In October 2009, Roger of Rogers WoodWorks created what I call, the Roger's Weekend. He took on a hefty to-do list and surprised himself by getting through 75% of it. I vowed I would emulate him and dedicate a weekend to getting caught up on my own list of life's annoying little chores (along with some properly useful projects).
Being one of the premier lazy bastards of the entire worldwide community of lazy bastards, it took me only a year and a half to get around to this.
And being one of the premier lazy bastards of the worldwide community of lazy bastards, it took me only half of day one to get around just to announcing my intention, which is this:
My list:
- clean bedroom
- clean bathroom
- clean out truck
- replace spare tire
- laundry
- return library materials
- reserve cargo van
- download borrowed music
- settle "herb and wine" arrangements
- settle cottage arrangements
- email study materials to Neo
- required reading and prep for young readers club
- editing and lesson plan for young writers group
- vacuum and sweep house
- shampoo carpet
- write review for book Year Million
- recreate lost outline for novel-in-progress The One
- create budget spreadsheet
- blog (Saturday - this not included!)
- blog (Sunday)
- walk (Saturday)
- walk (Sunday)
- post another song on the web
- organize and backup writing and music files
- check blood pressure
- finish mind-mapping the poetic compendium (don't ask)
- update resume
- create online questionnaire
- order a SCENE card
- update song journal
- finish lyrics, arrangement for song Indescribable
- finish composing Down Slide and give it a better title
- finish composing He's All Right Now
- Learn to play fave Beetles tunes Strawberry Fields, Ticket to Ride and Day in the Life
Oh yeah - So why now after 19 months?
'Cause the three shifts I was scheduled to work this weekend got cancelled because of my request to drop from full-time back onto the spare-board finally going through yesterday and I found myself with a wide open schedule and no socializing to do on account of having a cold I don't want to share and having, all day yesterday, accomplished absolutely nothing other than a long series of naps and the watching of a couple really dumb movies. I was starting to feel kind of useless.
Okay. Got to go. Got stuff to do.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Sunday, May 08, 2011
What if there was never anything?
I have no idea where I'm going with this. Just a dumb question in my head.
So we live in this thing called a universe which is so freaking big it's beyond our comprehension to grasp just how mind-blowingly big it is. It's so big it's just stupid.
And whether it exploded from God's hand or because that's just what universes do; both perfectly equal mysteries if you think about it, it's pretty obvious that we live in the aftermath of an explosion.
But what if it had never happened?
Well that's easy. If it hadn't happened we wouldn't be here. Simple. But is it? If there were no gods, no explosions, no universe or universes - what would there be?
Well there'd be nothing. Ever. Simple.
Why does this not work?
I can not, no matter how I try - imagine a reality that is utterly vacant of time and space and matter. It is strictly unimaginable. I can not admit such a scenario possible yet I can not offer a shred of explanation. It's like I'm a robot programmed not to question it's prime directive. There's just a blank wall. I try to process the idea of there never existing anything and I'm left with a disctinct impression that such a concept is strictly impossible. But I haven't the first idea how to prove it nor the notion that it's a correct presumption to start with. Surely anything that can exist can also not exist. But take away everything and what are you left with?
Nothing.
It makes sense and yet it just can't be imagined. Is that how everyone feels?
For that matter, what happens at the perimeter of the universe? WHat's after that? Nothing? Well what does that mean? What if you drill a hole into the nothing? Do you even get a hole?
Frankly, it's hard to imagine a perimeter to the universe.
I guess you'd never get close to the universe's perimeter given how fast it expands. But what if it's going to collapse again? What happens after the Big Crunch? Another explosion? What exists between the moment of final contraction and the next bang? Nothing?
It's a popular theory - that the universe continually bangs and crunches; cyclically expanding and contracting, almost like a beating heart, locked in a constant battle against the nothingness.
So we live in this thing called a universe which is so freaking big it's beyond our comprehension to grasp just how mind-blowingly big it is. It's so big it's just stupid.
And whether it exploded from God's hand or because that's just what universes do; both perfectly equal mysteries if you think about it, it's pretty obvious that we live in the aftermath of an explosion.
But what if it had never happened?
Well that's easy. If it hadn't happened we wouldn't be here. Simple. But is it? If there were no gods, no explosions, no universe or universes - what would there be?
Well there'd be nothing. Ever. Simple.
Why does this not work?
I can not, no matter how I try - imagine a reality that is utterly vacant of time and space and matter. It is strictly unimaginable. I can not admit such a scenario possible yet I can not offer a shred of explanation. It's like I'm a robot programmed not to question it's prime directive. There's just a blank wall. I try to process the idea of there never existing anything and I'm left with a disctinct impression that such a concept is strictly impossible. But I haven't the first idea how to prove it nor the notion that it's a correct presumption to start with. Surely anything that can exist can also not exist. But take away everything and what are you left with?
Nothing.
It makes sense and yet it just can't be imagined. Is that how everyone feels?
For that matter, what happens at the perimeter of the universe? WHat's after that? Nothing? Well what does that mean? What if you drill a hole into the nothing? Do you even get a hole?
Frankly, it's hard to imagine a perimeter to the universe.
I guess you'd never get close to the universe's perimeter given how fast it expands. But what if it's going to collapse again? What happens after the Big Crunch? Another explosion? What exists between the moment of final contraction and the next bang? Nothing?
It's a popular theory - that the universe continually bangs and crunches; cyclically expanding and contracting, almost like a beating heart, locked in a constant battle against the nothingness.
.
Postscript: I wrote this some time ago before I realized that the big crunch theory is swiftly losing popularity as evidence mounts that the universe is expanding at an accellerating rate. This news struck me as hard as any news ever has, including the death of loved ones. It was comforting to think of a renewable cosmos where life, human or otherwise, could exist, if intermittantly, at least eternally. An eternity of equillibrium however, with every particle of matter isolated by light-years of darkness - is the coldest thing I've ever contemplated.
Monday, April 25, 2011
March of the Pines
I really don't have any use for Easter or for birthdays but I gave mom a card with an astronaut on the front, congratulating her on her successful mission to Pluto, and spent two days at the parents' place to celebrate. It had once been my grandparents' place and I'd spent portions of my childhood summer holidays there. Today mom and I went for a walk around the property but I suppose I was not entirely present.
Of the six-paned window of the spring house, one pane remains. I remember when they'd built that raised hut to shelter the old bathtub that received the fresh spring water piped in from it's remote source. I'd used the remaining materials, and more scavenged from the barn, to build a ridiculous little fort of my own. It's any one's guess now, which bits of debris might once have been part of that little endeavor.
Inside the hut, old Uncle Ernie's mug still hangs from a nail above the outlet pipe. I remember his 96th birthday party at the village recreation hall. He'd looked down at me and couldn't remember who I was.
I've never seen the old tub before, not brimming with water, the constant overflow splashing into the pond of its own making; source of a winding stream that turned the non-tilled low-elevation north-west field into a myriad wetland; home of ducks, frogs and fireflies. Now the White Pines have taken over. They grow and proliferate like weeds, turning the scrub field into a little forest home for coyotes. The tub sits empty but for a dark layer of sediment. Staring at the pipe I finally catch the fall of a single drip.
From the doorway I look down at the dry bed outside. I used to pry large rocks from the ground and hurl them in to the little pond. The splash they'd made was nothing compared to the one that followed. Cocoa would leap in after them, submerge his head and bound joyfully out again with the slimy rock clamped in his jaws. We'd do it again and again. Later we'd return to the house, wet and green and smelling like algae and grandma would give the dog hell for going in the "crick" but he didn't care after all the fun we'd had.
One wing of the two-storey bank barn is gone now; collapsed and hauled away after too many years of wind and rain. The remainder is a patch-work of expensive repairs. Inside I spy a few remaining relics from childhood memory but we don't stray too far. It's dangerous with the floor rotting away. The warnings have come. The barn's days are numbered. It is just a facade now; something to block the view of the suburban style housing development that now looms on one horizon; something to preserve the feeling of a country sanctuary that is starting to become an illusion.
Returning to the house we pass the row of maples that have matched Uncle Ernie in their longevity. They're beginning to fall apart. My favorite one; the one I once climbed religiously; the one we'd fixed with rope and bucket so I could eat my lunch in the sky - is the first to go. Even the stump has been burned away.
For the moment I feel like a boy made old too suddenly.
Inside the house, the only man who deserves to be called my father is thinking about hawks and turkey vultures. "Did you see anything?" he asks.
"Just the sobering passage of time," I say.
Of the six-paned window of the spring house, one pane remains. I remember when they'd built that raised hut to shelter the old bathtub that received the fresh spring water piped in from it's remote source. I'd used the remaining materials, and more scavenged from the barn, to build a ridiculous little fort of my own. It's any one's guess now, which bits of debris might once have been part of that little endeavor.
Inside the hut, old Uncle Ernie's mug still hangs from a nail above the outlet pipe. I remember his 96th birthday party at the village recreation hall. He'd looked down at me and couldn't remember who I was.
I've never seen the old tub before, not brimming with water, the constant overflow splashing into the pond of its own making; source of a winding stream that turned the non-tilled low-elevation north-west field into a myriad wetland; home of ducks, frogs and fireflies. Now the White Pines have taken over. They grow and proliferate like weeds, turning the scrub field into a little forest home for coyotes. The tub sits empty but for a dark layer of sediment. Staring at the pipe I finally catch the fall of a single drip.
From the doorway I look down at the dry bed outside. I used to pry large rocks from the ground and hurl them in to the little pond. The splash they'd made was nothing compared to the one that followed. Cocoa would leap in after them, submerge his head and bound joyfully out again with the slimy rock clamped in his jaws. We'd do it again and again. Later we'd return to the house, wet and green and smelling like algae and grandma would give the dog hell for going in the "crick" but he didn't care after all the fun we'd had.
One wing of the two-storey bank barn is gone now; collapsed and hauled away after too many years of wind and rain. The remainder is a patch-work of expensive repairs. Inside I spy a few remaining relics from childhood memory but we don't stray too far. It's dangerous with the floor rotting away. The warnings have come. The barn's days are numbered. It is just a facade now; something to block the view of the suburban style housing development that now looms on one horizon; something to preserve the feeling of a country sanctuary that is starting to become an illusion.
Returning to the house we pass the row of maples that have matched Uncle Ernie in their longevity. They're beginning to fall apart. My favorite one; the one I once climbed religiously; the one we'd fixed with rope and bucket so I could eat my lunch in the sky - is the first to go. Even the stump has been burned away.
For the moment I feel like a boy made old too suddenly.
Inside the house, the only man who deserves to be called my father is thinking about hawks and turkey vultures. "Did you see anything?" he asks.
"Just the sobering passage of time," I say.
.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Food Glorious Food
Tomorrow I'll receive my first paycheque in well over a month. Well - it'll be half a paycheque strictly speaking but it'll feel like a fortune.
Through the last week and a half I expected to finally be testing the weight-loss effectiveness of the good old-fashioned starvation diet but it never quite evolved as such. Two different co-workers each invited me over to dinner and one sent me home again with a bucket of delicious leftovers. Another slipped me a box of crackers for no apparent reason. Another dumped a handful of winning Tim Hortons food prize tabs into my hands along with the lame excuse he wouldn't use them. And coworker number five asked me frankly if I needed to borrow some cash and then handed over a tidy stack of twenties.
As I see us all coveting our jobs, fearing unemployment, belittling ourselves before our so-called superiors, working overtime (itself a significant contributor to unemployment if you think about it), distancing ourselves from our children, etc., in order to "make a living" or some overblown facsimile thereof - it's interesting to me, speaking cautiously and subjectively of course, in the wake of my own personal experience: that it's pretty hard to actually starve to death around here.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
song: The Line
Not my newest song but a recent one. Like the many primary stages in life and life's endeavors that I have initially skipped but later returned to, experiencing them from an atypically mature standpoint, I missed the whole major G-C-D chord phase through my first two years of songwriting exploration. Lately I have been enjoying its lively simplicity. After catching a little flack for using 'I walk the line' as the song's chorus, I considered changing the title to "Johnny Cash Can Kiss My Ass" but settled finally on simply "The Line." I have a proper USB mic now which improves the sound quality very much and reveals the ample imperfections of my sorry excuse for a singing voice quite sufficiently. ...................... ................................. ............................. ..................................
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
FWG is still alive...
... just hasn't had proper internet access since November 2010, making blog-posting rather a pain in the butt. Articles have been piling up on my own computer while I borrow others' every once in a while to access the net, all the while ignoring the existence of jump drives, flash drives, USB sticks and USB keys - which I suspect are all precisely the same thing. Can someone please pick a term and lets stick with it? Honestly, you elite tech developers are coming dangerously close to joining the lawyers, politicians, auto mechanics and white rappers who will have their corpses dragged through the streets on the Glorious Day Of Purification.
Anyhoo... this is my promise that I shall somehow persevere and start posting regularly again - yes, as if I have any credibility on that matter and as if anyone was actually around to read this.
And that's all I'll say for now because one of the dobermans that comes with the laptop I'm currently using, won't stop playing "Look-I'm-a-Rubber-Chicken" and trying to flop on my head. I'm not even kidding. He's a complete freak.
Oh - but I was kidding about Purification Day. No such thing as far as I know. And I don't support the practice of corpse dragging at all. I also don't support use of the word anyhoo but I thought I should try it once just to be sure.
Later,
NDR
Friday, December 24, 2010
Novel: The Convicts
2005 (Iain Lawrence)
Captivating. Starts out at a breakneck pace, leaping from one improbable Dickensian circumstance to another before settling into a sustained bout of ever more depressing downturns.
A grilling emotional swamp-ride of a book that took me by surprise when it ended with so few questions being answered. I hadn't realized it is "part one" of a self-proclaimed trilogy. In fact it is not a trilogy by any respectful use of the English language but is one-third a story published in separate slim books as our greedy shallow marketplace-driven society produces so much of.
Lawrence proves a very competent storyteller though, with vibrant characters and much more engaging subtlety than you usually find in tween fic. I am forced to read "book two" whether the young readers group wishes to or not!
Captivating. Starts out at a breakneck pace, leaping from one improbable Dickensian circumstance to another before settling into a sustained bout of ever more depressing downturns.A grilling emotional swamp-ride of a book that took me by surprise when it ended with so few questions being answered. I hadn't realized it is "part one" of a self-proclaimed trilogy. In fact it is not a trilogy by any respectful use of the English language but is one-third a story published in separate slim books as our greedy shallow marketplace-driven society produces so much of.
Lawrence proves a very competent storyteller though, with vibrant characters and much more engaging subtlety than you usually find in tween fic. I am forced to read "book two" whether the young readers group wishes to or not!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Novel: Farewell Summer
(2006) Ray Bradbury Pure unmistakably-Bradburian magic!
His genius stems from his constant cognizance of childhood curiosity and sense of wonder. Most eventual writers lose all this through adolescence and later must unearth it - or some new version of it. But Bradbury in his life, never lost it.
A re-fermentation of his novel Dandelion Wine (1951), Farewell Summer looks at the mysteries of time and age and human connection through the eyes of boys who know that the end of boyhood is near. He doesn't only make you feel like a kid again; he makes you feel something much dearer, I think: like the world is big again.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Gate
I stand at the gate
Strong at this moment
Having long faltered
Regressing in fits
Asking
Is this my time to enter
Looking back I see my loved ones;
Family I label friends;
Friends I label family
It has grown so difficult to touch them
I am forgetting how it was
Having lingered so long
Regressing in fits
Will I ever touch them again
When strong at this moment
I stand at the gate
On a cold and windy morning, said goodbye to all my friends. They were hanging 'round the corner. They were staying 'til the end.
- E.L.O. (song: The Stranger)
Strong at this moment
Having long faltered
Regressing in fits
Asking
Is this my time to enter
Looking back I see my loved ones;
Family I label friends;
Friends I label family
It has grown so difficult to touch them
I am forgetting how it was
Having lingered so long
Regressing in fits
Will I ever touch them again
When strong at this moment
I stand at the gate
On a cold and windy morning, said goodbye to all my friends. They were hanging 'round the corner. They were staying 'til the end.
- E.L.O. (song: The Stranger)
Friday, September 17, 2010
Novel: The Boy From The Basement
Whoa. This is a very heavy emotional ride but we're perfectly safe in Susan Shaw's hands throughout. Frightening, haunting, joyful and funny, the story is very well-written and well-told, drawing you fully into the head of it's struggling hero and stripping bare the wires that connect people together, for better and for worse.I read the first two pages of each of a bunch of 'teen' books, looking for potential reading group candidates. But this one, I could not put down until the end.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Duality
My volunteer schedule happened to coincide with the first day of school on September 7th.
It's odd to see how seemingly fast my young friends have changed. Faded freckles. New shoes. Longer hair. And they seemed quieter; more mature than they'd seemed as of our last meeting in June. But then, the first day of school is perhaps simply a more sombre affair than the last day of school.
I must wonder how parents perceive such observations. What is it like to have your child constantly disappear on you and re-emerge as someone else? It sounds vaguely frightening.
I stopped in Thorold on the route home to spend an evening with Skeeter Willis, kicking off the Strat-o-Matic season with a pair of one-goal losses for the Ybor City Tabaqueros. On the up-side this technically makes us the statistically most likely team to acquire Sydney Crosby in the 2011 entry draft. Always a silver lining in our world of dual perspective.
Back at the place I've never thought of as home, it's late and the man some people refer to as my dad is sitting motionless in the dark out back. He's drunk naturally and everything stinks of whatever horrifically putrid chemical concoction forms cigarettes. My presence triggers the motion-sensor spotlights.
Rather than flee to my room this night, I linger. It weighs on me that our time is almost up. Soon our colossal failure of each other shall be official. Three loads of the truck some afternoon soon and I quietly slip out of his life or lack thereof.
"Nice night," I say.
"It's cool," he says. "The way you like it." And there it is. The one and only thing he knows about me. I owe him some explanation.
I wish neither to talk nor to leave him. I step out of the light and and look up for stars. It's as good a night as you can get for it around here. No clouds. No moon. Immediately I catch a shooting star.
"Meteorite," I say.
Venus sparkles fiercely, accompanied by just a few dozen pale companions to penetrate Hammertown's hefty film of light pollution.
Eventually I give in. "I'll be right back."
I grab my cigars and a couple Guinnesses and do what one does if you can't beat 'em.
At the patio table I clip, light and pour and study the stout's hypnotic cascade. I already know that I will not be emboldened. I will not coach or lecture. I will not reveal myself and have rare truth be thought a lie. Because it's pointless. Because he's confused by things outside his little shell and he's deeply unpleasant when confused.
"I want to do things but then I don't do them," he suddenly says.
This is new.
"Like what?"
"Like stop this." He holds up his cigarette. Quit smoking, he means. "Like pulling those weeds."
The poets would say it's the devil holding you back. Or God. Same thing, I refrain from saying. Nor do I say, Your brain is managed by a floating hierarchy. The agent in charge one moment is demoted the next, in response to a laughably redundant roster of survival instincts.
"I'm losing things," I say instead. "Bit by bit. Like the capacity to perceive which are weeds and which are plants. I see green stuff fenced in the garden and green stuff coming up between the flagstones. But which are the weeds and why? Weeds are the things that evade our control?"
"Weeds are the things we don't want," he says.
Speak for yourself.
We smoke and drink and talk intermittently. I dumb myself down to avoid confusion and unpleasantness and come off sounding absurd. Just when I'm sure he can't make one more visit to the fridge without falling down he says, "Time for bed, Charlie." The little ball of fur and teeth looks up at him from his basket lounger. I stand to leave.
"Thank you," he says.
I remain motionless a long time. Finally I say, "The reason I always stay in my room; why I don't join you out here, is that I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke. I just thought you should know that."
He brushes his fingers through the air at me. "Go to bed," he says, which means, I know that already.
- Judy Collins (song: Both Sides Now)
It's odd to see how seemingly fast my young friends have changed. Faded freckles. New shoes. Longer hair. And they seemed quieter; more mature than they'd seemed as of our last meeting in June. But then, the first day of school is perhaps simply a more sombre affair than the last day of school.
I must wonder how parents perceive such observations. What is it like to have your child constantly disappear on you and re-emerge as someone else? It sounds vaguely frightening.
I stopped in Thorold on the route home to spend an evening with Skeeter Willis, kicking off the Strat-o-Matic season with a pair of one-goal losses for the Ybor City Tabaqueros. On the up-side this technically makes us the statistically most likely team to acquire Sydney Crosby in the 2011 entry draft. Always a silver lining in our world of dual perspective.
Back at the place I've never thought of as home, it's late and the man some people refer to as my dad is sitting motionless in the dark out back. He's drunk naturally and everything stinks of whatever horrifically putrid chemical concoction forms cigarettes. My presence triggers the motion-sensor spotlights.
Rather than flee to my room this night, I linger. It weighs on me that our time is almost up. Soon our colossal failure of each other shall be official. Three loads of the truck some afternoon soon and I quietly slip out of his life or lack thereof.
"Nice night," I say.
"It's cool," he says. "The way you like it." And there it is. The one and only thing he knows about me. I owe him some explanation.
I wish neither to talk nor to leave him. I step out of the light and and look up for stars. It's as good a night as you can get for it around here. No clouds. No moon. Immediately I catch a shooting star.
"Meteorite," I say.
Venus sparkles fiercely, accompanied by just a few dozen pale companions to penetrate Hammertown's hefty film of light pollution.
Eventually I give in. "I'll be right back."
I grab my cigars and a couple Guinnesses and do what one does if you can't beat 'em.
At the patio table I clip, light and pour and study the stout's hypnotic cascade. I already know that I will not be emboldened. I will not coach or lecture. I will not reveal myself and have rare truth be thought a lie. Because it's pointless. Because he's confused by things outside his little shell and he's deeply unpleasant when confused.
"I want to do things but then I don't do them," he suddenly says.
This is new.
"Like what?"
"Like stop this." He holds up his cigarette. Quit smoking, he means. "Like pulling those weeds."
The poets would say it's the devil holding you back. Or God. Same thing, I refrain from saying. Nor do I say, Your brain is managed by a floating hierarchy. The agent in charge one moment is demoted the next, in response to a laughably redundant roster of survival instincts.
"I'm losing things," I say instead. "Bit by bit. Like the capacity to perceive which are weeds and which are plants. I see green stuff fenced in the garden and green stuff coming up between the flagstones. But which are the weeds and why? Weeds are the things that evade our control?"
"Weeds are the things we don't want," he says.
Speak for yourself.
We smoke and drink and talk intermittently. I dumb myself down to avoid confusion and unpleasantness and come off sounding absurd. Just when I'm sure he can't make one more visit to the fridge without falling down he says, "Time for bed, Charlie." The little ball of fur and teeth looks up at him from his basket lounger. I stand to leave.
"Thank you," he says.
I remain motionless a long time. Finally I say, "The reason I always stay in my room; why I don't join you out here, is that I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke. I just thought you should know that."
He brushes his fingers through the air at me. "Go to bed," he says, which means, I know that already.
- Judy Collins (song: Both Sides Now)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Death
Death.
Why do we mourn death when it is inevitable? Why do we treat it like a tragedy when dead is without doubt, the natural state of all things? Life, whether from a spiritual or scientific view is almost universally regarded as miraculous. And given the age of the world, life is as brief as it is miraculous. Nothing lives for long. Nothing.
From a selfish standpoint I think an other's death reminds us of our own mortality which is something we're programmed to ignore by the "great union" or the "matrix"; terms I like to use for that overwhelming system of forces acted upon us by the symmetrical ruling structures of society and instinct. And with regards to those departed special loved ones who touch our lives in meaningful ways, we mourn our own loss of something we cherished and foolishly counted on; their magic touch.
But for those not-so-special people who go through life transparently selfish, sadly the larger contingent I suspect: I think we don't so much mourn their death as we mourn their official failure to ever live. We mourn the expiry of their last chance to do something with their life. I suspect that many of those who die slowly and with mind intact, experience toward the end a profound sense of failure and devastating regret over this.
Poets of old talk about the living death and this has resonated with me for a long time. Drawing breath; existing, is not the same as "living" in the poetic language.
To "work our job and collect our pay and glide down the highway" in the slightly-paraphrased words of Paul Simon is not in itself to live. Collecting possessions and coveting them is not to live, nor is building and coveting our reputations; something a vast majority of all our energies and resources are dedicated to daily, directly or indirectly whether we realize it or not. To vegetate in front of the television set, that most vacuous sedative; false art for the dull masses - that is not to live. Pursuing sex is not to live. Can you really live and still participate in some of these things? Of course. Though it depends upon the manner in which you participate; to what degree you make it an exploration.
Paul Simon says we're all slip-sliding away. The poets say we are "forever hurled into the pit." Certain Hindu-based offerings suggest that the dull masses are just animals and I perceive the same. Animals have no, or very very little consciousness, say neurologists. They are utterly slave to instincts. And though people need not be slave to instincts, we mostly are. Consciousness is a very new evolution on the grand scale of things - and as early evolutionary stages of any manner tend to go - consciousness is tragically ineffective in this infantile state. Consciousness absorbs a horribly small range of our actual experience. Just enough to confuse the holy crap out of us. Just enough that we invent such inept concepts as belief, and to then believe in the most self-evidently preposterous of ideas. It is just evolved enough that we perceive our own existence but in a terribly flawed way. Though consciousness seems our only link to perception of self, we can only see the product of our self as through the "eye of the other"; that image we seem to portray through our own manipulation of others' perception of our self - which does not actually exist because we really only conceive of our intentions while others only see our outward results. So we are doubly removed from reality. The self we see is an isolated phantom. Does that sound vaguely horrifying? I can tell you it is starkly horrifying when you first truly grasp it. But that's okay. You don't believe me right now because your instincts won't let you.
Yuck. I've taken us on a gloomy tangent, haven't I? If by some miracle you haven't completely dismissed all the above because it's too depressing to contemplate and you are actually finding some usefulness or consolidation in these understandings - please do not despair. There is a wonderful upside to all of this and I will treat it very briefly because the title up there says "death" and I've fallen off topic.
The matrix invites entitlement. There is much legitimate joy in stock for you when you defeat that entitlement and come to objectively appreciate the miracle of your own existence. And then again when you come to appreciate the power of the evolution of consciousness and it's tremendous rewards and tremendous accessibility. For evolution truly happens in individuals. It is only the very slow pattern of evolution that scientists measure and refer to as simply "evolution." As an individual you have the power to evolve your consciousness immensely if you're prepared to be courageous and to do the work. Why is it so accessible? Because mutation of bodily things require a reproductive generation per stage while your brain is literally re-wired with every thought, perception and observation!
To practice at evolving your consciousness is to separate yourself from the animals in the poetic view. I don't know how many ways there are to make this happen but I know how it works for me and for some others before me. It is through the arts. The genuine arts. Reading and writing. Absorbing music and composing it. It's in cinema and art galleries. It is in creation and imagination. It is in the blank page. It is in solitude. These pursuits enable understanding. They enable true learning. There is a fearsome hurdle along this path unfortunately but it's the only path I know so far. I'll talk about the hurdle another time. These pursuits above; it is in them that we live, in truth that we live, in loving kindness, in charity, in honest conversation, in the pursuit to improve our lives and that of others. We live through the products of consciousness because consciousness is the only thing separating us from the animals. And it is where harmony is conceived.
Do you grasp what I mean about living and living death in the poetic language?
I do not mourn death or the dying. I really don't. I only mourn the failure of breathing people to wake up and really live.
If my failure to mouth the typical words at times of bereavement puts you off, it is not that I am heartless. At funerals I am always in tears or just on the verge; just not for the presumed reasons.
Back to consciousness for just a moment. The scary question on my mind is this: In what direction is consciousness - as a pattern of evolution - currently evolving? Forward toward harmony (and joy and freedom) or backward toward chaos? Societal structures are born of instinct, arts from the consciousness. Which side is winning? Which brand of humans are breeding like rabbits? Evolution implies natural selection through random mutation; a virtual process of the underlying domination instinct which spawns all other instincts. The hitch: The evolved consciousness does not support the domination parent-instinct. In other words - is this as good as it's going to get for us? I hope not. Because as one who's discovered a bit late in life that kids are actually decent people after all - rather lovable in fact - I'd really like to see them craft a better community for themselves out of the rather dumb one we've provided.
Why do we mourn death when it is inevitable? Why do we treat it like a tragedy when dead is without doubt, the natural state of all things? Life, whether from a spiritual or scientific view is almost universally regarded as miraculous. And given the age of the world, life is as brief as it is miraculous. Nothing lives for long. Nothing.
From a selfish standpoint I think an other's death reminds us of our own mortality which is something we're programmed to ignore by the "great union" or the "matrix"; terms I like to use for that overwhelming system of forces acted upon us by the symmetrical ruling structures of society and instinct. And with regards to those departed special loved ones who touch our lives in meaningful ways, we mourn our own loss of something we cherished and foolishly counted on; their magic touch.
But for those not-so-special people who go through life transparently selfish, sadly the larger contingent I suspect: I think we don't so much mourn their death as we mourn their official failure to ever live. We mourn the expiry of their last chance to do something with their life. I suspect that many of those who die slowly and with mind intact, experience toward the end a profound sense of failure and devastating regret over this.
Poets of old talk about the living death and this has resonated with me for a long time. Drawing breath; existing, is not the same as "living" in the poetic language.
To "work our job and collect our pay and glide down the highway" in the slightly-paraphrased words of Paul Simon is not in itself to live. Collecting possessions and coveting them is not to live, nor is building and coveting our reputations; something a vast majority of all our energies and resources are dedicated to daily, directly or indirectly whether we realize it or not. To vegetate in front of the television set, that most vacuous sedative; false art for the dull masses - that is not to live. Pursuing sex is not to live. Can you really live and still participate in some of these things? Of course. Though it depends upon the manner in which you participate; to what degree you make it an exploration.
Paul Simon says we're all slip-sliding away. The poets say we are "forever hurled into the pit." Certain Hindu-based offerings suggest that the dull masses are just animals and I perceive the same. Animals have no, or very very little consciousness, say neurologists. They are utterly slave to instincts. And though people need not be slave to instincts, we mostly are. Consciousness is a very new evolution on the grand scale of things - and as early evolutionary stages of any manner tend to go - consciousness is tragically ineffective in this infantile state. Consciousness absorbs a horribly small range of our actual experience. Just enough to confuse the holy crap out of us. Just enough that we invent such inept concepts as belief, and to then believe in the most self-evidently preposterous of ideas. It is just evolved enough that we perceive our own existence but in a terribly flawed way. Though consciousness seems our only link to perception of self, we can only see the product of our self as through the "eye of the other"; that image we seem to portray through our own manipulation of others' perception of our self - which does not actually exist because we really only conceive of our intentions while others only see our outward results. So we are doubly removed from reality. The self we see is an isolated phantom. Does that sound vaguely horrifying? I can tell you it is starkly horrifying when you first truly grasp it. But that's okay. You don't believe me right now because your instincts won't let you.
Yuck. I've taken us on a gloomy tangent, haven't I? If by some miracle you haven't completely dismissed all the above because it's too depressing to contemplate and you are actually finding some usefulness or consolidation in these understandings - please do not despair. There is a wonderful upside to all of this and I will treat it very briefly because the title up there says "death" and I've fallen off topic.
The matrix invites entitlement. There is much legitimate joy in stock for you when you defeat that entitlement and come to objectively appreciate the miracle of your own existence. And then again when you come to appreciate the power of the evolution of consciousness and it's tremendous rewards and tremendous accessibility. For evolution truly happens in individuals. It is only the very slow pattern of evolution that scientists measure and refer to as simply "evolution." As an individual you have the power to evolve your consciousness immensely if you're prepared to be courageous and to do the work. Why is it so accessible? Because mutation of bodily things require a reproductive generation per stage while your brain is literally re-wired with every thought, perception and observation!
To practice at evolving your consciousness is to separate yourself from the animals in the poetic view. I don't know how many ways there are to make this happen but I know how it works for me and for some others before me. It is through the arts. The genuine arts. Reading and writing. Absorbing music and composing it. It's in cinema and art galleries. It is in creation and imagination. It is in the blank page. It is in solitude. These pursuits enable understanding. They enable true learning. There is a fearsome hurdle along this path unfortunately but it's the only path I know so far. I'll talk about the hurdle another time. These pursuits above; it is in them that we live, in truth that we live, in loving kindness, in charity, in honest conversation, in the pursuit to improve our lives and that of others. We live through the products of consciousness because consciousness is the only thing separating us from the animals. And it is where harmony is conceived.
Do you grasp what I mean about living and living death in the poetic language?
I do not mourn death or the dying. I really don't. I only mourn the failure of breathing people to wake up and really live.
If my failure to mouth the typical words at times of bereavement puts you off, it is not that I am heartless. At funerals I am always in tears or just on the verge; just not for the presumed reasons.
Back to consciousness for just a moment. The scary question on my mind is this: In what direction is consciousness - as a pattern of evolution - currently evolving? Forward toward harmony (and joy and freedom) or backward toward chaos? Societal structures are born of instinct, arts from the consciousness. Which side is winning? Which brand of humans are breeding like rabbits? Evolution implies natural selection through random mutation; a virtual process of the underlying domination instinct which spawns all other instincts. The hitch: The evolved consciousness does not support the domination parent-instinct. In other words - is this as good as it's going to get for us? I hope not. Because as one who's discovered a bit late in life that kids are actually decent people after all - rather lovable in fact - I'd really like to see them craft a better community for themselves out of the rather dumb one we've provided.
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