The computer at home is a central fixture. My two main pursuits these days are the computer and English literature, and I spend most of my waking time at home at my desk. Each of my two cocker spaniels has negotiated his way around me. Pasta is a lurker. He needs to keep me in sight but preferably one or two seconds away. That's reaction time in case I decide it's time to play. Play for we three is unpredictable by design: I like to keep them guessing. Pasta's happy to play but needs some distance to escape just in case. Neon is braver, ready for all my tricks. He also seems to crave physical contact. When I read he will sit at attention by my knees hoping to be invited up into the chair. At breakfast he's beneath the kitchen table.

How Neon got under my desk is a story of evolution. Originally he started on a small carpet near but not near enough to my desk. It wasn't long before he started curling up to the side of my desk chair on the oriental carpet. The problem with sleeping next to my chair is that inevitably I'm going to move it. After several months of yelping (mine and his), he's found a better way. So he sleeps at my feet where the chair never strikes. It's more complicated for us both, but with those few negotiations we're both at peace.

Which brings me to regeneration. It's a great concept, one I recommend. It's kind of like the old Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis equation. All the time we're faced with the conflict between one thing and another, and we resolve the two in a paradigm shift. Take the primal conflict between good and evil. The trick is finding the proper resolution to the conflict. To expect good to triumph over evil is simplistic. That's how the Democrats and Republicans play: one wins if the other loses. This thinking is what knocks each party out of the White House every decade or so: through the excesses brought by annihilation tactics, the four of us who still vote in this country are forced to admit occasionally that it's time to give the other party a try. And so the cycle continues.

I don't think there's a solution to the Democrat - Republican conflict, any more than there is to the Coke - Pepsi battle for market share. One will win over the other for a time, then the underdog will resurge. Both combatants seem pleased with the cycle, and I can't see them ever wanting to transcend their respective paradigms (unless someone does it for them).

You can find themes of regeneration in literature. Christian theology embraces the idea that we are progressing through time to be closer to God. Beginning with the Fall, we have taken steps through history to reconcile ourselves with the Creator. Christ liberated Christians from Judaic law because his incarnation transcended the need for law through the gift of grace. Not that morals were tossed aside, but all those regulations in Leviticus and elsewhere were made irrelevant when Christ redeemed humanity. We don't have to sacrifice animals any more because the ultimate sacrifice was made on our behalf.

The idea is that paradigms continue shifting and the world gets better and better. Ultimately we are assimilated into heaven, having transcended the evil of the Fall by making evil ultimately powerless, irrelevant.

We're a long, long way from the end of the journey. Things seem pretty nice on this upper left-hand corner of the planet, but they're not so nice in other places. Progression is not smooth or irreversible in the short term. But it's helpful to use the perspective of long-term regeneration to see that every day in every way, we get better and better.

It's a personal goal for me. Every day I want to learn something new or to do something that positively changes this world for someone. Sometimes I learn something new when I find out I screwed something up. But as long as I learn something from that, I've profited and the sum total of good is increased by one.

If I'm lucky I'll get to see a few regenerations before I go. Computers might be one of those steps: business has begun to leave the Industrial Age behind to find an Age where we have all become shepherds again. I tend my flock of data, you tend yours. What fascinates me is that we have become, in essence, shepherds of the Words. We protect them, and they nourish us. They demand more of us, and we find new ways to accommodate them. It's more complicated for us both, but with those few negotiations we're both at peace.