Not necessary today, though….. all things considered, this one has begun auspiciously, and I can feel some small confidence at taking the next few cautious steps into the day’s activities. Of course, that is contingent on how my Muse is feeling this fine morning, and whether I will have its support, or if it will need to nurse along another hangover (occupational hazard for Muses, I’d guess… in vino, veritas, and all that, you know….). I’m not worried, I haven’t heard any significant whimpering from that corner…. and I’ve promised some actual reading time later, out of a book, not a website, provided we get done at a reasonable time.  It’s quite excited about that, and looking forward to this recently rare indulgence.

On a happy note, my access problem with some WordPress sites is solved; many of you may have noticed my return to your comment sections yesterday, some with delight, some with resignation, and, I’m sure, a few groans…. it was merely a matter of getting the information laid out in front of the correct person, who zeroed in on the difficulty and presented a solution on the spot. The solution worked instantly, and voila, I was back…. such a drawn out process for a fix that took two minutes, merely a single change to my ISP network configuration, toggling a certain function off. Only took two minutes to get to the right page, the fix was a matter of seconds, just click a box, and hit submit. Done deal, and I can’t tell y’all how nice it was to be able to follow a link without any rigmarole….. and, hey, I’d have even gone through it again, just for the opportunity to use the word “rigmarole”……

Shall we Pearl?……
___________________________________

This is the text from a Sunday edition of Calvin and Hobbes from 1989; it needs no comment or adornment……

“Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then?”
“Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs ARE in color. It’s just the WORLD was black and white then.”
“Really?”
“Yep. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930’s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.”
“That’s really weird.”
“Well, truth is stranger than fiction.”
“But then why are old PAINTINGS in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way?”
“Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.”
“But… but how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn’t their paints have been shades of gray back then?”
“Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the 30’s.”
“So why didn’t old black and white photos turn color too?”
“Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?”

— Calvin and Dad, “Calvin and Hobbes”, 29 October 89

SIGH…. it’s a wonderful time of life, those years when your children believed EVERYTHING you told them…..  🙂   Those were actually the REAL Good Old Days…..
___________________________________

A man sought medical aid because he was crippled and could hardly walk. The foot doctor suggested surgery. After the operation, nothing changed. The man then consulted a bone surgeon, who suggested surgery on his legs. After this second operation, nothing changed. The man went to a chiropractor for six months, and no change was effected, although he was told his spine was out of line. Finally the man consulted a psychiatrist at great expense, and the doctor told him he was totally suicidal and would die within months. Despondent, the man went out and spent a great deal of money on a new wardrobe. At the shoe store, he ordered the finest, a size 10. The salesperson said he needed size 11, but the man insisted on a size 10. “Look here,” said the salesperson, “if you wear a size 10 you are going to get crippled and wish you were dead.”

A delightfully long and convoluted walk down a path to a single, very key concept, to wit: “Pay attention! And not to all the bullshit, just what is important!” A statement like this, made at the right time to the right person, in the right frame of mind, can become an epiphany, a moment of zazen, a flash of the eternal, a smile from the Jade Empress… something never to be forgotten, an event lasting an instant that will echo down through all the years of life, affecting everything one does, and everything one becomes…. like the widening ripples in a pond that result from a single pebble entering the deep unknown below the surface of reality….
___________________________________

Some days, when I go diving for pearls, they seem to jump out of their shells and into the bag…. on these days, what ends up in the bag often tells a story, or makes a point, or just stands silently, pointing the Way, sometimes even all three, without benefit or need of discussion or comment. This is one such group of pearls, needing none of my ego to dress them up in finery….. so pay attention!….

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.  What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. — Messiah’s Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul

“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not understand.  nevertheless, with what I am, I can reflect light into the black places of this world – into the dark places in the hearts of men – and maybe help change some things in some people.  Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am . . . this is the meaning of my life.” — Alexander Papaderos

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” — C. G. Jung

There is a bridge between Time and Eternity; and this bridge is the Spirit of man. Neither day nor night cross that bridge, nor old age, nor death nor sorrow. — Upanishads (c. B.C. 800)

Then along comes some wise guy author and mucks things about…… sort of…. Then again, maybe just a different way of getting to the same point….

“At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise or wonder; so that a man sitting in a chair might suddenly understand that he was actually alive, and be happy.” — G.K. Chesterton

These are the times I live for…… days when every single face of Reality is just sparkling with possibility, and promise…. Makes me want to take BIG BITES of joie d’vivre!…..
___________________________________

I just realized now that I’ve never known exactly why this appealed to me, but, as I started to write, to cover an entirely different idea using this, it came to me that I knew exactly how it feels. I can answer Bob’s plaintive plea for, well, for help, from anybody….. I was there, you see. Right there…. on my own, no direction home, a complete unknown…. more desperately, for me, “there” was in a part of New York City I didn’t know (which included most of the city), in the middle of the night, and I had exactly four cents and four bummed cigarettes as assets of a fiscally liquid nature. Needless to say, it doesn’t feel as good as my dreams had painted such scenarios, prior to experiencing them; it felt pretty damn shitty, all in all, and made it hard to find the grit and inspiration to get myself out of the situation intact, in both mind and body…..

FUCK
You’ve just been waiting for this definition, haven’t you? Here is how to use the word ‘fuck’ in almost any conversation.

NORMAL EXPRESSION                     FUCKING EXPRESSION
———————                               ——————
I am surprised                                        Well, fuck me
Please go away quickly                           Fuck off
My condition is one of fatigue                   I’m fucked
You have made an error of judgment        You fucked up
Stop engaging in frivolous activities           Stop fucking about
He is a person of below average intellect  What a dumb fucker
That option is not a suitable choice           Fuck that
I have not made significant progress         I’ve done fuck all
(… and, finally, my own contributions to this lexicon)
Situation normal                                      It’s all fucked up (the origin, of course, of SNAFU….)
You are not a nice person                        Fucking asshole WOS (waste of sperm)

— Daniel Bowen’s TOXIC (expanded) CUSTARPEDIA

Sharing one’s knowledge is showing one cares…..
___________________________________

Serendipity is generally not susceptible to either summoning at will, or even coming upon persuasion; it comes and goes according to rules it never shares, completely reflecting that part of Reality that changes without warning, and with no pity, only indifference. But, diving for pearls today, and yesterday, when I found almost all of the above, was both delightfully easy of execution, and prolific in results. Thus, I find myself essentially finished with this before I really noticed I had begun…. fascinating alterations of local time and reality, to be sure.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how our mind is able to concentrate so fully, on anything at all, and completely lose all awareness of Time and Space, forces we are normally in tune with closely? This is especially true for using computers, and even has a word to describe the phenomenon, i.e. “flow”. You know you entered the flow state when you sit down at the computer at 10 PM to check mail one last time before bed, and then come back to reality only as you stare incredulously at the rising sun coming through the window into your eyes, the next morning. All too common around here, for sure….

Any who, I guess I’ll have to give in and finish putting together the non-Pearl post I’ve been putting off for a week now…. or not. I can be pretty lazy if I put all my effort into it, and this feels like a lazy day, good work results aside….. I’ll do my usual, and do nothing until some external force pushes me to act….

Remember, ffolkes, be strange… it’s cool out there. No room for the straights and pimps of life…. Y’all take care out there, and Blessed Be……