Florida has to be one of the few places in the world where, when temps fall into the 40s and below, the National Weather Service issues an advisory to "look out for falling iguanas." It's true. Those tree-hugging, tropical lizards that grow up to six feet in length hate the cold as much as we do.

When it gets as cold as we just experienced in the last few days, they literally "freeze" and go into a coma-like state. If they happen to be in a tree at the time, plop!

The good news, at least for them, is that they return to their normal, plant-munching selves when it warms back up. In the meantime, experts say don't wrap them in swaddling clothes or bring them inside. They could wake up suddenly and bite you. We also hear it's against the law.

While the video brlow has nothing to do with iguanas, it does feature a lizard, and is pretty funny. I take every opportunity I get to post it. It's from a live TV newscast from Fort Worth, Texas-based KXAS. Pam and i were actually working for one of their competitors when this happened. Enjoy!

Pam -- aka "Gigi in the 561" -- did a podcast today about languishing, and how that describes the current state of the world in 2022.

It made me stop and think. What exactly does "languish" mean? According to Webster, to languish is to become "dispirited" or "suffer neglect;" to "live in a state of depression or decreasing vitality;" to become "feeble, weak or enervated (lacking vigor)."

Two years into a worldwide pandemic, "languishing" seems to fit the situation to a "T."
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Health impact aside -- and we all know that's taken a terrible toll -- just about everyone has felt the mental impact. Namely:

• The Uncertainty. Step out your door and wonder: Is today the day I get the virus? Do I dare gather with friends, go to the mall, attend a concert, go to a restaurant? Life has become a roll of the dice, and we're constantly asking ourselves, "Do I feel lucky?"

 

• The Grind. Good news! The Delta variant has peaked. Bad news! Omnicron is here. Good news! Get all the shots and you can probably avoid the hospital. Bad news! Despite the shots, we're all going to get it at some point. Week after week, month after month, there's no end is sight.

 

• Fake news. Despite all the science, all the experts and good old common sense, the snake oil salesmen are out in full force, peddling lies and phony cures to a gullible populace only too eager to listen and line up to buy. Get the vaccine? "Over my dead body -- live free or die." Sadly, for some it's the last choice they make.

 

• The Testing. It wasn't that long ago most of us had no clue what "antigen" or "PCR (polymerase chain reaction)" meant. Now they've become part of our everyday vocabulary. Want to travel? Get tested. Attend an event? Get tested. Have a sniffle? Better get tested. At-home tests, community test sites (where lines of cars can extend for miles) -- testing is everywhere, and can be very expensive. Hundreds of dollars, in fact. All for the privilege of having a piece of cotton on a stick pushed into your nose or throat. Fun times.

 

• The Masking. It used to be only doctors and the Lone Ranger wore masks. Now we all do, or should. Leave the house and it's one more thing to keep track of. Masking up makes it harder to breathe, can be uncomfortable to wear for long periods and can play havoc with women's makeup. But for us, it's become as essential as wearing shoes or buckling a seatbelt. 

• The New Normal. As with any life-changing event, such as 9-11, people settle into a "new normal." In the case of the virus, it means we'll never stop washing our hands multiple times a day or having hand sanitizer in the car or available to use whenever we're out and about. In retrospect, it's probably one of those health-conscious habits we should have gotten into all along. So that's a plus.

Of course, the pandemic's impact to the world's economies is immeasurable. As travel writers, we felt it right away when cruises were stopped in their tracks and flying for fun turned into a nightmare of unruly passengers duking it out at 30,000 feet. We have ventured out during the last two years, but our trips have been few and far between.

So here we are, languishing in 2022. Not depressed -- that's not our style. Dispirited? Sometimes. Downhearted? Desperate? All those emotions come and go from time to time. But still, above all, very grateful to be vertical and given another day to fight.

The one thing we do know for sure: Whatever the state of the world, this too shall pass.

"is it real, or is it Memorex?"

That was a line from an Eighties ad for recording tape. But in its own way, it has relevance today, as scientists, philosophers and academics hotly debate the age-old question, "What is reality?"

Fueled by movies like "The Matrix" and an explosion of interest in virtual reality (VR), coupled with new technologies that probe ever deeper into the fabric of space, time and the quantum bits that form the basis for everything, we are attacking that vexing question on all fronts.

My own interest in the subject was peaked when Pam gifted me a copy of David Ewalt's book, "Defying Reality -- The Inside Story of the Virtual Reality Revolution." Its focus is mostly on the consumer electronics side, tracing the development of Oculus and other players in the space.

As a latecomer to the VR scene (I jettisoned my early adopter status long ago), I got the Sony Playstation 4/VR console, mostly for our granddaughter's visits. Having said that, I quickly got pulled into the magic of moving in a 360-degree virtual environment -- piloting a spaceship from planet to planet, shooting down zombies on a fun house rollercoaster or barely surviving a shark attack on an ocean descent.

It really is amazing to think you can put on a headset and be transported to worlds where anything is possible. Suddenly, science fiction concepts like the Star Trek Holodeck seem tantilizingly close at hand. And after saving the world from the zombie apocalypse, we can turn off the headset and return to reality. Or did we ever leave?

A new book by philosopher David Chalmers, "Reality+," argues virtual reality is as real as "real" reality -- the ultimate affirmation that perception is reality. I'm only on chapter two, but if you want to really go down the rabbit hole, Chalmers takes a swing at ALL the BIG questions around reality, God and is what we call reality just a computer simulation? 

Is your head hurting yet?

It's only human to wonder about these things. Plato went there in his cave allegory, Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "Is all that we see or seem, But a dream within a dream?" Even Shakespeare weighed in: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

No one would doubt the pace of technology will make our virtual future more and more real. Facebook is betting the farm that we'll want to move into their Metaverse. Some predict we'll ditch clunky headsets for computer implants that will allow us to engage all our senses in the experience. With newfound power to inhabit any world or become any avatar we can imagine, will we reach a point of never wanting to leave? Maybe we'll see virtual reality as a Godsend if it helps us cope with a future climate- or war-ravaged world.

Central to all of this is that three-pound lump of gray matter called the brain, which gives rise to the mind, consciousness and our sense of self. And that opens up a whole new can of philosophical worms. Quoting from the 1956 movie, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers": 

"The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. I'm not sure it will ever be able to figure itself out. Everything else maybe, from the atom to the universe. Everything except itself."

To further cloud the water, I just read where researchers have determined what we experience is actually on a 15-second delay as our brain "mashes up" the millions of sensory inputs it receives every second and does its best to approximate the results to protect us from being overwhelmed.

But does all of this really matter if we are just part of some computer game played by our descendants in a far-flung future or alien whiz kids looking for a diversion? The answer is, we just don't know, and probably can never know. The fact is, we just can't know any of the Big Question answers with any certainty.

Of course, that doesn't keep us from trying, and wondering, and questioning our existence or place in the cosmos. Knowledge is both a blessing and a curse, depending on what we find in those rabbit holes. But that won't stop us from chasing those rabbits, virtual or otherwise.
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