Slice of life today.  Even though I’ve dated this toward the end of the 20th, I could not possibly have updated it then, because this night I had unplugged my computer and modem earlier in the night.  There was a crazy thunderstorm or two.

I am not sure exactly whether this was the same thunder I walked through in the city after work, but if so, it had moved pretty slowly from there to here, and picked up a lot more electricity.  It was bad enough in the city actually.  I honestly hesitated to go out in the rapid succession of lightning, but I had already had a longer day than usual at work.

I had to go to work earlier than I usually do, because this was the day when we would get instructed in the new phone queue system, with practical exercise.  I learn fairly easily, but in things like this, nothing can replace on-site, hands-on training.  So I got up earlier than usual, had less time for myself before haring off to work, and was there longer.  It was already late afternoon; if I were to wait an hour just because I was afraid to be struck by lightning, it would be evening.  So I walked through a mostly deserted city while the rain was pouring cats and dogs and the lightnings flew back and forth above me like heavenly electrical badminton.

This was just a warm-up for the night’s light show, it turned out.  I was peacefully using my computer when it started after dark.  I thought I heard something, so I went to the front door to check.  I did not open that door.  It has a translucent part, nothing you can see any shapes through, little more than whether it is night or day outside.  At this point, it should have been night. It was not.  It was a flickering, pulsating daylight.  And the sound of water coming down with an intensity I doubt I get in my shower.

Needless to say, I soon shut down and unplugged the home office and took out the phone contact.  Then I went to the living room, stood in the middle of the dark room and watched.  The lightning bolts followed each other so closely there was no time for darkness to return between them.  The sky was an electric pulsating white that seemed to come from all directions.  I can only think of one time before I have seen the like, and then only possibly.  It was during an exam in high school.  But this was in the night, and therefore even more impressive.

Luckily the mobile phone / handheld computer worked just fine, at least for data traffic.  I am not sure it would be wise to talk in it.  Or at least not listen.

The thunderstorm had passed when I went to bed, but the power tripped off once after that, and I was not sure whether there would be more of them.  So I went to bed early, still with my computers and network unplugged.

Before this had happened, however, I had downloaded two e-books. This was around the peak of my Okawa mania (I’d already ordered several of his books from Amazon, more about them later if I live and learn)  but then I found that two of them were available as e-books for a very comfortable price from ebookmall.com. So I bought and downloaded them, and put them on my iPaq. These were The Laws of the Sun and The Laws of Eternity, two of this three most famous books.  For some reason the middle book of the trilogy was not there, The Golden Laws. I’ve ordered it in print from Amazon though, but e-books are more practical.  They take up no space, the reader is small and unobtrusive, they are searchable, and I can jump straight to highlights if I reread them.  I usually don’t reread anything, but then again I don’t usually re-watch movies and I saw The Laws of Eternity at least three times.

The Laws of the Sun is a pretty weird book.  Parts of it reads like the setting for a sci-fi role playing game, with detailed information about a number of continents that supposedly rose from the ocean and fell back over the last million years, and their civilizations. Not to mention the various levels of Heaven and the souls who live there, and how this relates to life on Earth.  But at least Heaven is not scientifically disproved.  Actually, the celestial part largely agrees with my own intuition, which was why he caught my interest in the first place.

Also, there is the small thing about the author being the Buddha reborn (which, I am pretty sure, is blasphemy to Buddhists, since Nirvana is supposed to be the final dissolution, the end of the circle of rebirth.  For some reason Buddhists are fed up with being reincarnated and want OUT of it. At least Theravada Buddhists.  I am not sure why they think it is a bad thing, honestly.  It is like eternal life except you don’t remember it.  And let’s face it, if you lived for a billion years, how much would you remember even if you did not die?)

But in between the sci-fi part and the seeming blasphemy, there is a lot of profound spiritual stuff that fits right in with what I have accumulated through life on that front. It is really confusing in a way.  If he’s just some crazy guy or Japan’s answer to Scientology, where does he have the good stuff from?

But if I ever find that out, it will probably not be in a slice of life entry.  Probably. With my life, even slices can be pretty weird.