of months after my divorce in Santa Cruz. The first page of my Surfing the Multiverse book (https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2015/11/23/surfing-the-multiverse-increasing-your-happiness-one-universe-at-a-time/) was written while I was with her at UCSC. On my birthday in 2015, I wrote about her father’s death (https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2015/11/27/page-56-death-in-the-multiverse/).

Carmel summarized herself as “too complex and whimsical to summarize”. She loved variety, spontaneity, new adventures, learning new things, physical activity, fresh air, and meeting new people everywhere she went. She was best when improvising in the moment. She had an almost obsessive drive to squeeze the juice out of life and live life to its fullest. I just imagined Will Ferrell playing Gene Freckle in the famous SNL skit, More Cowbell.

Carmel loved to remember funny parts of a movie “just cuz I love to laugh”, she said. One of her favorite movies was Get Him to the Greek. This was guaranteed to satisfy her love of laughing.

Carmel, I’m grateful for all of the adventures we shared and happy memories we created. You continue to inspire me to live life to its fullest. RIP Carmel.

Santa Cruz Lighthouse, 6:53am, Dec. 8, 2015 (Photo Credit: surfingtheuniverse.com)

2025 Day 13: Day of the Moon

2025-0113M-2048 Austin, TX

Day 13 of 2025 is a Monday – day of the Moon. I’m actually writing this on Day 14, because it’s after midnight. That’s synchronistic because it’s a full moon now, which roughly marks Day 14 of the lunar cycle. Before writing, the full moon would be a multiple of 7 day and would be a day of rest and inner reflection. There would be no war. No harsh judgments.

But this blog is for Day 13. Like the number 7 of the ancient Babylonian times, the number 13 has some superstition surrounding it. The numbers 6 and 12 are considered complete. 7 and 13 disrupt the harmony of 6 and 12. They both represent excess, irregularity, transition, imbalance, and uncertainty. Many ancient cultures associated these numbers with misfortune. Divisibility of numbers was associated with harmony. Prime numbers like 7 and 13 have no divisibility except by 1 and itself. There are 13 full moons in a year which disrupts the natural alignment of the lunar year with the solar year. Today is Day 13 of 2025 and also a full moon.

The year 2025 is highly divisible with the divisors: 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 25, 27, 45, 75, 81, 135, 225, 405, 675, and 2025. Last year 2024 had the divisors: 1, 2, 4, 8, 11, 22, 23, 44, 46, 88, 92, 184, 253, 506, 1012, and 2024. In 23 years when it is NYE before the year 2048, AI robots and such will be having a celebration like it’s 1999. Excluding 1, the divisors of 2048 are all multiples of 2: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, and 2048. So in computer binary numbers, the year will be 100000000000. This is 2^{11}, a single bit set at the 12th position (starting from the right). Ahhh … completion.

Diving Deeper: Mondays are synonymous with Days 2, 9, 16, and 23 and were transitional days in the lunar cycle. While not as prominently mentioned as the quarter phases, they had significance as moments of adjustment and preparation:

• Day 2: Early waxing crescent, symbolizing growth and refinement of new beginnings.

• Day 9: Momentum toward the first quarter, a time for strengthening and evaluating progress.

• Day 16: Waning after the Full Moon, focusing on balance and stability.

• Day 23: Waning crescent nearing the last quarter, symbolizing preparation for endings and consolidation.

2025 Day 10: Roll the Dice!

2025-0110F-0800 Radio East, Austin TX

My grandfather would buy lottery tickets regularly. I lived with him when going to college. He shared one of his biggest regrets in life was not taking more chances. In my mind, he did take chances in his life. I was told he once started a uranium mining company. He also was a traveling salesman. I wish I had asked him about any particular dreams he had that he had not pursued

My daily blogging practice is an example of rolling the dice. It involves taking action. The result of the action is unpredictable. There are a large number of outcomes of various probabilities. I can write about some of these possible outcomes now and increase their probability of occurring. I can take other actions to increase the probability of these outcomes occurring. I can re-roll the dice as many times as I wish. I get to choose which dice I roll. I get to choose the some of the faces of each die.

A researcher investigating a hypothesis is rolling the dice. They design an experiment and the outcome is unknown. They conduct the experiment and document the outcome. Now, the dice has been rolled and scientific knowledge has been captured. Repeating the experiment in the same way will not be re-rolling the dice. They would need to have an unknown outcome to be rolling the dice again. As I write this, I am questioning myself if this is a good example. Nature knows the outcome of the experiment and so proving whether an hypothesis is true or false is not really an unknown outcome. So, the scientific result itself is not a face of one of the dice. However, what follows in the future for the researcher as a result of the experiment is a possible outcome. So, if the researcher is the first one to be successful in proving a major discovery in a scientific field, this could lead to the researcher gaining additional research grants, or even winning a Nobel Prize.

An entrepreneur pitching their business plan to a potential investor is rolling the dice. The investor deciding to invest in the entrepreneur is also rolling the dice. The employees who join the entrepreneur and execute on the business plan are also rolling the dice. Skill, experience, and hard work are a factor in the success of a business. A certain amount of luck is also part of the equation.

Two best in the world and equally matched athletes, or athletic teams, are rolling the dice when they compete. The winner is unpredictable. One athlete or team is often believed to have a higher chance of winning. But there is still an element of chance in the competition.

Going on a promising date is rolling the dice. Even if both people are excited about the possibility of finding their soulmate, there are many possibilities. Even if they have a great first date, each successive date involves continuing to roll the dice.

Inviting an estranged friend to reconnect is rolling the dice. The consequences of this action are unknown. Accepting an invitation like this is also rolling the dice.

Smiling to a stranger is rolling the dice.

Getting out of bed is rolling the dice.

Roll the dice!

2025 Day 4: Silo and Time Travel

2025-0104S-0930 Austin, TX

A few days ago AZ and I watched another episode of Silo, a dystopian Apple TV series. The setting is on Earth in the future in a huge underground silo. The surface of Earth is apparently not supportive of life. Whenever someone requests to go out, they are forced to leave the silo. Everyone watches a presumed live feed. It shows them walking outside. They clean the outside camera and then fall to the ground after they walk away. I relate to Martha, the reclusive electrical engineer and mentor to Juliette. I also relate to Juliette, the determined seeker of truth.

The dystopian future presented in Silo is like a parallel universe. It’s a realistic potential future for us living in the timeline we are in. It exists as a potential in the same way as the multitude of other potential futures.

Our minds and nervous system are trained to predict possible futures. This internal sensing of the futures near and far is a trait seemingly shared by all life. We then react based on our beliefs about these potential futures. We have free will to focus our attention on certain beliefs and away from other beliefs. Our external senses give us real-time information about our environment. We internally classify our external sensory experiences. Due to the limited fidelity of our external senses, we can erroneously interpret these experiences. We can also erroneously interpret these external sensory experiences due to our internal sensory experiences.

I highly recommend watching Silo!

Going Deeper: Imagine a reality in which time travel was not only theoretically possible, but a normal action available to all. Many movies have explored time travel. In my imagined time traveling reality, I can only travel energetically and not physically. I can energetically experience any time and can also have influence in that time. It’s exponentially easier for me to time travel in my own experienced time line, past or future. I can silently whisper messages to my past or future self, and similarly hear messages. It’s enough for me now to explore this timeless communication with myself. I have not tried to do it with others.

20210124u Day 390: Personal Observations

2021-0124u-1200 Austin, TX

I wasn’t planning to write today. Something seems to be bubbling up and I’m not sure what it is. I hope that by writing my thoughts down now, whatever it is will reveal itself.

I just got off the phone with my beloved. We had a somewhat heated discussion about white privilege due to my not accepting my beloved’s belief in the importance that white privilege has played in benefiting me throughout my life. We found common ground in agreeing that racism exists in the world and the world would be better if it did not. We also agreed that many white people have benefited from white privilege. We also agreed that I have also benefited from white privilege. However, we disagreed as to the extent that white privilege played a role. I believe that the vast majority of my personal achievements would have been possible regardless of my race or skin color. I even believe that there’s a chance I may have benefited additionally as a minority due to affirmative action programs in existence during my education and early career. As I type this however, I’m becoming aware of certain times in which I felt “blessed”, or lucky, and I’m wondering now if my luck was due to the color of my skin, or my race, or being male, or some other discriminatory factor. I have to admit that there were times in my life that I have received large benefits and have not really been able to logically explain or understand from where these benefits came. I can accept the possibility that white privilege, male privilege, religious privilege, or some other privilege was a larger factor than I have previously believed.

Before my heated discussion, I watched a few videos – a press briefing from the new white house administration, and a couple videos on financial bubbles forming due to the easy money flowing through the system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I was pleased to hear Dr. Fauci present a reality that felt in alignment with the reality I believe to be true. I especially liked when he answered a question by saying he didn’t know the answer and that the Biden administration was adopting a policy of only answering questions for which there is a known answer – not making something up on the spot just to have an answer. For the financial videos, I was glad to see Dr. Ron Paul doing well on Kitco news and still promoting liberty, reduced government and sound monetary policy. I’m attracted to him because he does not pledge allegiance to either political party and has a consistent set of beliefs. I don’t agree with all of his beliefs, but at least I can follow his logic when he explains why he holds them. One of the other videos was an interview by Bloomberg news of an individual who seemed to be reading a prepared statement warning Robinhoodlers and Stonks purchasers that one day the FED will not come to their rescue.

Also, today, like every day this year, I had a conversation with my Aunt who is on the board of directors of my condo HOA. At the end of 2020, like a final kick in the ass, our HOA found out that our management company had been stealing our money for the last 5 years and that we were broke with over $30K in debt. I’m now in a universe in which I’m working full-time helping our HOA get back on it’s feet. I hope to use this full-time effort I’m putting forth to tunnel to a universe in which I’m putting in similar effort towards something meaningful AND also getting paid for it.

What are the chances? I just checked to see what was happening on Nov 1, 2016, the day that $25K was moved from the HOA money market to checking. The next day another $25K was moved and then all $50K was moved out of our control to another HOA. This was Election Day 2016! The same time period when most people around the world felt a huge shift from the normal time line to a very unexpected time line. The conclusion of this fraudulent activity ended about the same time that Trump left office. What are the chances? Synchronicity.