Paid to Play

Fall arrives, the weather cools, the veils between worlds go all gossamer...my season. Echos of school beginnings, of a new social year, the arrival of American football and holiday-laden months, all vistas change, feasts in the offing, the Spring of self after all the extroverted days of Spring and Summer. Standing at the door, just enough time for a look-back before hard-charging.

 Personally, well I said back there that I'd comment again on some of this, read back and see. Still concerned that deliberation and vision are getting less respect that they deserve; experiments are often mistakes and there is no emotional eye-wash station or big industrial hood to clear the air if the reagents react...poorly. Most folk blunder into failure and betrayal driven by dopamine and endorphins to such a degree that they wake up fucked (often literally), looking at the mushroom cloud. No awareness of the slippery slope descent into risk and moments of misery, just eyes on a shiny prize...usually between someone's legs with after-images of a cozy afternoon on a different  (the only difference in the end) couch basking in mild mutual admiration (hopefully, can be one-sided quick), physical connection (ditto), acceptance, and possibility. Sound familiar? Of course it does, a harp I play too much...cue Unicorn.

 Execution time? Soon? Some (not all) actions lead straight to the exploded lab ref'd above ("won't know till you try it" you say?...childish thinking like before you knew the stove was hot, go ahead...), and have a fallout path a mile wide that stretches to the horizon. Some actions seem very compassionate and giving, but end up in the same wounded place for at least two (maybe 3 or 4 of 5) of the principals in every scenario. There are choices that focus solely on sacrifice, lowest common denominator stuff that ends up with everyone capped on true (big distinction here, not talking about the fleeting non-contributory no-consequences out-from-under-my-responsibilities relief feeling...am talking proactive, not compensatory) happiness...fear of that is what brought you here; no-go. This could go on for a while...suffice to say that due diligence has been done and several dozen possibilities with hundreds of variations have been scrutinized and anecdotal corollaries researched...the body of knowledge is probably enough to move to new execution and grows daily.

Old business, done, I'm tired of it too. ;-) On to the little things...

 

I'm looking at my professional situation and giving it some serious thought. I've mentioned before that I had a pretty good gig...still do. I have become a little disaffected though, and sent some lines out into the marketpond to see if anyone likes me. Didn't even get seated to watch the little bob before it went under; joke on me...I knew change was on me but I didn't know it was that close. So dilemmas ensue, known and secure vs. new w/risk, solid pay vs. x2 wage earning...shit, s'what I get. No real losing position, confident that I can throw the trick and stick the landing, but I've gotten complacent and have been so busy on other things that I haven't focused on my drive. Tomorrow (a face-to-face) will probably be a significant gate, we'll see.

Fall and guns, like rotel and velveeta, for me they just go together. Shot rounds through a big part of the arsenal yesterday (blessed with location for indiscriminate gun slinging). A new 9mm all German and authoritative, long guns sighted on the bench (big bang, little bullets, scope distance) even shotgunned a tree stump into little trunkettes for a while; 5 quick ones pumped into a wooden torso, pretty sure I put him down for good. Can still shoot and like doing it; best effort was with a little wheel-gun that my grandfather (master gunsmith among other things, mostly bad) tooled into the sweetest shooting pistol I've ever held; shiny short barrel and hitting center mass chest-sized metal targets at 50 yards. Since I'm not that good, must be the iron. If you don't like the references to imagined human begging-for-booya...well, I don't like to kill animals less I need to eat 'em. Tactical defense against the two-legs though, the right tool for the job unless you are in close and it's murder-in-the-dark.

 

Animals. My big-watchful-defensive Sara-dog died a short time ago, that's three pets in less than 2 years (co-termed expiration dates, sucks), only one left. My feelings there don't work in prose, sentimental repetition about something that meant a lot to me feels like disservice. She was an elegant animal in her way, so a death-poem seems apropos (you have been warned). Consequence? New puppy soon for the tot, a poodle most likely, miniature, and from a reputable breeder. The house has played host to many an  animal of questionable parentage, been lucky so far, but want some predictable qualities now.

Other activities...several, including writing and trip-taking. Another time though, got leaves in the pool that need rescuing.

History-Heavily-Hyphenated

Gay history?...I suppose if we're talking about a psycho-social phenomena and its impact on cultural values (law, economics, mores)...sure. But really, that's jumpin' the damn gun don't you think? History is advanced social study; it's not facts and dates and tiny slices of what-you thought-you-knew. It's a complex of various convergent and divergent thought processes and perspectives. Straying into the verbose now...It is my considered opinion that we shouldna even teach kids history until they understand a few basic concepts; i.e. we should teach them anthropology and the basics of social frameworks first; building blocks like the realities of tribe, village, town, wealth, leadership and the roles and responsibilities that homo sapiens have had a tendency to define for others and ourselves. Historical understanding depends on those foundational blocks, so you got to have some to get some. Feels foolish to me that any high school graduate can wax sentimental and versed about the ridiculously thin, narrow, decayed junk we sanction, a pile of nearly random useless facts. I don't think we can build useful structures from that compost. My conceit? If folk haven't made a study of history, shouldn't pretend they have cause they glanced up against a heavily redacted textbook or two and can get some so-far-from-context-you-can't-see-context-from-here data points to bolster the rhetorical monologue so proudly spewed in a social network.

Ok, rant-tangent...check, apologies. Defining 'history' with a delimiter always puts me there, as though there is 'a' history to carve up like roast beast. Intellectual history, Social history, Military history, Economic history, Diplomatic history...etc, have all been defined cause somebody wanted to put a lens over the whole of the past to call out some details limiting their thesis to an acceptable myopia which can scoot by the Doctoral review board. Works in a professional context (e.g. 'Gay' history may have some revelatory research vectors)...I understand research requirements and the necessary focus to make your work relevant/contributory to the body of knowledge and all that, but the usefulness of those limits disappears the second you defend/publish into that very rarefied space. Those things are not supposed to leak out of academe to be mishandled and misunderstood by, for example, the don't-really-know-or-care-they-missed-an-education-after-16-years-of-'school' folks that we elect whenever they need a mallet to bang some piece of self-serving policy into an historical/patriotic mold. It happens a lot, perverted history sewn into a jingoist flag to wave at constituents so everyone feels ok about doing something wrong or stupid for someone else's profit; look around and tell me I'm wrong.

So now California mandates teaching 'Gay' history, and people are offended in both directions (not enough, too much). The simple truth of this is that we do delete 'Sexual' history from primary education, but we delete it all. There is no call-to-arms to include 'Adulterous' history as a curriculum anchor, even though statistically speaking it is more prevalent than homosexuality (which has its share of scarlet A's) and a significant historical factor in the lives of men/women both common and great. I don't see anyone fighting for 'Exploitation' history, or 'Prostitutional' history...ok, pejoratives in, even mainstream 'Married' history or 'Bachelor' history or...you get my point.

So, excepting most Natural History (not headed into the creationist heresy today)...Affirmative-Action history: Women's history, Black history...ok, legally defined minorities based on biology get a nod. Gay and Lesbian folks will say they are biologically a minority, and an oppressed one to a degree that gives them equal we-need-to-balance-the-books-across-a-few-generations-to-destigmatize rights. I think it's that biological piece that makes that idea stand up to scrutiny...if you believe same-sex love/sex/commitment has a gooey center. The science is out from what I can tell, no gene for Gay has been publicized (would it be? yes, just not here in the US), but if you care at all for the circumstantial/anecdotal evidence, hormonal triggers are in Watson and Crick's stairway to heaven; a biological basis for attraction and aesthetic leanings. Hell, if you go back to my anthropology-first-cause History's-advanced-understanding-and-should-be-the-poetry-learned-after-your-ABC's, you can't help but see that culturally, there is a possible line of inquiry about the level of contribution from the gay community that merits a note or two. In some 'primitive' cultures a boy picked to fill the shamanic role (intercessor with the unknowable, speaker for the dead, master of the natural world, divinatory authority, et al) would be separated from the male segment of society and dressed as a woman for his early life. We are informed by the existant tribes that do this that it is to give him a full brain, since his role is to work for all the people. That role, that of the wisest, is transgendered/bisexual for practical, spiritual, and social reasons. Wise indeed to create a mediator role with a more divergent thought process, a wider world view, a more compassionate connection with the whole community...it's how we all got here, globally so (Chukchi, Sea Dayak, Patagonians, Araucanians, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Navajo, Pawnee, Lakota, Ute, and the tribes of Burkina Faso in Africa to name a few). Some folks prefer female shaman right out of the jade gate, but that is an understudied area vis-à-vis the sex roles of those wise women.

Anyway, I dont like it...the idea of quota'd historical knowledge and analysis, and would vote against a law requiring it if I was West Coast ya'll. The History of the Gay Culture in the United States? Cultural Survey of Homosexuality at X time or place? Sure...college courses about ethnography and social movements. But 'Gay History' for high schoolers or younger? Terrible idea, and speaks to the complete and utter lack of Historical professionalism in primary education in this country. We should be way ahead of that; teach kids that homosexuality is a significant social factor, a truth of the species, a possible spur to creativity and alternative thinking in individuals that can and does result in some very important advances in art/science/spirituality (and whatever-else-you-got)...then when they understand their hominidal tendencies teach human history. History is for human understanding of humans (which imqo you have to grow into, s'not a given just cause you're a fur-challenged primate that walks and talks), and not a precinct for righting wrongs and setting straight and manipulating memory and justifying an ignorance-biased future.

Dr Zinn: A People's History

Missing Pieces

Sudden flashes of insight about the way things really are under a big drift of rhetoric and hypocrisy, new thoughts about what's behind the walls of what we need to feel alive. Read it through, it's not what it seems cause it's all new to me.

 

Let's say you're not the most cynical person in the world...and not the least. You do honor values and treasure character, but you're no fool and realize that most folks don't live up to any of them completely, yourself included. Tangentially your darker sense of humor balms the disappointment there, but honest expectations are seen as both naive and cynical by folks that are distracted, numb, bankrupt or wounded...? Apathetic snark is cooler for them you're told. Smells like spiritual impotence to you...a sorrow-sown laugh is preferred to hamstrung magical thinking.

  

Anyway...values like fidelity to others and reason over desire, joy through sacrifice...you like them, love them even; monogamous marriage their best expression. Those values are on the pedestal consciously, after considering the alternatives. You figure that's the right way (as taught) to unlimited possibility for rapture with another, the way everyone is trying to move forward even if its fits and starts and wrong turns. One day though, while watching the adulterous parade that touches almost everyone you know...Flash! Maybe wrong. Fidelity seems to be actually not much more than a convenient cover for lurking selfish ("I have to be true to myself, just being honest, keeping it real") and not on most folks' list of ought-to even then. The word is shaped and uttered, vows taken so that others can imagine lasting virtuous and good, but when push comes to shove, even when the foundation is very right, the fatigue of life-work and need for feelings undefined and fleeting pleasures overwhelms any sense of commitment there so easily, it's as though it never really existed. Begs the question: Did it? Real lasting commitment seems to be to vague need, and the moral, ethical, social consequences of that trade are conveniently downplayed, the behavior hidden. Responsibility? Only to your want. Accountability? Zilch, not your fault you want it. Authority? You self-define character (if you care about such antiquated things), and thankfully it always seems to fit your choices. Like I said, convenient.

Hold on though, this is no sermon and I am opening these ideas for good honest reasons. So what if you're a Greek among Romans and you just figured that out. The cultural value of fidelity is superficial, the appearance of it is all that matters till its time to 'redefine' it. Sneak, don't get caught (to spare feeling, treason isn't wrong, it's just misunderstood...it would be inconsiderate not to deceive)...he/she is married? "well, I didn't take that vow and they are willing, that relationship is over, they told me so, so it will all work out". Commitment reduced to legalisitc expectation. Surprised and dismayed to be so far from the herd...but you know it's the way it is cause it's in your face every day, plenty (most?) of near and far folk are doing it, whole cultural slices are nothing but...insert cliché that breaks the heart...but does it have to be? Specifically in committed marriage?

There are lots of ways to invoke the values defined here as 'marriage'; lots of things can be married very well in lots of ways. In the case of mated marriage between sexually monogomous-sworn couples, those folks that choose to initiate what you define as extra-marital affairs (possible to have one in the marriage after the years do their work? yes) are preternaturally adept at finding every reason in the world that it's ok; some rationalizations from another world too. Heavy Christian poseurs for instance commit adultery after re-interpreting the commandment to suit (all biblical lawyers when they sin, hedging and hair-splitting, Hell isn't for sinners, it's for non-believers), self-described 'gentlemen' hover and hint as enablers during home-wrecking play dates, wives take boyfriends on as survival issue revolving door of whose-next-I-deserve-more-and-more. Sounds pejorative, but maybe it's not. Maybe you're just wrong, and that's the way it is/should be, or at least a matter of choice; i.e. don't expect your tribe to change for you, conform to them.

If so, you may find that your funding fidelity has been a waste of time and resources in your current circles, and you should get in the lustful game; be part of the herd and not a stray. It's a social function after all; saints live alone, the rest of us work together. Marriage evolved to put the brakes on this sort of thing, but really...rusty calipers, worn pads, and the rotors haven't been turned. So driving traditional romantic marriage off the cliff (or making it conditional on age or slavery to changes happening to you, go ahead and teach your kids that, you'll get what you deserve)...what about monogamy in affairs? Or biogamies and sharing? Jealousy is still a very real threat, and it seems obvious that once one fidelity is shot in the head, a significant new challenge will be to trust a 2nd or 3rd built just for you from your co-conspirator(s) to last long-term as they have shown you plain that they can/will sidestep it with extreme prejudice. Can be done, but of course most roll this script on faith: this is different, I'm/we're special, this is not like that...cue chuckle, sure, ok, raise curtain on the real possibility of Deception Act II. The lie of fidelity is in the intent and action, not the word. If someone prates on and on about "I'm not that way, I don't want to be like that", don't get hypnotized by wishful thinking, watch what they do and take notes, you'll see it all again. Again though, so what?

 

If that has no waspish sting, if you de-fang the negative feelings that might rise up about it... do explorations in affair for everybody become palatable, as spicy as people must find them? even folks already in an affair or two, also for folks that have never considered it? Shedding devotional loyalty and inhibition at the same time...does it expand living and experience in so positive a way that the risks (documented in copious amounts) and collateral damage (ditto) are easily ignored or accepted? Should we all spin up to play? Grasshopper-thinking about flutters today with fantasy happy endings vs. the subtle power of compound love interest, unassailable trust and life building. Enough, skip to the end...it's not an unpredictable circumstance from where I stand; I think it all gets confused because there are in fact so many relationships that should end, that are more harm than good to everyone involved for as long as they exist, that the distinction between that and rough patches and growing pains among truly meted and mated folk is lost. For those of us that have always voted 'no' to the questions this para-posed above, a puzzle indeed. 

 Pieces missing in this area, judgement suspended, more to do and say to get this figured.

Tiny Bubbles, Toil and Trouble

Odd synchronicties of thought popping up for me, don’t know whether to duck or dive in. It sounds like:

Every tragedy begins with someone’s interpretation of the world…really, all of them. The sunshiny opposite is also true in a if-you-think-it it-can-most-likely-be, but we’re talking about the downside (firm believer in PMA, one of my own bubbles, no need to mess with my ‘certainty’ there). When your bubblescape of understanding and acceptance of circumstance and stimuli is…lets say small…the infinitesimal edge of the universe we get will not fit; may not fit no matter what you work, lots of pre-thought/pre-verbal/non-human reality we’re swimming in. Anything that is unknown or unacceptable which enters your sphere of awareness has to be cloaked/converted/crushed into something that does fit, or your bubble bursts and scary change happens (no mutaphobes here I think, we’ll see). You can imagine the outcomes, or read about them, when that creates a paradigmatic dissonance which spurs inappropriate behaviors and actions. You’re actually responding to something while you’re pretending it's something else, so the response can be everything from utterly irrelevant to viciously bad hoodoo.

Examples you ask? Cause you ask a lot of questions…k. Look around for the four horsemen: War – There’s not enough of something, and I have to have it…you’re like me and will take mine if you can, lets get on with this. Famine – Agricultural practice is like this, husbandry is like this, and consumption (the business of consumption since the Bronze age) is like this…the results of that may leave a lot of you wasted or dead (a nasty corn blight would really thin us out) , but that’s the way it is. Disease – Plagues and cascade contagion, enabled by a this-is-how-we-live hygiene model, or a disease is caused by ______ notion, or the worst: we have that all figured out, damn shame when we get it wrong but lets take our eye off it for a bit. Death – You’re thinkin’, ‘now who’s naïve, cant negotiate with that one’…watch this: The cessation of electrical and/or physical function in a small percentage of the organism ends our sensory apprehension of everything we know as we are, a state-change from something we barely understand to 5-sense unknown, and dissolves/recycles our organized biology/chemistry. Everything else said about that is a superstition based on some basic Truths like scientific method is incomplete/inadequate or we have complex hidden metasenses (if you read that sarcastic, s’you not me); we quite practically use haints and boogies to keep moving forward and have a good night’s rest (which only facilitates more moving forward). Simple, but a bad bubble here creates every horror we visit on each other, whether through a callous disregard for its good and bad, or an insistence on agreement about its meaning and place on the all-about-me timeline. A few generations ago, saying that would have gotten me killed right quick.

Captain obvious? Maybe (no capes), and who cares? Infinite regression or expansion of your worldview to get aligned to value supporting life choices (confirmed through temptation and testing) is considered by most the worst kind of masturbatory intellectual indulgence when there are things to actually get done. Stopping to think, enbiggening or simplifying your models, metaprogramming in the human biocomputer, is something you want done for you, not a DIY activity. Pick your priesthood, take what they give you, and run that code till something bad happens or you die. The Great Work is not for everybody, s’a secret anyway, sssshhhhhhhh…

There are anti-games people will play instead; games that are touted as self-defensive that seem to be predictably present. An adolescent (neoteny if you want, usually angry though) againster model that we all know is about selfishly attempting bubble bursting (of others of course, mine are fine). Take a logical fallacy or a glaring example of a disconnect between what we think and what we observe/how we act, and skewer faux-offensive paradigms within your sphere of awareness. It’s a wanna-be-in-the-priesthood sort of thing disguised as Moral Stance or Common Sense…both memes of questionable parentage. My rap sheet has this line item, and I know it's really just a futile game of solitaire; bubbles don’t burst easily, they are beloved and resilient, and will just move away from the pressure of your pinprick in most cases. Priests also need Authority (something given to you, not something you can assume or take…another dubious idea when misused), and even the most brilliant of those report that they are only marginally affective in the one-lifetime term. If you need a tiresome list of explicit examples of that, you’re on the wrong blog ya’ll; I haven't even mentioned my own favorites like Lily or Leary or any other seditious wolfling shaman, much less the superstar influencers that color all cultures…

This is a long conversation, made shorter cause I get to monologue (ha!) but this is a good cliff on which to hang. I’ll be back here in a bit, have some things that need to get done right now.

Cicadian Rhythms

Outside in the heat, sweating in the shade after civilizing my swamp (the pool is a bit green after a long repose, lookin’ out fuh gatuhs), and listening to the pulse of the Cicadian choral. It's flags and trumpets and signal fires, ridiculously more efficient and rich than what we've used...though it appears we finally caught up (?) this century. An ebb and flow of collective information passing…”haven’t seen your kind in 13 years, how ya been? Good, wanna mate? Maybe, seen any good food? You bet…just fly screaming in any direction till you hit something...and hey, you need a new wardrobe.” High decibel unmanaged perfection. Good times for Entomophagists; nature’s apology for hard scrabble days.

Makes me wonder…we give and get information in strange new ways that seem more insectile every day, e.g. the Internet as a uniform non-discrete medium for everything the tv/phone/newspapers/magazines (conversations intentionally omitted) could ever do. Some folks look askance on the last things, analog and face-to-face; too much television (aka big monitors) or too much phone (chat and email), but get the same set of requirements met through the keyboard and monitor while also substituting safe-harbor social networking for the brutal realities and effort of visitin'. Cro-Magnon looking down and out at Neanderthals? Maybe, but a word to the EEMH's out there...you're next.

What happens when we start to make use of air/water/food for digital information delivery? That seems to be the 2^nd dream (the first is wireless transmission of power, you know, like the sun); to pass information without stone or wood, dance or voice, keyboard or monitor, to instantly add information to the nervous system with no assimilation requirement through the (antiquated?) sensory apparatus we grew up with. Little mechanical and/or organic bugs swimming in a soup of possibility, sharing via micro in the macro...do the 'Information Age' cultural druthers become as passé as pamphlets and radio? Not implausible considering what we know about the nervous system…I think Kim Stanley Robinson and some others have this fictionally figured out (Gibson and the like have a less plausible mean-step mythology, Tofflerian in its naiveté’ to me, more sexy than real): flood the environment with microscopic elements that form information matrices which communicate in near real-time to us and each other, nanobugs that can go right up your nose or down your throat, pass the blood-brain barrier and drop code directly onto the cortex. Helluva lot more complex than that but neurotransmitters are increasingly teaching us the necessary cant, and while we speak like it like a brain-damaged wildling today, we may learn to compose verse and song in the next few generations.

So consider learning and entertainment, news and knowledge all offered quietly, privately to each individual as they navigate the soup-streams of our over-populated ecosystems, quiet whispers of more and better, latest and greatest seductions, waves of popular and necessary rolling across the mass of us, in cicadian rhythm. The ‘do not call list’ is for Luddite holdouts and the irrelevant, the economics should be…well, the same as economics have always been.  You know that death is the result of information failures at the cellular level right? My guess is the channel focused on that 'ol chestnut will be in some rarefied air indeed. S'under discussion already, sign the yearbook.

A Little Less Light

Hatred…hold on, don’t run off, I have some ruminations about this, but the safeties are on.

I used to think hate was simple; emotional charge around loss, mix in some significance fear, self-pity, and la! Hatred. Just Love’s absence? An empty heart? Love’s twisted visage? Most treatments I’ve seen minimize it that way, marginalize it, neuter it…wishful thinking I feel. Now, a little more well-acquainted: Powerful and motivational, leaches the bearer and destroys everything it touches but oh so seductive, warm balm when you don’t like your outcomes. It has its own living bloom, it’s not like spiteful apathetic hurts or cynicism or contempt or rage or resentment…parts of the whole, but it’s the sum of those that rears up as a composite new driving force. Folk pretend to it, but screaming fear isn’t even a meaningful part of what we’re talking about.*

Driving…soft way to describe the navigation and liberation hate allows, probably its evolutionary purpose. Boundaries? fuck ‘em. Ethics? those too. Limits? suspended, possibilities without fear’s weaker face; all offense, you just need one chance to cut. Consequences? You’re the bearer of consequences, the subject not the object. In the full flood of hatred, a new/different/exclusive fund of power is available…you can deny that if you want, but you’re naïve as hell and are dismissed from any defensive position…if you don’t get this you don’t know what you’re doin’ on the wall.

So take all that, add imagination, focus, strategic filters, capability, and what do you get? A Nightmare trotting forward, waiting for a little knee pressure to drive the charge home. Think of it this way, if you could create a living intelligent tangle of eager hating thorns, bright and black with poisonous horror, edged and barbed to stab/rend/tear, a remorseless/ growing/wrapping/biting/strangling/killing urge that had one compulsion…how terrible would you be when that rooted in the loam of your consciousness/heart/center/soul? Fed and stretching out for what it sees, what it wants? Hungry, willing, cunning, nurturing, patient, explosively energetic…sounds like a winning formula for a horrific trial.

Lots of material out there on this from humanist fiction to lab studies. David Kupelian treats it well, but that stuff is usually about a childhood inculcated religious or social intolerance, anti-Semitism, women-hating, etc…not the intimate personal kind meant here Note: he seems to be a little preoccupied with the Islamic folk even though hate has no language or flag. There is a tacit acceptance of the pleasure-inducing qualities of relaxation during heightened emotional  states hovering around the clinical treatments; if pleasure and pain are the foundations of our behavior…you do the frictional math on Iago's purpose.

It’s a lot like lust I think. Channeling the initial urge, encouraged and supported by dark whispers/visions that visit in fantasy in the deep sleepless night…eventually that urge is a welcome, warm companion, always ready to come to you and burn doubt and inhibition away for a while, insinuating into emotional habits and muscle memory, laying the foundation for a few seconds of unconscious movement that will resolve everything (that seems to matter till you’re done), promising smooth and effective execution of purpose. It’s not easy, not  at all simple to sustain;  you have to avoid collapsing the state vectors early and wasting it, keep the side-effects under wraps (surprise matters)...the key to that old black magic is deliberation, to be deliberate, rituals of exponential 'not' until providence shows her teeth.

Anyhoo, don’t touch yourself there, you’ll go blind.

*“To enjoy the things we ought, and to hate the things we ought, has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.”

-Aristotle

Idle Murmurs

My cheeky blogmother told me once that I should talk about myself here only in a one-sided ratio favoring shut-the fuck-up-about-yourself-you-narcissistic-journaling-hack…well, she said it much nicer than that, but you get the drift. Not much of a cherry-picking current events guy though; until the history worm gets to process factsoil I find it sterile of meaning, even if hubristic need-to-learn-before-you-teach(ers) pretend to have the future sussed out from their little pool of data points and face-against-the-glass perspective. If I did event regurgitation, it would look like:

"Bin Laden died yesterday, slain by a never ending revenge culture (mine, proud),  some well-trained operators (go Navy, doubly proud), and a big-ass reward (hard currency, what it was really about). Now he’s a martyr? Probably. Did he matter anymore? No, but he owed. Good riddance to him and any of his confederates we were fortunate enough to spray with steel-jacketed consequences, hope we didn’t lose a single good man to destroy a bad one…duty though if we did."

Eh...

Have food blogged my way around a bit to add some taste. Writing about food is easy, about all sensual things actually. Immersive experience, sexual charge, the touch of weather, vistas seen; describing the world as it passes through you is usually worth a few lines, though I’ve seen some insensitive mimicry that’s transparently a copied look-at-me rather than an honest look-at-this. It’s hard to share what you've got without getting painted with that brush, so kept down.

Travelogue, sure, the road version of sensual translation. I have a big trip coming up, Uzbekistan by way of Istanbul (Turkish Air, cheapest first-class), Tajikistan, maybe some Iran. There should be enough input to have some pleasant output, and I’m looking forward to the journey. I’m going alone cause it’s dangerous? and adventuring isn’t really for everybody. There’s something about that Silk Road geography that captures me; the endpoints, waypoints, the viaditch that vast streams of wealth eroded into some hard scrabble country. Tamarlane’s hometown, the Beys’ extravagance, the Soviet cotton experiment (the worst of human greed, bye bye Aral Sea)…bread is sacred there, artisans are still more important than actors, and secular Islam lives crossroads cozy with everything else. Uzbeki is Altaic; vowel  harmonies and agglutination…oh, the linguistic conflicts of having the Turskish languages (Ohguz) mixed with Korean and Japonic dialects in one language group? Now that’s fight-fun rhetorical fighting. To learn some glowing glottal goodness, wrangled the only English language Uzbek teaching grammar I could find and some linguistic training usefulness from the good folks at Transparent. 

Languages...never really been a problem to drink them in. I’m no gifted wonder like some, but communicating seems intuitive once you have the rhythm of a speech. Rules and rationales help, but for me needful use makes the mind get plastic over by Broca and Wernicke's areas. Native to romance languages (with barbaric flavors), have some feeling for the sounds of the Chinese, so this language family really rounds me out. More as the trip nears maybe.

Mary Had a What...!?

Easter...the resurrection; if you read my most pinged vignette, you know where I'm at vis-a-vis the lamb...I have many off-color blasphemies/witticisms for this, I choose to put those somewhere else. Funny though, really, you missed a few chuckles even if you take yourself waaayyyyyy too seriously.

On the context: Any reading (thats what it is, any emotion there is probably a program you didnt write or a gap you had to fill...willing to talk about this, s'not like I know) that moves you to the middle, away from suffering as a crossy extremity (it's not, it's bread and butter, gravity and friction writ large in our synapses, every day)...the pillar of Mercy looks across the body/heart/mind right at the pillar of Severity...she looks back, gazes transmitting information like neurotransmitters in us <-- how's that for anthropomorphising?. If you've got Christian hangups (can you not if you got indoctrinated before you could think/feel completely?)...hungup as in can't reach past the metaphor for the message (which solves many dilemmas, truth in the philosophy without doubt) or can't look at other ways to inform your's cause you're conditioned to consider it cheating,  then you self-deny a host of allies/kindred and friends that have been there, e.g. a Lao Zi, Cleary's translations, the commentary is really the jewel for the Western mind at first, makes it accessible and prevents the inevitable simplifications. Ok, so scared to get caught getting happy soul satisfaction elsewhere? Then try staying inside and touching your spiritual self; some recommend finding hominorder through Origen, Aquinas, St Fancis, St Augustine, ...the greatest hits from when Christianity wasn't convenient, twisted, or neutered. All of those guys can move the needle on understanding that life-is-pain-but-that's-why-it's-beautiful; common theme of martyrdom, imposed or chosen. Full circle to a Golgathan spectacle; self-sacrifice, giving up the little-e go bits bits that rail and protest...a nugget buried in all faiths. Nothing wrong with Easter.

Road less taken: maybe we should just listen to the folks around us radiating inclusive right..."Hi, your light is showing, mind if I rest here...?" Ref: The more methodical ruminations of Joseph Campbell perhaps*? He was  Methodist I believe, so close to Episcopal dogma at the source and therefore an easy palate.

Haters in the story, haters around us right now...so long as they're non-violent we have to put up with 'em as citizens...even though some of us would love to go one-on-one with each and every one of them and talk about why they can only feel significant if they are unlikely central figures in whatever cosmic please-dont-let-me-be-as-small-as-I-feel drama. Some folk can't handle their insignificance, our insignificance, so we ham it up, attach that performing urge to our endocrine system so that we flush with fight-or-flight potions whenever we walk outside, then socialize it with herd-mentality rigor and scream/snark our fear as anger to reinforce it. Passes the time I guess; imqo...those indulging in outrage sans victims contribute nothing but fear and pain, working for the thing they fear the most and dont seem to know it...almost like the Body of us all is signalling that something is wrong...loud little pain indicators, but they don't know where it hurts...will now need penance for my hubris I think, but I mean it...

And the ending/beginning/ending...convenient Eschatology no? Buyin' a literal there? Lets hope not, we all have things to do. Like a dear friend of mine said, it's (define what you can grasp here) been ending (changing) since it started. The inescapable brevity of us, our ecosystem, is a simple fact...the unconsciously-early-now-pretty-predictable known problem has been heralded so many times in so many ways, I'm numb. Shoudn't we all be? For me, I have a real feeling for Northern European spiritual...I dont know...vibrations around this. Ragnarok - Bad guys all get loose and organized by a betrayer (blackest hells for that poor person in all faiths), the champions kill each other off, everything burns down (as ordained)...then, there's a shining new world. Better story than the Four Horsemen dirge; more buckles swashed, dashing and derring-do; real heresy here: also better monsters.

Reiterating: not against any teaching vehicle really, even the most rigid and dogmatic provided extremes are ostracized; my what-you-got rebel was put down long ago. During nouveau expressions of ancient festivals like this egg-laden lagomorphic hijacking of some serious debauchery, since we're dissing empiricism and pretending we're not all scared brainless (the common thread), why not allow any story that howls for a victory? I am pretty sure that there is nothing going on today that is worse than the plague-ridden Europe, the Taiping rebellion, the brutal rape and murder that used to be so sudden and constant for everybody and the God-doesn't-love-us-anymore life-swallowing disasters like Ice Ages, Santorini, the bursting of the Black Sea bowl (sorry for the late addition of controversial cataclysm, but I have to give a nod to the Flood, Easter and all). You know we all love that stuff; you can tell cause even in the these enlightened days, when we haven't had a good plague in a long time for example, we need/want to make up pleasure-only Zombie movies, vampirism as a sexy STD, genetic accidents creeping and snatching everyone but the pretty lead...things we want, cause they're knowable-ish? Expected-esque? Better than the (imagined poorly) abyss if you have vertigo I suppose. Profitable too...another time.

That all said, my plain truth: Doesn't change my world-view; if a giant rock hits us again, the planet or sun hiccups and snuffs us all, we manage to poison ourselves with biologicals, or nano-technology (or other) runs amok...do we really think we have anything to do with most of that? Fight the good fight, do right and abjure wrong, be as happy and content as you can manage, and dont be afraid if that's a lot...health, wealth, and wisdom for and from your friends, family, neighbors...and I suppose strangers and enemies (though I struggle with that last one, my hate blooms and blossoms like kudzu if I feel wronged and it gets out its cage). The message behind a fertility festival, no matter where you find 'em. I never say that out loud really...how'd you do that?

Imbecilic addendum: Mayan calendar?...incomplete social evolution and unfinished math is no excuse to give away all your stuff and go stand in a crop circle waiting for a fiery chariot ride that statistically-speakin'...aint comin'. Gonna be a long revolution round the Sun till 2013 for the chuckleheads that need that kind of drama.

* "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being."

Miami Risotto?

Back to Florida last week; new year (professionally we round the sun in April), new team, new management…basically my company has a compulsive need to demonstrate activity. Not progress, not improvement, not striving to smell like metabolized lessons-learned…just flailing arms negating high-dollar consulted practice (where we are advised to not change for change sake), the same ol’ thing again and we’re new. Anyway, went to Miami, and soon to the Orlando orbit…again.

Now if you remember, I went to Ft Lauderdale and had some lifestyle immersion at the hotel bar. Well, this time was mandofunquestered the entire time. Not a bad thing, I have a rowdy crowd of confederates always willing to create a story or two, and shy…well, not many. Took a bus on night one from Dadeland to Perricone’s. Yes, we went to the continental tip of the Eastern seaboard, 600 years a Latin stronghold, thousands of years of native culinary culture before that…to eat Italian. Was bowed up to throw my thin red sauce and overachieved veal-chicken-marsala-picatta-parm into the most convenient planter nearby…but, lo, the food was good. Dynamite bruschette leading, good antipasta (they are also a food market), well-managed fried calamari with zucchini straws, simple salad, the oh-so-traditional vodkatonicawithalime-a(s) …then, a big hunk of sea bass with a tomato-aged balsamic drizzle on risotto that did not suck. Stepped off the bus dubious, but the place disarmed me right away with a large tented garden for casual dining, subdivided with translucent walls, large old trees wrapped in lights twinkling, hidden benches along little paths near the street, the warm, slightly humid feel of Miami alive on a Monday night just a few feet away; in short, my inner-creole-cuban-carib-child was comfortable eating something unexpected. Open mic swiped from the driver on the safe-to-be-drunken commute home, impressions and stories, odd urban vistas, nice.

So, another adventure in a state I hear nothing good about, but much enjoy the multiple times a year I go there. Some of our friendliest teammates there, others who may read this that have kicked some sand around there too. Eventually, I think I run the risk of accepting that it’s all good for a careful, well-heeled tourist in NY South.

Surrender

The last of the cycle, the riddle, the winding of the world...do you know?

--------------------

Seen from afar, the marriage of two

Becomes one against a shattered horizon

Closer now, our fingertips lightly pressed

Reach a little, sparks kindled, hinting

Mirrored, amplified and returned

Self-light reflecting from self

Face-to-face, love’s gaze

This is no time to be shy

The world pours through us, so be at ease

The stream cannot be gripped

Time passing, life’s flowing beauty

Bursting, bouncing, swimming, soaring

The source and vessel urges reversal

Counsel to reclaim the ghosts of thought’s confusion

Tame and bring them home

You cannot share what you do not have

And so the patterns are broken

In final happy endings

One motion for both

To find a remaking of bliss past the world’s end

Home again, loving

Home again, growing

Foundations and eaves of grace

Immovable, inviolate haven for purpose, for new fire's race

He Shoulda' Armed Himself...

More on me writing, anyone that doesn't want to get some on 'em, better head on out the back.

There are times in your life (I hope for your sake, I'm lucky, very very lucky) when you suddenly find yourself in a rhythm and flood with someone else; an effusion of conversation and connection wholly unlooked for though not surprising, with a cadence so comfortable that you stop noticing it altogether. Topics range, hearts and minds evoked...curious and real. The natural results are questions you havent thought of - simple questions that bridge what you know with what you say in a way you probably would miss if you were slavish to solitude. Somebody reads something you shared, just a game of pitch and catch like when relationships weren't much more complicated than that, and you glove a question about how you write, how deliberately the noise orders itself to the medium. It drew a thought from me...

I mostly just pour, and any quality of sound that sneaks in is probably cause I'm about half singing some of it...I like a roll repeated, and rhymes remembered...that bubble up out of well-meant waters. I do pass back through and edit out parentheticals that go nowhere, typos (that I notice at least) or word-choices that could be easily misconstrued, but mostly, wysiwyg.

...I'm not obliquely sayin' anything, am sayin'...conversation when it's real, when guard is dropped, weapons are down, rare and priceless... but writing, texting, even chatting rarely makes it there...here. When self-editing is more present than self-expression, personas pass for people and it's a virtual state of words; rhythms and exchanges governed by convenience and sheltered by a lack of consequence; in the ether, no one can hear you erase.

The mind free of gesture maybe? Beautiful letters are a big part of the Western canon, drawn and measured, read with feeling...beautiful even...I am more and more compelled to write day-by-day, even if I sometimes lose the edge of my bladed muse and saw dully for a while. Poetry though is the wild mind-heart truth, I just wish I'd known that in my wastrel youth. <--- that goes on for a bit, doggerel panting for a drink, spared ya'.

Got scolded by somebody (hi HS) for "letting the juice of your writing seep on to too many pages"...and hoarding thoughts...the more I thought about that while raindrop-drowsing (Note: it was raining, that's not a nascent children's story device) last night the more I was certain that's not so. I talk too much, granted, but I get fusion from sharing with people that share back, an excess to fuel my next reaction. Take that o critic of nectar! I thought in thunder, then sleep.