Perfectly Edited Movie

Sometimes I imagine I'm a character in a perfectly edited movie, where there are no extraneous scenes, where everything serves a purpose in creating the story.

This from a Seattle friend. Seems like a charitable point of view. That would make the mouthy jerk at the hardware store...well, just part of the perfectly edited movie. He's serving some purpose in the film, even if I'm not aware of what it might be. Maybe that's the challenge...admitting that I'm just playing my role, and that I'm not the editor.
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A quote from David Milch, creator of the HBO program Deadwood, seems relevant or related:

The chemist Friedrich Kekule worked on the structure of the benzene ring for 20 years, and then it came to him in a dream about a snake swallowing its tail. He said that visions come to prepared spirits. ...I've said that I believe our sense of ourselves as individuals is an illusion, and that we're organs of a larger organism that knows us, even though we don't know it. If that's the case, I regard myself as a vessel of that organism, not the source. I try to get out of the way. The work I do now is as good as it can be no matter how long I spend on it, and I think that's a matter of readiness of the spirit.

I think my friend's perfectly edited movie and Milch's readiness of the spirit have something in common, a sense of grace, deflation of ego, something that enables connection to the divine. Thoughts?

Alternative energy

Late in 2005, George Monbiot wrote an article on the subject of biodiesel. His central point is that, in terms of overall ecological footprint, biodiesel may be much worse than fossil fuels. The article is worth a read.

What stood out, to me, was this quote:

In 2003, the biologist Jeffrey Dukes calculated that the fossil fuels we burn in one year were made from organic matter "containing 44 x 1018 grams of carbon, which is more than 400 times the net primary productivity of the planet's current biota". In plain English, this means that every year we use four centuries' worth of plants and animals.

In even more plain English, this means that we are consuming energy 400 times in exceess of what is coming into the global system. Imagine spending 400 times what you earn...how long could you do it?

What I find significant--most of the press I read about the future of energy focuses on replacement fuels for oil, and not on the fundamentally unsustainable rate of consumption. No amount of wind, hydro, solar, biodiesel, or even solar roadways, are really an answer for the rate at which humans are spending energy. It is the energy consumption rate, and not the source, that must shift if carbon emissions are to be reduced.

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Fine print:
Some people will argue the number 400. I'll concede that the number may be wrong--it may be high, it may be low. The accuracy of the number 400 may be questioned--what is unquestionable, however, is the fact that we're using reserves more quickly than they can replenish.