Mis-Assumptions

Tennis as Art

When I think of the recent French Open, the first image that comes to mind is the joy on Spike Lee’s face that so perfectly mirrored my own after a miraculous shot by Coco Gauff who went on to win the Women’s Championship. Getting a little teary knowing how hard and long she’s worked, the same joyful teariness when Madison Keys won the 2025 Australia Open is due to my enormous appreciation for the power of hard work and determination that tennis exemplifies so well. One of the most competitive tennis tournaments I’ve seen in my decades of watching tennis, the 2025 French Open culminated in a men’s final that went for a historic five and a half hours. Players at the top of their game pushing each other farther than each had ever gone. I would have been fine with whoever won it was so close. Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner, but it was the two of them together that created the extraordinary match. We, the spectators, maintained attention, joined in our absorption and admiration of what we were seeing and what it takes to be there. I always feel connected with the others watching, what we feel and appreciate is a linkage unlike any other for me, a congregation. Such devotion, skill and creativity raise the sport to art. TNT Sports’ coverage underscored the beauty of tennis with dance sequences loosely based on tennis moves which functioned as refreshing transitions between matches in early rounds. Watching tennis at that level, my bodymind is awash with dopamine and endorphins. Admiration is wonderful brain chemistry, full of the unexpected with virtuosity that takes your breath away. Other athletes appreciate the level of athleticism required to play that long and that well. Announcers pointed out the NBA players and other well-known professional athletes in the audience who know what it’s like to keep changing direction and adapting to other players for long stretches. As a person plagued by self-consciousness, the external focus is relief and appreciation of the courage required to have cameras on you the whole time as you experience the most important match of your life. I feel honored to witness how each player is affected as it shows in face and body I always feel improved after watching an intense tennis match. My mirror neurons have gotten a workout, twitching and shifting with the players movements, invigorated and inspired by the high level of excellence. I face my own work with the understanding that one meaning in life is finding out what you’re capable of, something my husband told me once that I’ve held as a principle ever since.

Betrayal

Simulation 2025

It started with a text from Apple Support saying my account had been charged twice, giving the amounts and said if these were me, do nothing, if not, click this link or call this number. This was the kind of message I’d gotten before for credit cards. I hadn’t made those charges. I hesitated because I routinely delete texts claiming to be DMV or Paypal but this felt more serious, so I called. A man answered with “Apple Support”, and he told me I had been hacked, that I had already gotten many intruders on all of my devices and needed to go on my computer so we could stop this. He was very specific in his descriptions, so I logged on to my computer with 80% confidence he was who he said he was, 20% doubt. The things he asked me after logging in seemed innocuous, but after I’d allowed him access to my screen I asked, ‘I how do I know you are who you say you are’. He goes to the Apple site which looks exactly as it should, and puts up his Apple Support ID, then types a few things and I’m looking at an animated network map of the world which he says is showing where my hack originated and which other cities were already involved, little webs emanating from them, very official looking. He then shows me an increasing list of people that have and can use my data as I watch the list grow. By now I’m pretty freaked out at what this conjures in my head. He clicks something else that shows five different windows all with activity going on, lights flashing, grids shifting, and he says this is scanning, finding and blocking this activity on my devices. These displays looked so real, combined with the assurance that they would restore the firewalls, calmied my nerves. I felt grateful someone was helping me. He opened another window with a form to fill out for my refund. As I was filling in the amount it went to a new page with what I’d filled in but the wrong amount, way more than I filled in. I say let’s redo, since it wouldn’t let me correct it, but he’s acting very upset because it can’t be changed, it’s already in the bank’s hands. My confidence level dropped to 20% as I say how can that be possible, how could apple support have a system where you couldn’t check what you did before submitting? He agreed it was a flaw, but now I had to get the money back to them quickly because there would be a big fine for this mistake. To convince me, we went to my account where he showed me that the extra amount was there in the account. When I signed in, I was looking at my familiar on-line banking page and there was that large extra amount. I log out and we’re back to the scanning screens. My fear that all these intruders were finding things to do with my data was stronger than my doubts about “Apple Support”. I got as far as the bank to wire back the money. The heroes of the story are the two sharp bankers who recognized the pattern. When one of them told me everything they had said and done, I was stunned. As if in cosmic confirmation, he called my cell phone while I digested this in the office, and I let her answer the phone. Hearing the wrong voice he hung up. Though the red flags were there they came late, when I had already been primed to feel dependent on those that scared me about the hacks. Seeing is believing. The simulation of familiar websites and pages was too convincing. I offer this story in hopes others will be alert to how effectively what visually familiar can be mimicked.

Dis/Connection

If connection is the essential motion of spirituality, then disconnection must be the essential motion of criminality. Both are easily visible, and the growing forces of deliberate disconnection can be seen everywhere. The methods begin with the labels. A label separates, disconnects, says this is different than that and creates a boundary between. The label comes with a built-in definition of all the ways the other is not like us. Human understanding has become so dependent on language that people can be directed to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes. Politicians use a host of labels. Nationalities, race, religion, gender, any deviance from who is doing the labeling, to justify (note the word) injustices, disconnecting others from the human community. We are an evolving species, a process that accelerates as groups become more diverse and therefore more complex. When intention is toward growth, human capability is woven harmoniously. As Nobel Laureate David Bohm wrote, creativity is finding what fits. Fighting the disconnecting of family from community, father from family, student from education, country from alliances to other countries and services to their own people, are people coming together to protest. The size of the crowds is a beautiful image of connection, the assembly of so many people from every differently labeled group, together as one, in cities and towns all over the country. Assembly is often used in a spiritual context, and a unification for the higher good is apt testimony. Protesting the criminality of this separating behavior, a pageant of humanity floods the streets, unwilling to condone the shameful actions done in our name. Talk about ugly. The prideful ugliness of a sexualized female posing in front of enormous cages of human beings with less space than factory farmed animals stirs revulsion. The mix of sex and fear is the fat and sugar of propaganda. Our sense of right and wrong is nested in our sense of beauty. We see and react to the difference before we think. The recoil at ugliness is automatic. The attraction to beauty is automatic. Built in. We can trust it and we know the difference because we see it. It’s individual and nuanced. To separate, to divide, and to destroy are violations of our sense of beauty. Kindness is beautiful, an expression of connection. We can’t see the wrong happening around us if we’re asleep. Asleep we see dreams and not the reality we share with others. The fact that there are politicians that denounce being awake as negative clearly want their constituents to stay unaware of reality. The obvious destructive force at large remains unnoticed by those hypnotized by an artificial reality that explains away the destruction as necessary for an even better fantasy.

Dis/Orientation

Chronic Vigilance