PLACES of origin.

Good Morning gang!!

Coffee, 10 minutes to prepare and brew. Marb UL-100, about 3 seconds to pull, light, and puff. Crawling outta bed to blue skies and birds singing...priceless. Hope all of you are well this morning and have a great day! I noticed last evening while I was checking my stats that I had two views from Germany...ah...my place of origin. I have never visited there, but my "man of the world" nephew has studied there, visits there "fairly" often, knows the language--and from what his mother and father tell me, he is one hell of a tour guide. I remember watching something on television about Germany and remember being in awe of this one beautiful old cathedral placed all alone in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but nature all around it. I thought, "boy, if that isn't the picture of beauty and serenity, I don't know what is." While sitting with my nephew during his Labor Day weekend visit this past year, I learned that he had traced our "Keller" family tree all the back to the 1600s..I was amazed and there was so much information, I couldn't really get any of it to "sink" in such a short amount of time. Although I remember feeling this sense of pride and even a closeness of sorts with those who had preceded me in this lineage, and more importantly...it gave "carrying a name" new meaning...real meaning, other than just that of an "identifier." It was a walk back in time, and each step back, a representation of where part of me has been, and each holding a thread of my genetic origin. WOW. Thank you Ben, all your years of toil and I'm quite sure..frustration, have not been in vain. So to my friends from Germany...greetings and Willkommen!!

Origin defined: The first stage of existance; beginning.

My question: Does our origin take place in the womb? I CANNOT believe I just bit off this topic...I think I may regret this (I have only had ONE cup of coffee!!), as I am no geneticist by any stretch...nor am I particularly versed in the physiological seperation of human being only in as far as it reproduces itself through DNA throughout innumerable generations and at which point, it becomes "washed out or watered down" so to speak-OR-whether or not it ever does...I do know that no matter how much a "part" of something I am, I am an entire whole in myself and I also know that if we could just be BORN with a pre-programmed (such as in DNA to physiology)mind and psyche, we would be stripped of our own thoughts, beliefs, and decisions. We would be nothing but machines, unfeeling, unconcerned, with no needs, no dreams, no NOTHING. If that was all DONE for us, like nature seems to do for our bodies, WHAT THE HELL would we be? We would probably most certainly be aware of our TOTAL origin...but what fun would that be, really? I mean what does our physicality provide us with? History, cabability to express thought, ability to move about, and of course...all of those pesky "normal bodily functions." But if you look at it really closely...isn't it just a vehicle..a device to express? Where is the origin of WHAT it is that we express...we cannot give all of that credit to the "brain" now can we...we are pretty much born with a clean slate, aren't we? And what and/or whom programs that brain to create the vast capability of the mind--our first teachers, mom and dad, sibs, then the school system, society? Why is it that two people who grow up in pretty much similar households, attend the same schools, and live in the same geographical area SO different? And when we are released from the "chains" of childhood and begin our lives as adults...and even raise our own children, who ARE we and where do we come from? Why would my ideas, passions, thoughts, actions, and the like differ so widely from the parents who raised me? What counsels us, leads us, drives us? Could it be this internal dialect I speak of? Could it be the depiction of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other scrambling our minds into a "final answer" to the question posed? Is it free will? And where is it's origin? Thoughts?

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.” ~
Swami Vivekananda.