Chutzpah is potentially a costly indulgence….

Posted on January 31, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Eyes grew heavy in the overly warm dining room, glazing into insensibility, as the world’s second most boring speech droned on interminably. To Darcy Simmons it seemed she fought with the Sandman himself to keep her eyes open, as she owlishly blinked, trying to wake up, though for the life of her, she couldn’t think of why. “There isn’t enough money in the world worth this,” she thought, “What was I thinking!” She gazed around her, seeking an excuse of any kind that would make it okay to run screaming from the room, when her eyes fell upon……

I know…. it’s rude to leave people hanging like that. You’ll just have to get over it, as my imagination just experienced a massive fail. What with the weird muscle spasms that are currently making my left leg twitch like a vulcanized frog, the incipient relatively high pain level we are ignoring, and the general state of affairs here, it isn’t particularly surprising, just inconvenient, and a PISSER OF MAJOR PROPORTION!!! You know I’m upset when I use three exclamation points, knowing one will do…. It is going to make for a difficult morning, I can see already, and I’m a less than happy camper at the moment….

Perhaps, though, I should try to apply some of this wisdom I so often tout here. The vicissitudes of life come to burden all of us at one time or another, and it’s foolish to think it won’t happen to us, just because it hasn’t happened for a while. (I love that word, “vicissitudes”…. a wonderful word to describe such a vile, distasteful group of experiences, with just the right sense of disapproval, yet without giving up any of its elegance….) Patience, tolerance, courage, strength, all are qualities whose praise I’ve sung, so it would be a good thing, no doubt, if I were to take advantage of all that I’ve written to benefit my own self….. helpfully providing both statistical evidence in support of the wisdom that is offered, and a good example of its effectiveness in reality. Bonus!

Okay, we’ll give it a try…. I can ignore the muscle spasms fairly easily; they’re just another physical anomaly, which by this time should be fairly common, and familiar, and therefore of no concern. I’ve already taken an extra pain pill, and it should help in a little while, so I can stop fighting the pain (not as easy as it sounds, but, doable….). As for the rest of what is going on around here, it all falls under the category of things about which I can do nothing. As such, I can only take the advice of Epictetus, and accept that there are things that are not within my control, thus opening the way to enjoy the result of such wisdom…..

Okay, so here I am, in pain, (fuck! It hurts!…. Some days, it just doesn’t want to cooperate, you know?….), but courageously whipping myself to continue writing, mainly because nothing else seems to work, so I may as well get something done….. I’m applying the wisdom, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much….. I guess it’s just going to be one of those days when I can count on my pain to stay at a high level, and my depression to keep me in the proverbial dumps all day, or at least until I can persuade myself to give it up and get on with life. It’s hard, though, as I usually tell myself to “fuck off” in such cases…. I’m not a nice guy, sometimes…

Hey, at least it made the intro section fairly easy to write… lots of subject matter, even if it is all a bit on the dreary side. Ah well, I’m entering that state of mind where my only response, to anything and everything, is fairly certain to sound something like “Fuck it!… and the white horse it rode in on!….” I’m going to take a chance here, and dive into the dB, & see if there is anything that can push through the haze surrounding my brain to stimulate a rant, or an old school pearl, or maybe a poem…. One never knows, do one? Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.” — Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in “Time”, 1981

Well, Vladimir certainly nailed it in one! This fits right in with what I believe, which, though it has little if anything in common with popular religious views of the afterlife, is nonetheless just as optimistic in outlook as any of those rather exceedingly ornate, highly unlikely scenarios. In my world view, the mind, and consciousness, whatever it may be, is equivalent to energy in our universe, and as such, should logically have the same characteristic as all other forms of energy we have thus far discovered, to wit: it cannot be destroyed, only changed in form.

Each of the world’s religions has their own version of what happens after we die, and all of them are made with the assumption of the presence of their idea of God as the underlying reason for all that occurs. This, while logical, to a small degree (one has to accept some rather specious assumptions in order to follow a logical path to the concept of a God….), mostly reminds me of a small boy walking past a graveyard, whistling loudly to scare off his own fears…. It’s mostly wishful thinking, as far as I can see, according to all the physical evidence available. The proponents of these religious philosophies all make the same basic error in their logical constructs, one that is so basic, they can’t even see it….

That error lies in assuming that Man, or a man, being a mortal being, limited in perception and understanding by their own physical envelope, is capable of either understanding, or describing, what is a God. If one assumes that an entity is capable of creating an entire universe, I don’t think it is logical to assume that we, as part of that creation, would have the capability of comprehending either the process involved, or the being that carried it out. The mere fact that, in order to try to comprehend God at all, we need to try to give him first, a sex, then a visual identity, is the first and most telling clue that we are wrong, right from the start…..

The next clue as to our inability to know God is the behaviors that Man ascribes to Him. In just about every religious book I’ve read, the actions of most of the Gods therein reminded me more of a surly, selfish teenager than of a God. I don’t know, it just seems a bit illogical to have the creator of the entire universe behave worse than a cranky two year old that needs a nap, if He doesn’t get the fawning worship he so desperately needs. It sounds more like Benito Mussolini, or Madonna, to me, than it does like God….

This doesn’t mean, though, that there is no hope of redemption (though I’m not sure from what I’m being redeemed… the idea of original sin is pretty much a hoax, you know, put in the Christian dogma to help manipulate and control people….), or of life after death. The universe is actually a quite beautiful place without the concept of God hanging about, getting in the way…. And this viewpoint allows one to appreciate life much more fully, knowing that we are the ones responsible for making our lives worth living…

Everybody dies, and everyone lives after death, as far as I can see from a logical standpoint. I think that what Vladimir says is a good way to look at things, as it acknowledges that responsibility for our own happiness, and does so without implying the existence of a need to do so in hope of a reward for good behavior, as is the case in those religious institutions who wish to control people here in this life, with the threat of punishment or reward in the next. We can assume control of our own lives, including our own happiness, or, we can allow others to think for us, and accept the chains and limitations of living according to someone else’s ideas of what is real….

The saddest part of all this? Most folks never even realize they have a choice in the matter. From infancy, they’ve been brainwashed to believe what they’re told, and all-too-few of us manage to escape the bonds of slavery that are placed on our minds early in life. Most folks just accept what they are told by anyone in authority, and get very comfortable in their chains, since they don’t have to think for themselves at all….. They never realize just how large and beautiful the universe really is, because they’ve accepted the blinders they wear, and refuse to even acknowledge that they wear them at all….

It sure makes me glad for whatever happened to keep me from falling for that whole scam; I can’t say exactly what first clued me in to the facts, but, I’m very, very happy that it did. I can’t see going through my life filled with fear of what might happen afterward; it’s too much fun enjoying all the beauty and grandeur that exists on our planet to spend more than a second considering such nonsense…… 🙂 Thank God for small favors, eh? 🙂 Sorry, couldn’t resist….

‘Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 50
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It has been awhile since I read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, so finding a small piece of it in Smart Bee gave me a hankering to run through it again. It’s a long piece, though, and can take a while to get through. In addition, it takes up a lot of space…. so, to avoid both those problems, today I’m providing a simple link to the poem, on PoemHunter.com, where I find a lot of what goes into this section…. A very large amount of the world’s best poetry and poets are to be found there, and I enjoy the simplicity of their interface… Any who, here, for your reading pleasure….

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/

Enjoy!…..
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“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.” — Johann L. Uhland (1787-1862) — Speech, May 27, 1836

Mr. Uhland is correct in his observation, if a bit slow in making it. The usurpation of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights began within moments of its adoption as law, and has been continuing on a daily basis ever since. In the fight against that usurpation, a major battle was lost sometime around the middle of the 19th century, around 1836 or so, when a corrupt federal judge, at the insistence of his corporate masters, approved a legal decision that gave corporations the same rights as people, opening the door to further machinations by which the banks and corporations could, have, and continue to, steal from the public without consequence…..

Today, there is a new push to reform some of the laws that enable the moneylenders to control society as they do; the concept of corporate personhood is under fire by an enraged public, tired of the endless cycle of working to try to get ahead, only to find that there is no path visible to go anywhere but down. As that astute social philosopher, George Carlin, pointed out, they (the bankers and corporate rogues) don’t want a populace capable of critical thinking; they just want workers smart enough to operate the machines, but not smart enough to wonder why they are doing so for so little compensation.

Modern technology has, thanks to the Internet, made keeping this issue out of the public eye impossible, and the corporate stranglehold on society is being challenged much more often. In one sense, this new found spread of information is holding back the needed changes, as a lot of energy is dissipated in the public discourse that might otherwise build up into the kind of frustration that leads to revolution, and societal upheaval. But, it is also making it much harder for the miscreants who want to control everyone else keep their machinations out of the public eye. There are too many holes for them to plug….

The power these self-serving assholes hold over the rest of us is accustomed to being able to hide from public scrutiny, and I’m sure there will be attempts made to curtail some of the information they are concerned about making common knowledge. In fact, according to some of my latest email updates from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), there are a number of bills trying to get forced through Congress, without public discussion when possible, that are intended to limit the freedom of speech that is currently unrestricted, for the most part.

A recent setback occurred when an honest judge (i.e., one that stayed bought….) rewarded his corporate masters with a decision regarding cell phones that is a serious threat to a number of technological freedoms…. In other words, the fight continues today, and it is just as important today as it was back in 1776, and 1836, when the battle was joined…

The Beloved Ruling Class, and their corporate owners, will do all they can to limit the public’s awareness of what they are doing, and they will continue to try to erode the rights of the common man. They have, by their historical behavior, and their current actions, indicated their intent quite clearly… and that intent is to arrange matters so that what they want is law, and the rest of us can go fuck ourselves silly…. because they don’t care. These people are not concerned with anything that does not serve their own ends, and will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to maintain their power…. This is not supposition, this is fact, based on history, and on observation of current events….

I guess the only real question to be answered is, how long are the rest of us going to allow them to have their way? They are killing us all with their indifference to anything but their own purposes, and we are letting them do it.

Myself, I’m getting a bit tired of it, and would like to see society become a bit more active in the resistance shown to the chicanery toward the rest of us, all perpetrated by the Powers That Be… up to and including revolution…. But, then, that’s me…. I’m a bit impatient, and I’m tired of their shit….. I’m hoping more people are getting that way, as our only hope of survival in the long run is to kick the bastards out…..

“All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.” — William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898)
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Well, there you go…. I was a bit concerned, after writing the intro; it was a tough one, and didn’t bode well for the rest of the Pearl. But, apparently, once I found the right pearls for discussion, I had plenty to say, and it flowed out fairly well…. Well enough that polishing took only a few minutes…. I am happy to pronounce this Pearl “done”….

Happier than I can say, really, as it has distracted me from the pain for a good hour and a half now…. Hopefully, I can find enough to continue to distract myself long enough, and get through the day to tomorrow…. Just gotta stay focused on that concept, and I’m good to go…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

A witch, a stitch, and three cracked cups….

Posted on January 30, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
“O frabjous day! Oh, joy! I am filled with exuberant good will! Come, join me in greeting this fabulous new day!……”

There…. we’ll see how that works….. I thought I’d try something a bit new and different today, since I’ve been complaining to myself so much about the intro section. These words, stolen piecemeal from a Dorothy L. Sayers novel, coupled with a bit of doggerel that was laying about in me head, have but one purpose, and that is to distract and confuse Murphy long enough for me to at least get started on this Pearl. I don’t know how it will work, but maybe if he sees that I’m already up, started writing, and in a good mood, he could get a bit discombobulated by my apparent cheerfulness. Just about anything is worth a shot, if it means less hassle from him in the long run…..

Gosh, it’s quiet…. I didn’t realize just how much ambient noise it adds to the background to have Murphy and the boys hanging about all the time. It’s so quiet I could hear myself thinking, a distinctly new feeling. So new, in fact, I don’t know how to deal with it, precisely. I feel kind of guilty at disturbing the peace; there is so little of it around here most of the time, it’s rather pleasant to not have the clamor and bustle ringing around my ears. It’s almost soothing…. and boring as hell. This calls for some music, I think….

Ah yes, you can’t beat Bonnie Raitt, for a bit of atmosphere and stimulation. Slick slide and blues guitar, gutsy, crystalline voice, red hair, and a beautiful smile…. Ah me, I’ve been lost in love for her for close to 40 years or more. When she lets her voice soar, such as in the song “Angel from Montgomery”, it sends chills up and down my spine, and there is nobody who can rip out your heart any faster than when she sings a song such as, “I Can’t Make You Love Me”…… Every time I hear it, I want to fall on my knees before her, and cry out “You don’t HAVE to MAKE me love you! I am yours forever!” Alas, she never hears me, and my fantasy fades again….

So much for unrequited love…. As we all do, I lived through my loss, and have come through the other side relatively unscathed by the hammer of love lost, or more accurately, love never found (a slight, but important distinction). It’s a hard loss, for sure, but, hey, I’ve always got her music to get me by….. A little time, one of her CD’s, a bottle of Jack, and the pain will eventually pass away, as it does in Time….. Of course, it all rushes back in, twice as bad, the next morning, along with the hangover, but, there is always a price for our healing….

Well, once again, I’ve managed to get through another intro section without really saying much of anything, at least nothing that could be construed as either significant, or even interesting. What can I say, it’s a gift…. Now that you have unwittingly fallen right into my trap, and consumed four and a half paragraphs of pseudo-literature before you even realized you were caught, we can get on with the normal (got to stop using that word!….It really doesn’t apply….) business of the day, for what it’s worth….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.” — Robert A. Heinlein

I had an idea, but it went away…. They do that sometimes. The idea was connected somehow to this quote from Bob Heinlein, and, as might be expected, was intended to serve as the springboard for yet another episode of raking Christianity, and religious institutions in general, over the coals. Since the clever concept I originally had has deserted me, I have absolutely no idea of where to go with this…. I mean, it’s a simple enough matter to turn it into a rant; I have no problem coming up with a newly sharpened stick to poke at the priesthood whenever needed, or merely wished for. But, having bellied up to that bar already this week, I hadn’t intended to go there…. Let’s see what happens now….

“And on the seventh day, while He was resting, He created snack cakes. And He saw that they looked good, and He did bite into one, at which time he realized that they tasted like something that had been sitting on a shelf wrapped in cheap plastic for decades. He had too much goop on His fingers to blast them into the void from which they had come, and therefore He drove them out until they had left the Promised Land and were stuck in a cheap, tacky display on the end of the aisle.” — Haagendasz 3, 12-15

While I am firmly convinced that this makes as much sense to me as it does to read in the Bible from, oh, say, the Book of Leviticus, or even Genesis, I am not sure it will make a proper ranting platform. I mean, it IS as easily proved as any of the real stuff in the Bible, and certainly holds the same amount of logic to its assertions. But, somehow, it just isn’t SERIOUS enough to soothe the ranting urge… No, we’ll just have to keep looking….

“One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so, because they bite.” — Vladimir Lenin

Ah, now THAT is a sentiment I can get behind. It shows deep insight into human nature, and in a small way, says something about how that nature is self-destructive. A fine little aphorism, but, not really suited for ranting, as it is so true and complete in itself….. We’ll keep looking….

“Forgive us, for we know not what we do. Not that we CARE or anything.” — Smart Bee

Aha! Now, that’s the kind of pearl that can start off a grand rant! It’s a perfect perversion of the Christian insistence on keeping their believers buried deeply in ignorance and fear, and ironic enough to please the most discriminating of critics. I love the ending line; it’s just so….. Christian! At least, by every measure I’ve ever seen, it is…. Now, there are Christians out there, I’m certain, who will take some offense at that, but, I would ask them to stop a moment and think…. There, there, now, darlings, I know it hurts, but it will get better the more you do it….

“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.” — Stendahl

See? I don’t discriminate!…. Now that your mind is loosened up a bit, so you won’t strain it, consider this…. In the Christian world, once one has been granted admittance to the group, becoming a member of the Church, how much effort do those members make to become better people? How much do they actually use the precepts of their dogma to influence their behavior BEFORE they act? How many of them actually try to weave the teachings of Jesus into the fabric of their lives?…. My own observations tell me the number is pretty small, compared to the whole…..

Christians make a big fuss about making sure that it is understood how compassionate and forgiving Jesus is/was, and meant for all his followers to be; then they go and drop bombs on a bunch of short brown people, because those people aren’t Christian…. Oh, the stories and fantasies given in justification always point to some other reason, but the bottom line is, because those other people are “heathens”, they aren’t entitled to any of that compassion or forgiveness. Only their co-members are entitled to consideration as something other than dirt…..

What often makes me the angriest when I see this behavior is the outrage expressed by those self-appointed Chosen Ones when their entitlement is challenged in pieces such as this one. The entire weight of the Church is often called into play to respond to any criticisms leveled against it in public, much like a dragon protects its stolen gold, reacting with fire and destruction to any perceived threats. It pisses me off because their manipulation of others, and their stated wish to be of service, is all based on LIES and hypocrisy, delivered with a smarmy smile that just says to me, “Snake!”, and makes me want to look around for a shovel to pound it with….

If an article in a newspaper that is critical of the Church is widely read, there will be, guaranteed, a fire-storm of heated responses from the Church’s mouthpieces, all heaping abuse, and accusations of discrimination against the critics. The making of such accusations is the typical, almost knee-jerk response of the Church whenever it is called to task for its shortcomings; they learned long ago that the best way to distract the membership from the truth of any criticisms is to make their own false accusations in return, but louder, and for a longer time…. They know that any lie, repeated loudly and repeatedly, will be accepted as truth, especially by their members, who are already predisposed (read: brainwashed…) to believe whatever the preachers/priests tell them….

“Ignorance can be compounded, made denser, until the light of our spirits is smothered.” — Deng Ming-Dao

I’ve given up arguing with the faithful; it’s a pastime that is endlessly amusing, but ultimately saddening. Kind of like the frustration of wrestling with a pig; you just get dirty, and the pig likes it….. It is hard for me to watch people continually make the choice to be ignorant, to be cowards, afraid to face the universe on its own terms, always preferring to allow other people, with fewer scruples than they possess, tell them what they should think, and how they should live. Trying to get most folks to see reason is much like banging one’s forehead against a brick wall…. not terribly amusing, and the blood is hard on one’s clothing, as well as the insult to the forehead….. Since I’m not a fool, I have ceased trying to get them to see beyond their own misapprehensions, and just use what I see as fodder for these posts….. Less frustrating, to be sure, if no less depressing….

I seem to have ranted myself into a corner again; I don’t see a way to continue this without becoming either vitriolic, or boring (some might say “more” boring…. all I can say to them is “thptttttt!”….); I’d guess it’s probably too late to avoid being rude. Since there is still some ways to go before we can call it a day, I think I’ll close this off, and go in search of an appropriate poem for the day…. As a final word of caution and warning, in the unending struggle against ignorance, let me leave you with these….

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” — John Stuart Mill

“All a man can betray is his conscience.” — Joseph Conrad
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A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

Walt Whitman
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“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.” — Noam Chomsky

Funny, isn’t it, how such statements, easily identified as being valid right up to the present day, are completely ignored by the mainstream public, and the media? I mean, it isn’t surprising that the politicians themselves would try to ignore this; that is, after all, their primary line of defense against criticism of any kind. But, it seems to me that the general public might be interested in at least seeing some of the evidence being used to justify the assertion, and that the media, as the ostensible responsible journalists they are supposed to be, would be all over that evidence to ascertain how much of it is valid. It isn’t an accusation that is made lightly, I think, and my own take on it is that it is perfectly true, given what I know of the Nuremberg Trials after WWII….

Now, this may seem like it is leading into another rant, this time on politics, and that would be a very astute observation…. usually. I’m a bit fagged out, though, having had quite a battle yesterday and last night with my back pain, which apparently is going to continue into today. I really do try not to let my pain keep me from doing what I want to do, but there are times when it just sort of ignores everything I want, and says, “Nope, here you go…. have some misery for a while….” It’s making it a bit difficult to think clearly, and to stay on track…

So, I’m going to switch horses right here in mid-stream, and turn this toward the old school…. Here are the pearls I could find this morning on the subject of our Beloved Ruling Class, bless their tiny little minds, and their tinier hearts…..

“”Beware the [lobbyist], my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch” (with thanks to Lewis Carroll). No matter how noble the cause or well meaning its professional advocates, lobbyists are still paid to get results. They’re subject to errors in judgment, shortcomings in motives, and most of them don’t even vote in your district.” — Pierre S. du Pont

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual & silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” — James Madison, Virginia Convention, 1788

“Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.” — Gore Vidal

“There are two main periods in which your elected representatives to the legislature do not do any business. One is before the election and the other is after the election.” — Smart Bee

It may have been the wrong decision to turn this over to my subconscious mind; the rant above took less time than finding that last pearl…. ah well, it finally got to the point where I can tie it all off with this, and wish you a safe and joyous day out there in the real world….

“Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it” — Homer
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Wow…. that turned into an epic, and somewhat of an ordeal. Let’s see how it came out, in toto….. Hang on, be back in a few moments…. Not too bad, all in all… A bit of polish here, a bit of clarification there, and it’s good to go…. Well, it’s done, anyway. Y’all are the final judges of how it came out, so, I’ll turn it over to your tender ministrations…. be gentle with me, okay?….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Rapid fluctuation in the power grid….

Posted on January 29, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
At the age I’ve reached, one of the best lessons I learned, long ago, is/was the value of routine. Developing a routine of efficient activities to organize the start of the day is one of the most important tools one can find and use in the work-a-day world. It allows one to get to work on time, with everything in hand that is necessary to the day, and with mind and body prepared for the tasks ahead, without undue stress or worry. When this routine is disrupted, it can affect the tenor of the rest of the day, like ripples in a pond, or a mathematical error that grows bigger with each new computation….

I’m starting to believe that even Murphy is not immune to the power of schedules and routines. When I was younger, and still going to work daily, if I observed the details of my routine, he seemed to stand back and not bother with me, waiting for other times to step in with his decidedly infantile sense of humor. If he was very, very clever, he sometimes could affect a small part of the routine, and cause a bit of uproar, but generally, I’d get so focused on carrying it out that he couldn’t get me to pay any attention to him, so he’d go off to find someone more vulnerable….. All of which means that there is a power to the act of routine behaviors, carried out time after time until they are ingrained, a power that resists the oppositional power of chaos that Murphy so adeptly subjects us to whenever he can….

What does this mean, in a philosophical, cosmic sense? Well, not much, I’d guess…. Actually, all of the above is pretty much just a type of mental diarrhea, which, though descriptive (perhaps too much so….), is not an image I particularly wish to saddle y’all with so early in the day. Of course, by the time you read this, it won’t be so early, either, a consideration that only adds to the absolute uselessness of the entire discussion…..

Yeah, we’ve got our routines, and they help keep entropy under control, but, so what? It doesn’t mean diddly in the large picture, and really isn’t particularly gripping as a subject for discussion, here, or anywhere….. But, it was sort of like that hive of bees that lives in my head…. there they were, and what else was I going to do with them, except share them with y’all?…. Exactly……

SIGH…. one of these days, I’m going to write a generic introductory section, and just use it as a template, the same every day… Then I wouldn’t be trying to come up with something every day to pull folks in and grab their interest….. Even my nearly unlimited store of nonsense and sheer flights of fantasy are getting a bit sparse, and ranting in the intro just seems like overkill. Maybe I’ll start ranting about myself…… I’ll have to do something soon, as I’m stretching my imagination to its limits, and beyond, to come up with these on a daily basis….

Most likely, however, I’ll just ignore the issue again, and keep on keepin’ on, as long as it works…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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In difficult ground, press on;
In encircled ground, devise stratagems;
In death ground, fight.

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War (circa 400 B.C.)

The Art of War is still considered by military experts to be one of the definitive books on warfare and strategy, after more than 2000 years. I’m not certain, but would certainly be surprised if it is not still used as a reference at West Point, Annapolis, The Citadel, and the Air Force Academy in classes on tactics and strategy in battle, and in peace time. In the book, which is actually quite short, Sun Tzu gives the basic tenets for success in war, and was so perfectly correct and complete, that it remains valid today, even though the landscape of war has grown much larger, and more complex. The issues that can decide victory or defeat remain the same……

One of the most surprising features of the book is the idea that Sun Tzu presents regarding the perfect warrior. In his mind, warriors came in a number of types, each of which required a different method of leadership. The surprise lies in his choice of the type of warrior that he considers to be the most valuable; oddly enough, at least, on the surface, he chose… the Spy…..

Not the weapons master, not the brilliant tactician, not the engineer… the spy. According to Sun Tzu, a properly trained and experienced agent provocateur was, by far, the most valuable type of warrior, for, with the proper application of truth and lies, and the correct timing, battles might be won without loss of life or property, or with a minimum of effort, due to the efforts before the battle by the spy. This choice indicates that Sun Tzu recognized the true battle that is waging at all times when people interact with each other…. the battle between truth and lies…..

We see this battle raging in our own society every day, as the politicians vie with each other to see which one can get the furthest from the truth and still convince people they aren’t full of shit. When we have priests telling us that we aren’t the masters of our own bodies or minds, expecting us to not even ask why, we are witnessing the constant struggle for control of our minds… and our pocketbooks…. Control of the former, of course, will always lead to control of the latter, and you can bet your booties that it is the pocketbooks that the preachers and politicians are concerned with, not just our minds, or our souls….. You betcha, compadre…

She was a wight, if ever such wight were,–
Des. To do what?
Iago. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion!

— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Othello — Act ii, Sc. 1

Normally, or as close as we get to normally, I wouldn’t use a Shakespeare quote, and this one shows why very well… I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell any of it means, but the last line struck home for this discussion… Before what I am saying reaches the point where the last line might apply, I will refer you to the book itself….. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu; copies of it are available at any bookstore, and probably online in a number of places.

It is a fairly quick read, (though there are points that do require some thought and pondering), being less than a hundred pages in most of the versions I’ve seen. As I said above, it’s pretty simply written, but covers all that is needed to get his point across, which has to do with winning, not just at war, but in life. As with many things in Chinese culture, there is more to the subject than may be apparent on first view, and it is worth the time to look more deeply into what Sun Tzu has told us….

But war ‘s a game which were their subjects wise
Kings would not play at.

— William Cowper (1731-1800) — The Task, Book v, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 187
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Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer

This is a song to celebrate banks,
Because they are full of money and you go into them and all you hear is clinks and clanks,
Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,
Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills.
Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals,
And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,
Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don’t need it.
I know you, you cautious conservative banks!
If people are worried about their rent it is your duty to deny them the loan of one nickel,
yes, even one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks;
Yes, if they request fifty dollars to pay for a baby you must
look at them like Tarzan looking at an uppity ape in the jungle,
And tell them what do they think a bank is, anyhow, they had better go get the money from their wife’s aunt or ungle.
But suppose people come in and they have a million and they want another million to pile on top of it,
Why, you brim with the milk of human kindness and you urge them to accept every drop of it,
And you lend them the million so then they have two million
and this gives them the idea that they would be better off with four,
So they already have two million as security so you have no hesitation in lending them two more,
And all the vice-presidents nod their heads in rhythm,
And the only question asked is do the borrowers want the money sent or do they want to take it withm.
Because I think they deserve our appreciation and thanks,
the jackasses who go around saying that health and happiness are everything and money isn’t essential,
Because as soon as they have to borrow some unimportant money to maintain their health and happiness they starve
to death so they can’t go around any more sneering at good old money, which is nothing short of providential.

Ogden Nash
__________________________________

Delusional material, very dangerous…. Read carefully…

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve;
I was made weak, that I may learn humbly to obey.

I asked God for health, that I may do greater things;
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I may be happy;
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing I asked for but everything I hoped for.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

— unattributed, even by Smart Bee
(I don’t blame them for not wanting to take credit for this….)

From the time we are small, our minds are programmed with the ideas and beliefs our parents and families held as truth, regardless of whether or not there is any actual truth to be found in them. We have little, or no, defense against these ideas, as we are naturally inclined to believe what our care givers tell us.

While I can understand the way it works, it seems to me to be a shame, that we don’t come with a built in truth detector, to protect us before we are able to reason for ourselves. Until our minds have been trained, we tend to accept whatever someone in a position of authority tells us, which may keep us safe in a physical sense when we are small and vulnerable, but is a dangerous habit to develop when grown.

The above is an example of how churches and the priestly hierarchies attempt to befuddle people into obedience and acceptance of their credos, aimed at those adults who have carried over their trust in authority into their adult views. On the surface, the statements seem to imply a certain morality, one of patience, compassion, and beneficence; but, underneath, they are merely designed to reinforce the ideas they wish to espouse, of obedience, humility, and subservience to authority.

If one is to believe the priestly hierarchies, we humans don’t really stand a chance against the universe…. In their minds, God has it all worked out, and it isn’t our place to question any of His prerogatives; we are here only to do His (translates as: their….) will, and to sing His praises (keeps us busy NOT thinking….). We are weak, bumbling, foolish creatures whose only claim to fame is that God loves us… according to dogma. It occurs to me to ask, “So, which one of y’all is the one to whom God spoke, when he laid down all this specious crap? When y’all talked with God, how long had it been since you last took your medication?”

I know, I know, not very friendly approach, but, sheesh, give me a break…. I mean, these people are responsible for a great deal of the suffering and trouble mankind has endured over the last 2000 years or so, and don’t even have the courtesy to take credit, or apologize. In their minds, all that stuff they do to maintain their status quo is justified by their holiness, or whatever it is they claim makes them special. And, all the time, in reality, everything they do is designed, ultimately, to bring coins to their purses, and food to their tables, at the expense of the ignorant mass of believers…..

I feel a nasty rant coming on…. Sometimes, when I write one of these rips at religion, I just get SO ANGRY…. I’m mad at the preachers and priests, and those who support them, for their willingness to prey on the public, using the pretension of religious fervor and worship to justify their narcissism, and for the thousands of years of suffering that mankind has endured by their hand. I am also angry at those people who buy into their bullshit, for not having the courage to use their minds, to blithely accept anything told to them by an authority figure, and never even considering that there might be more to life than they are seeing….. It is all such a waste, and my anger knows no bounds….

“Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, it would keep me busy if I could find any….. I had to include this little side-trip from Zippy in order to bring my anger level down. I was feeling the urge to let out ALL of the vulgar curses I could think of, to express how I feel about all the assholes who perpetrate this entire fallacy on the rest of humanity, knowing how gullible they are, and how little effort it takes to fool them into believing the most incredible bullshit.

I mean, how hard can it be to fool someone who would believe that the recent spate of cold weather means that global warming is a myth? How hard is it to fool someone who will gladly trade their freedom in this life for the promised reward in the next life? It’s so damn easy that the fools actually come asking for it, to be made into puppets, just so they can believe they are beloved of God, and guaranteed a spot in Heaven…. I often wonder just how fit to survive our species really is, when we can’t even come to terms with our own sense of self, or learn to accept the responsibility for our own actions….

Most folks are so scared to think for themselves that they gladly surrender that chore to the priests and politicians, apparently not even caring how often they lie to them. Even when the lies are exposed, and even proved, people will hang on to their prejudices, and to the belief in supernatural beings that control our every move; they are quite unwilling to let go of what they’ve bought into all their lives, even when it’s clear that none of it is true. Most of the time, they are unwilling to even look at any arguments against what they hold to be true, preferring the solid comfort of their ignorance. Makes me want to puke, it does…. on THEIR shoes…

Ah well, I’ve spilled enough bile and venom for one morning. It would probably be best to move on, and let this one die a natural death. If nothing else, I got some angst and pressure relieved, for the time being. It is almost a comfort to know that the politicians and preachers will be providing more ammunition in the coming days, as they continue their campaign of oppression against the people of the Earth; that means I’ll always have plenty about which to rant…. Happy Days!….

“Those who won’t think will have it done for them.” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

Okay, so I went a bit overboard today…. I got a little carried away there, firing away at the preachers, and lost track. So sue me… wait, that’s probably not a good thing to say these days….. You never know when one of the folks at whom I’m poking will take overt offense, and try to make trouble of a legal nature… Good thing I am careful never to name names, or imply any specific targets, beyond those identifiable by their very ubiquitousness. Since I figure they deserve all the abuse they get, in payment for all they’ve abused mankind over the centuries, they’re just going to have to deal with it…. I could care less….. 🙂

There, all venom and bile has been expelled from my head, and I can now go face the day with a relatively stable sense of equanimity. It’s got to be better than any of the alternatives, I’d say…. I guess I’m done….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Lying to politicians for fun and profit….

Posted on January 28, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
We all can agree on certain things, I think, such as the sun is likely to come up in the morning, or water is pretty wet; there isn’t a lot of argument when someone makes an assertion along those lines. But, make a statement about just about anything that isn’t an accepted part of Consensual Reality, and you will get arguments from all sides…. That is just human nature, I think, and not something that needs to be changed, as it stems from our natural curiosity, and I’m all about encouraging people to doubt, especially if it has to do with interpreting Reality. That entity, as we all know, can be a slippery, elusive subject to pin down in a precise manner…..

Now, at this point in this morning’s effort, you are probably asking yourself, “What the hell is he babbling about now?” And you’d be right to do so, because I haven’t a clue…. That’s right, that entire paragraph is null and void, as far as having any connection to the Real Reality we all cohabit. I started out with a thought in mind, but it had disappeared before I got to “water is pretty wet”, so I just sort of faked it, letting the words flow out just as if they had any real meaning. What can I say, it’s a gift….

Y’all might be getting a bit worried at this stage in the proceedings, that it could be dangerous to hang around long enough to read the rest, but you couldn’t be more wrong…. I’ve spent a lot of time, effort, and money, (well, maybe not much money….), to ensure that everything on this blog is true and complete, to the best of my knowledge, and safety is one of our bywords.

I’ll have you know that, in spite of the radical nature of what we often discuss here, no reader has ever been injured, either by, or because of the content, and no reader has ever hurt themselves while reading it. Well, there was that one guy, who fell out of his chair, laughing at a picture, & banged up his elbow, but he doesn’t count, as he wasn’t wearing his seat belt, and no bandages were called for….

So, have no fear…. everything here at Exploring Consensual Reality is designed with your safety in mind…. unless, of course, one considers that the BRC could conceivably take offense to some of our content, and come to discuss the matter in their own inimitable fashion, i.e., with guns and tanks. In that case, each of you is authorized to take whatever action you see fit, up to and including the use of arms, to protect yourselves.

I’m pretty sure that right now, I’m too small potatoes for the powers that be to worry much over my writing… Not until I’ve got several million readers egging me on to even more radical suggestions, and more scathing criticisms of the actions of our Beloved Ruling Class, will they bother to try to shut me up…..

Oops…. ranting early again… Sorry, it’s getting to be a habit. It’s a good thing I’m not an addictive personality, or it could get to be obsessive. Some might say that producing this blog on a daily basis is obsessive, but, they don’t say that where I can hear them, knowing I’ll hurt them, a lot…..

No, really, ffolkes, all kidding aside, it’s probably the best thing if we just get into the water, and get on with today’s dive for pearls. In looking back over this intro section, I am firmly convinced that very little else has a chance of saving this one…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.” — Pythagoras (BC 582-507)
__________________________________

“The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, was propounded to me by my father:

“What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet — and whistles?”
I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up.
“A herring,” said my father.
“A herring,” I echoed. “A herring doesn’t hang on the wall!”
“So hang it there.”
“But a herring isn’t green!” I protested.
“Paint it.”
“But a herring isn’t wet.”
“If it’s just painted it’s still wet.”
“But — ” I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, “a herring doesn’t whistle!!”
“Right, ” smiled my father. “I just put that in to make it hard.”

— Leo Rosten, “The Joys of Yiddish”

When I first read this, it teased out a goodly chuckle at the silliness of the exchange, and the fine irony of the father’s riddle. But, I wasn’t sure it would make a good pearl, based as it is on systematic cultural delusions, until I realized it doesn’t have to confine itself to that standard in order to be useful…..

As I’ve demonstrated amply in previous posts, I’m not a big fan of most organized religions; mostly I regard them as examples of mass delusional outbreaks, that everyone buys into because they’re too embarrassed to admit it’s all a bunch of bilge water, solely designed to take advantage of the constituents. Well, that, and mental laziness, meaning it’s easier to let others do the thinking for you….

I can see, however, how this particular little story is adaptable; if one doesn’t consider the dogmatic implications of any of it, it becomes more of a valid lesson in how to approach reality, and a lesson in human cupidity….. It teaches the lad several important things about his father, his culture, and ultimately, encourages the use of imagination….

The final line is my favorite part, and is a perfect metaphor for how we can expect the world at large to treat us, at least from a societal standpoint….. How we can deal with individuals within that society is also implied, though it doesn’t go so far as to explain why they act as they do…. In fact, the lesson there is that other people AREN’T to be trusted fully, as they tend to lie, for whatever reason, and finding the truth can be problematic at best…..

The Jewish culture tends to pride itself on its long history as an institution, and to tout how much suffering they have had to endure at the hands of the intolerant and the ignorant over the centuries. This long history of struggle has imbued their mindset with deep pessimism, to a large degree, and a great many of their aphorisms, maxims, and quotes tend to reflect that lack of trust in the rest of humanity, promoting the idea of isolating and maintaining their own culture.

I suppose that attitude has served them well, to protect them against ideological immersion in other cultures, preserving their own proprietary prejudices from merging with the others. Whether that is a good thing, or not, remains to be seen, at least on the larger stage of the entire panorama of human existence.

If little else can be determined by such a long history of cultural isolation, by choice, it at least provides the rest of us with some pretty amusing tales and stories, and a chuckle or two at their twisted wisdom, such as it is…..

“Once upon a time, four AMPHIBIOUS HOG CALLERS attacked a family of DEFENSELESS, SENSITIVE COIN COLLECTORS and brought DOWN their PROPERTY VALUES!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

Just for fun….

Roses for Noses

I have a bozoid personality, of the first degree;
nobody, I mean nobody, knows that better than me.
I often wonder, as the world goes around, and around
how many others have realized just what I’ve found….

I know for a fact, I’m not the only bozoid one;
too many people laughing out there, having fun.
Is their laughter, though, at themselves first?
or is it some other impulse, like purple liverwurst…..

I’ve always loved to make others laugh and giggle,
since my tender youth, when my ears began to wiggle.
The world is full of humor, but not always easy to find
so laughing at myself I learned never to mind.

We bozos know each other, here, there, and everywhere
there’s no hiding such joy, it just wouldn’t be fair.
We all have one feature, our great bulbous nose,
and there’s no doubt at all, cuz it just grows.

There’s nothing like a good, big mistake, a disaster,
to show us the folly of living life faster and faster.
Nothing in the world can ever take the place,
of seeing in the mirror, a happy, smiling face.

Don’t be shy, just let it all hang out;
we bozos have more fun, there’s no doubt.
Life’s too somber and gray if we let it get on top
if we don’t stay loose, the pain won’t ever stop.

My advice to all of you, out there in the world,
let noses grow round & red, keep hair tightly curled.
Find a way to let your spirit out often to play,
you’ll never once regret any price you pay.

~~ gigoid

“A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.” — William Stafford
__________________________________

Over time, I’ve found the most powerful pearls are composed of five random quotes, chosen by my unconscious mind in a process I’ve yet to understand, or even evaluate, fearing it would burst the bubble of whatever makes it work so well…. This pearl is a perfect example of that category, and all in all, contains some pretty damn good advice on how to live life with honor and dignity, as well as joy.

The final conclusion to be reached on the path I’ve laid out is, naturally, left for the Gentle Reader to find at the end of the journey…. No worries, kids, it’s not a long trip…. good luck!…. And don’t forget to stay on the path; our rescue dogs are on their vacation this week….

“We lie about the truth, that’s what ruins us here. And do you know why we lie about the truth? Not because we like to, but because we are scared to death of it. If we looked the truth in the eye nine out of ten of us would run to the graveyard and demand to be buried at once.” — Babbaluche the cobbler

“Accepting your limitations makes you humble. The limitations themselves make you an idiot.” — Dan Goodman

“When I’m not thank’d at all, I’m thank’d enough; I’ve done my duty, and I’ve done no more.” — Henry Fielding (1707-1754) — Tom Thumb the Great, Act i, Sc. 3

“Dreaming permits each and everyone of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.” — Charles William Dement

“The most utterly lost of all days, is that in which you have not once laughed.” — Chamfort
__________________________________

There is a lot to be said for perseverance; without it, today’s Pearl would have been canceled hours ago. Of course, I may be confusing perseverance with blind stubbornness, but, the end result is the same, so we’ll go with what we have…. At least I got that poem out; it has apparently been quietly waiting to get its chance at the keyboard, as it flowed out yesterday in about 20 minutes or so…. very cathartic, let me tell you….

I’ve proofed, and polished what little shine was there to be brought out, as well as I can, under the circumstances (don’t ask….), which, fortunately, brings us to the desired point, where I get to say, “It’s done.”

Yay….. I’ll try not to let my enthusiasm splash on you…. I think I’m just depressed, because now I have to go deal with the Real Reality, out there in the Big Blue Room, and for today, at least, the tide is carrying me out to sea, away from the safe harbor of my room…. Ah well, I’m a big boy, I can handle it…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

If my dilettante calls, take a message….

Posted on January 27, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Invariably, when I’m up at 0530, my mind turns to mush, or, more accurately, is mushy upon arising at that early hour….. Since I’m fond of oatmeal, this state isn’t all that unpleasant…. just slow. The addition of some butter, brown sugar, and a little bit of milk, in a figurative sense, puts me right into the correct mood for Pearling, so, all I have to do now is decide where I can find any such metaphorical condiments at this hour…. Real ones, sure, they’re right there in the kitchen, but, metaphor is a bit hard to come by so early in the day. I suppose I’m going to have to go out and milk the metaphorical cow…..

Ouch…. Well, that’s what happens when I try to write before consuming any coffee…. Milk the metaphorical cow, indeed! I walked away from that paragraph, to go get the coffee, and take a moment for morning worship, 😉 then saw that phrase when I got back. Imagine my chagrin, which, albeit strong, wasn’t enough to make me delete it… I’m leaving it there as an object lesson in humility, (or maybe that’s a lesson in abject humility….), and as a reminder to never try to compose anything before focus has been achieved, or at least courted….. Silly ass…. Someone so accustomed to the kind attentions of Murphy should know better than to tempt him with such foolishness…..

Now that I’ve come to my senses, as close as I dare approach at this hour, I find myself at somewhat of a loss to know where to go from here…. Three paragraphs in, and confusion is already rampant; it could end up being one of THOSE days, in which case, I might as well just go back to bed now. It’s too bad, really, that I’m such a moralist; it makes it hard to slough off when I want to hide from reality. Try as I might, I can’t bring myself to duck when reality swings at me; I’ll throw up a block, if I can, but ducking is cowardly, it seems to me, so I just stand there and take the first shot. I’m tough, though, and I can usually get right back up…..

Since my upbringing seems to have cornered me into finishing today’s Pearl before giving up, I guess we should get to it. It’s been great of late, now that the pressure to get done has been mitigated by not having to travel anywhere to post this material. Every morning, I get up to a fresh template for the Pearl, and proceed to fire up Smart Bee for the morning dive, in order to fill up each section with brilliant quotes and ironic humor, just waiting for me to dress it up for consumption.

I’ve been very happy with the freshness of the material that has come out of this process lately, which, given Murphy’s ever-ready presence in my life, should probably make me nervous. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t seem to mind it if I write, as long as I mention him every day….. I guess he wants more press in his old age…..

Wait, no, I didn’t mean that! You’re not old…. You’re just age-enhanced! That’s it….. Ffolkes, I think I’d best be quiet now, and get on with today’s business, before Murphy decides to take offense….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way.” — Native American Proverb (Blackfoot)

Right! What a wonderful pearl! Not only is it short and sweet, it’s just packed with insight and implied wisdom…. In my mind, when I read it, I get a vision of a fireworks fountain, spewing light and beauty into the air, in blazing, colorful sparks…. A bit fanciful, but that’s the impression I got upon seeing it the first time….

You see, I’ve been thinking a lot of late, about Death vs. Life, due most likely to the fact that my own time to face that specter is approaching, seemingly ever more rapidly, as it tends to do later in our lives. When we look back over the time we’ve had on this Earth, the time left seems so short….

But, it isn’t really any shorter, nor, I’ve come to believe, is there anything to fear from Death’s approach. We all get to live just one day at a time…. Nay, not even so much…. we live one moment at a time, and we can’t make it go faster, or slow it down. So, worrying about what might happen in the future is a waste of the moment, and not worth the effort of doing so.

In addition, I’ve come to the conclusion that what happens after Death comes for us isn’t anything to fret over, either, because, logically, death is merely a transition phase, from one level of perception to another, with the other being a reality for which we do not possess the ability to perceive, lacking some organ, or some mental awareness that is needed to do so…..

There is no evidence at all that consciousness, as we understand it, persists on this level of reality after the body has died. On the other hand, there is also no evidence at all that it does not continue to exist, on some other level that we are not aware of; add to this the simple fact that in our universe, according to physical laws, energy, in ALL of its forms, cannot be destroyed, only changed in form. The Law of the Conservation of Energy has been proven many times, and is not a matter for dispute. When one considers consciousness, i.e., the MIND, as a form of energy, it makes perfect sense to assume that it changes forms when we die, but is not destroyed. It is the only logical answer, as far as I can see….

The wise women and men of the Blackfoot tribe apparently were aware of this, as well as being aware that the universe exists as a duality, with each characteristic of reality having its opposite complement, that defines and proves its very existence. We see the world in these opposites, so it is very easy to be fooled into thinking that what we see is the true nature of that reality…. but, it isn’t, because those two opposites are all part of the same grand scheme of things, and cannot be separated, not in reality…. only in our minds, where we separate them in order to comprehend them….

“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.” — Murphy, courtesy of Smart Bee

Why does he do that? Why wait until I’ve spouted off for almost a thousand words before dropping these little bombs? Ah well, fuck him, and his bloody white horse! Everything I said above is the absolute truth, in my mind, so Murphy can just go f__k himself. Even though this aphorism is also true as the day is long, I don’t think I’ve gone so far astray that it applies… so, in spite of the Irish asshole, we’ll push on….

I have yet to discern any reason that can logically, or even speculatively, answer the question of why we don’t remember any of the time we’ve spent dead, or whatever it’s called when we’re busy not living on this plane of existence. You know, before you were born? And after we die? All of that is a long time, and since it is logical to assume the energy that makes up our consciousness is still in existence when we aren’t alive, in the classic sense, then it is also logical to assume that our minds are busy doing….. something else.

What that may be, well, your guess is as good as mine…. But, some folks’ guesses aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on…. I doubt seriously that the typical version of Heaven is a likely scenario, nor is Hell…. I regard those as just the unscrupulous concepts created by the BRC and/or priestly hierarchies to try to control the populace, not having any basis, or evidence to support them, in reality. In fact, there is ample evidence that shows otherwise, if one is open to perceiving it…..

I figure what Robert Heinlein said once is the best way to look at it… “There’s no evidence that says we live after death; there is also no evidence saying we don’t. Soon enough, you will know, so why worry about it now?” (That may be slightly paraphrased, but the idea is precisely accurate….)

Ah well, this subject, due to its nature, is one that we, or I, could ramble on about all day, and, from the looks of things, almost have done so. Life and Death are popular subjects, understandably enough, and since we all are experts, there’s no lack of stuff to read about it; everybody’s talking, as Glenn Campbell said. But, since we have the rest of this Pearl to finish, I guess I’ll let this go for now….. Just keep in mind, ffolkes, Death isn’t anything to fear, because, if nothing else, Life itself is proof of our continued existence after it is gone…. Think about it….

“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.” — E. L. Konigsburg

“One never realizes how much and how little he knows until he starts talking.” — Louis L’Amour
__________________________________

The poetry of Ms. Plath is relatively new to me, having somehow escaped my notice for most of my life. Now that I have more time to feed the Elephant’s Child, I’m glad I found her…. Here is another brilliant, torturous vision from her incredible mind…..

Witch Burning

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll’s body.
Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches.
Only the devil can eat the devil out.
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.

It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door,
The cellar’s belly. They’ve blown my sparkler out.
A black-sharded lady keeps me in parrot cage.
What large eyes the dead have!
I am intimate with a hairy spirit.
Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.

If I am a little one, I can do no harm.
If I don’t move about, I’ll knock nothing over. So I said,
Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain.
They are turning the burners up, ring after ring.
We are full of starch, my small white fellows. We grow.
It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth.

Mother of beetles, only unclench your hand:
I’ll fly through the candle’s mouth like a singeless moth.
Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days
I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone.
My ankles brighten. Brightness ascends my thighs.
I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.

~~ Sylvia Plath
__________________________________

Okay, so here’s the deal…. I went a bit overboard above with today’s rant on Life and Death, so we’re going old school for section three…. This group of pearls turned out to be one of my favorite kind…. It’s slippery, it’s deep, and it’s a challenge to find the punch line, yet each one could stand alone for a discussion, were I so inclined….. Perfect…. The punch line is, of course, left as an exercise for the Gentle Reader, with the motivation today being outsourced to Sesame Street…. If you think you’ve found the piece of wisdom buried in the coalition of ideas, give Grover a call at the soda shop; he is usually in there between 9 and 11 AM….. He’ll give you the prize for finding today’s punch line, right over the phone….

Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens. [Against stupidity the very gods fight in vain.] — Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) — The Maid of Orleans, Act iii, Sc. 6

“If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing.” — a saying from Zimbabwe

“I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.” — Wilson Mizner

“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 no harm in praising a large dog.” — Smart Bee
(Let this one roll around in your head a while…. it grows….)

Finally, to put things into the proper perspective, I give you our final pearl of the day…. Say ‘howdy’ to Grover for me, will you?….

“I’m meditating on the FORMALDEHYDE and the ASBESTOS leaking into my PERSONAL SPACE!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

There…. that’s done. I’m content with it, if not ecstatic. But, then, if I ever get ecstatic, it probably wouldn’t be as good…. To find excellence, it is often required to assume that good enough isn’t enough….

For now, though, it’s good enough, even if I don’t work for the government anymore. A fact for which I am eternally grateful, if a bit miffed about style…. I know, that’s obscure, but I wouldn’t want to be inconsistent, now, would I? No, of course not…. Well, maybe just a little…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Fluent in nearly dead languages…..

Posted on January 26, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Apparently, sitting here, staring at the computer screen doesn’t work very well at producing viable ideas about which to write…. (Sometimes, being grammatically correct doesn’t come out very well,either, does it?…..) Who knew? I thought, when I first started creating a daily blog, that ideas would flow like water from a glass,, not knowing at the time that the process resembles more a volcano’s slowly moving lava, which only moves at all as long as it’s hot….. same as an idea. And, gad! Could I be any more simplistic and boring with my example? No, I didn’t think so….

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to read the mail first thing today, rather than keeping a clear mind. The email about the Facebook Class Action Settlement got my head all worked up first thing, before I even had sufficient coffee to grunt in appreciation.

It seems that somebody objected to FB using their images to sell stuff, and sued them to the tune of 20 million or so (that’s the settlement payout, anyway…)…. So, anybody who files a valid claim with the court can get at least $10, and possibly more, if not many people file a claim; the 20 million is to be split equally among the claimants, depending on how many file.

I doubt I’ve got a valid claim, and don’t really care much either way, but somebody could get real lucky, and it’s nice to see a big company get burned for their chicanery…. That doesn’t happen often, and probably would never have happened at all if the company were older, and part of the “good old boy” circle of folks who are rich as Croesus…. They protect themselves, and would never lose such a suit….

(Now, seriously, did you think I’d pass up a chance to take a poke at the BRC or one of the hidden masters of evil? Fat chance….)

The companies that are a part of that group would never have allowed the suit to reach court in the first place, much less allow it to lose….. and if you have to ask how they can do that, you haven’t been paying attention…..

Ah well, such is life in Amurrica, land of the whee….. if nothing else, we have a good time, right? It seems sometimes as if our culture is centered around that idea, i.e., having “fun”. So much of our energy is poured into activities designed to de-stress people after working that it becomes obsessive, and seems to take over.

The quest for “fun” becomes not just a pastime, but an avocation, nearly as important as the work that provides the means to have the fun, which, due to the BRC and our lovely advertising industry, is where most people tend to put their “disposable income”. Partying and seeking a good time are our cultural goals, it seems, and a lot of money goes into that quest, more money than is prudent, no doubt…..

I’ve stumbled into a mini-rant again, it seems, and once again have usurped the intro section for concepts better fitted for a pearl. Oh well…. that’s life here at Exploring Consensual Reality; we never know ahead of time where this whole thing may lead us. That’s why we dress for any type of weather and/or terrain, and always have a towel and an umbrella close at hand. (Not to mention a flask of adult beverage, for emergencies…..) It also explains the odd expressions on the folks who are observing from the shadows, a good thing, in my estimation….. Shadow people should never be catered to, in any fashion, so confusing them suits me just fine….

Now that the ambient confusion level has risen to a satisfactory number, I think it is time to gather up our equipment, such as it is, and dive in…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Say NOPE (Not On Planet Earth) to NIMBY — Smart Bee

As acronyms go, both of these are pretty typical, but I’ve included them here to make a point about the power of words…. NIMBY, of course, stands for Not In My Back Yard, the cry of the modern suburbanite when confronted with any of the less than savory aspects of society. Prisons, hospitals, government buildings, schools, businesses, churches, anything at all becomes intrusive in their eyes, when it is suggested it be built near where these people want to live. They read the Constitution, back in school, and are firmly convinced of their right to not be bothered by anything they don’t like….. and they certainly don’t want to have to think about any of the issues that necessitate the unwanted neighbors’ moving to their area.

This selfishness is prevalent in many segments of society, and there are a large number of people who think it is perfectly acceptable to make laws that discriminate against certain parts of society, as long as it isn’t their part. These are the people who have embraced the rights that are given by the Constitution, but are not willing to take the responsibility for maintaining those rights for anyone but themselves. They go beyond the intent of the Constitution, in that they assume that the rules therein are written ONLY for their benefit, and not for the benefit of anyone else. They do not, in other words, accept the basic premise of the Declaration of Independence, to wit: ALL men are created with equal rights…..

“Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.” — Albus Dumbledore, in The Deathly Hallows, the movie based on the novel written by J.K. Rowling

The magic that is in the words of the Declaration, in the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution lies in their universal application to human experience. These rules, that we have, by dint of our living here, adopted as our legacy of rights, are only powerful when they are used for all. Every modification of one of these laws, every new law, that lessens that universal validity decreases their power, and their magic, and will ultimately lead to the loss of those rights we now enjoy. And, it will happen because people don’t understand, or are not able to deal with, the power of language and words….

You see, the BRC, and the people in society who are behind the scenes, controlling the media, and the banks, and the news outlets, are very adept at using words for their own purposes. They can lie without a qualm, masking their lies behind attractive phrases that create belief, never letting on that the new words will have the effect of perverting whatever the subject matter is, to a point where any advantage to be gained is gained by those who made the alterations to the original statement.

There are a myriad of techniques to twist words into whatever shape and meaning one desires, as any writer can tell you…. Hell, that’s our gig…. and the BRC knows every one of those techniques, having been responsible for creating most of them. To put it most simply, they lie, and they lie so well that they have been able to control society to their satisfaction for several thousand years now….. This is fact, not supposition, and is demonstrated daily in clear signs, if one is able to interpret those signs…. One of the signs to look for is to wonder what isn’t there…. We see the news that is put out each day, and it can be a very good thing to look at what ISN”T there…. Sometimes the music is made clearer by the silence between the notes, you know?…..

“I finally got it altogether, and found out that rental space for it was far more expensive than anticipated.” — Smart Bee

I can only agree with this, with the caveat that the price is worth it, whatever it is….. This pearl has gone wonky on me…. I had intended to issue a scathing report, chastising society for the daily abrogation of responsibility that I see in so many people, for allowing the BRC and the masters of evil to have such a strong hold over their lives.

But, I find myself in a place where my compassion for a lot of those people outweighs my anger at their cupidity; it isn’t their fault that they get lied to, and I guess I have to say I know it isn’t always their fault they fall for those lies. I would, but I can’t say that I haven’t done so myself, a time or two, and can empathize with the feeling of shame at having fallen for that crap, and not wanting to either admit to it, or even think about it….

So, I can’t really chastise so much as commiserate, and hope that talking about this kind of stuff will stimulate at least a few ffolkes to look around the bunches of stuff they see each day, and try to pick out the lies and perversions to which we are regularly subjected, on so many levels of communication. It’s not like they try to hide it or anything; it’s all right out there, if you know what to look for….. If they say, “Trust me..”, or, “Studies show…”, or, almost anything, you can bet they’re about to tell you a lie…. Hell, with most politicians, just opening their mouths pretty much guarantees one will be lied to…. that isn’t a joke, or an accusation, that’s a matter of public record, checkable by anyone….

I guess all this makes the hardest part of modern life the process of trying to decide who is telling us the truth, and who is lying to us…. and we all have to make those decisions for ourselves. It would probably be a good thing to at least think about how to go about doing that, as it may just end up saving your ass….

Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
— George Herbert (1593-1633) — The Church Porch
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I’ve wanted to include some of Ms. Plath’s poems for some time, but couldn’t find a site that published them, due to copyright issues, until yesterday….Now that I have, you’ll be seeing more of her work in the months ahead…. She was brilliant!….

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

~~ Sylvia Plath
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“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” — T. S. Eliot

T.S. has put his finger right on an issue that I see as a large factor in the state of affairs in society today, the issue of courage. He recognizes that only having the courage to face the unknown can eliminate the fear that comes with ignorance, and how showing courage is essential to making any progress in life. One cannot enjoy the sunlight and still be afraid of the dark…. I think I said that right…. Regardless, I think you know what I mean…. it takes some strength of will, and a willingness to endure risk, in order to gain the experience needed to come to terms with Reality…. which, as we all know, can be pretty scary….

Most folks, sadly, never find the courage to really question what happens to them. Most folks accept whatever they’re told by those in authority over them…. parents, teachers, politicians, preachers, all are ready, willing, and able to tell them how they should dress, or think, or what they should believe, and whom they should believe, all “for their own good.”

Not only do most people accept what they’re told, they never even consider that there just might be any other way to see the world, because it is more comfortable, and, they think, safer, to just go along with what they’re told. In one respect, it IS safer, in that as long as they continue to go along with the program, they won’t be asked to put themselves out, or have to go through the effort of learning, or thinking….

Our society does not encourage children to think; in fact, our entire system of education is designed to prevent that very thing. Well, perhaps saying it is designed that way is a bit harsh…. A lot of quite moral people do contribute their ideas and talents to the educational process, with good intentions, but their efforts are, and always will be, blunted by the powers that be, none of whom are invested, or have any interest, in having a population capable of critical thought.

Having a large number of people who question authority isn’t in their best interests, and you can rest assured that the systems they set up to educate the young are NOT going to create an atmosphere that encourages any such thing…. As George Carlin so aptly pointed out, all they need is people who are smart enough to operate the machines, but not smart enough to question why they get paid so little for doing so….

The advent of the Internet put a big dent in the machine that the BRC has built over the centuries to keep society under their control, and they are still scrambling, trying to get a handle on the now uncontrollable flood of information readily available to people who never before had any idea that they were so ignorant.

A lot of smart ffolkes are out there in the world, and more and more of them are now able to share their knowledge of what is Truth with the world at large… a lot more than ever before in history. I am positive this makes the BRC and the masters of evil quite nervous, as shown by the daily attempts to curtail the flow of information through legislation and fear mongering over “identity theft” and “national security concerns”.

But, the Genie is out of the bottle, and I don’t think they’ll ever be able to get it back in as completely as before. The world now has access to more knowledge, on a wider basis than ever before in history, and that spread of knowledge is going to have an effect. It may not be obvious yet, but, it will happen, and the world will become a different place, with different rules, none of which can be guessed at now.

The question remains as to whether the changes that are coming to society will happen in time to save us from the physical effects our specie’s foolishness is forcing on us, and as to whether or not the process will proceed without the need for violent revolution. I can’t see the BRC or the masters of evil giving up their grasp on the rest of us without a struggle….

The question, then, is this… do we have the courage to take responsibility for our own lives into our own hands? Or will we just accept whatever Reality subjects us to, without any attempt to gain control over our own destiny?….. Time will tell, and I hope we all are still around to hear the answer….

“We can lie in the language of dress or try to tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.” — Alison Lurie
__________________________________

I’m really not sure how to look at today’s effort…. While writing it, it felt fragmented, and it seemed to be a struggle to keep on track. After proofing and polishing, I can see it didn’t come out too badly, and managed to make a good point or two… If nothing else, the Morning Song is worth sitting through the rest of it, I’m sure…. Besides, where else could you find so many confident assertions, totally unsupported by facts and figures, but here?… Oh, right, just about anywhere…. Oh, well..

I’m going to go see if I can cause some trouble out in the Big Blue Room. (Don’t fret, to me, trouble = twisting reality’s tail, not anything immoral, or cruel…. just fooling with folk’s minds whenever possible, & inviting them to join me in either thinking, or laughing….Harmless fun, that’s all….) Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

More emerald than jade……

Posted on January 25, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
BANG! CRASH! Hey, folks, don’t mind the noise….. SMASH! BANG!…. Murphy has brought some friends this morning…. CRASH!….. and they got into a big argument, that has turned into a huge brawl. RUUUUUMBLE! POW!…… Ouch, that had to hurt!….. I imagine they’ll stop breaking up my furniture in a few minutes, so if y’all don’t object, I’ll take a short break here, and let them finish up. BlAM! POP! CRUNCH!…. Oooh, that was nasty! Duck!…. Okay, I’ll be back shortly, when peace breaks out…..

Okay, then….. they seem to have finished up. What a mess! A couple of mornings ago, Murphy made me knock over a lamp first thing upon awakening, and must have thought it was funny, because he did it again this morning….. only worse, as it took the entire table down today. Then, I sit up, only to find Murphy, and three of his pals, rolling around, locked in fierce combat on my floor, with furniture flying in all directions…. It was almost like a scene from an old western, only there was no honky-tonk piano in the background, and no ever-present odor of horse manure…..

It was almost enough to make me go back to sleep, but, being the dedicated blogger I am, I got up and retreated, WITH my coffee, to worship at the porcelain throne for a while….. which seems to have worked, as they all got bored and left…. It’s handy that Murphy and his myrmidons have an objection to bathrooms and other places dedicated to cleaning up….. That sort of adolescent attitude is helpful to us old farts….. especially those of us who have achieved frequent-flier status in there….

Now, though, I’m at somewhat of a loss, without any idea of where to go from here…. It took all I’ve got to get this far, and I’m afraid I may have used up a good portion of today’s equanimity to keep from freaking out so early. I’m not sure what that will mean later on, but it promises to make life interesting….

Uh oh, there’s that word again…. interesting…. My life has, per the curse leveled at me when I was younger by the old Chinese gentleman, been far too interesting for my comfort up to this point, and I’m not sure I can live through any more “interesting times”…. I suppose I could just hide for the day, stay in my room and let the world go on about its business without my unnecessary presence; it’s not as if I’m involved in any seriously important stuff right now.

But, I can’t allow hiding to become a habitual response to Murphy’s ubiquitous efforts at disrupting my serenity, or he’ll win. Not going to happen, not on my watch….. So, we’ll slip on flippers and a mask, and go see what the old dB has for us this morning….. Shall we Pearl?…..

“How’s the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism?” — Zippy the Pinhead
__________________________________

I’m feeling a bit nasty today, it having occurred to me that I am now into my third year of waiting for Social Security to get through winding their way to giving me my benefits…. It’s insane, is what it is…. So, the following old school group of pearls all have one object… to vilify, denigrate, and otherwise make fun of government, and all those insane, sociopathic people who engage in that disgusting habit…..

“An elephant: a mouse built to government specifications.” — Lazarus Long

“For some reason the little Senators make us laugh.” — Smart Bee

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious bandersnatch

— _Jabberwocky_, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)

(Didn’t anyone ever tell you? In Jabberwocky, indeed, in most of Dodgson’s work, metaphor is king…. the jub jub bird is, of course, a Supreme Court justice, and obviously, a frumious bundersnatch is a member of Congress (in Dodgson’s world, a member of Parliament)….., and the Jabberwock? Patently, we’re talking of the President (or the Prime Minister, take your pick…..)

“Gun collection programs are a good way to get rid of a murder weapon.” — Smart Bee
(Oops…. wrong pearl…. wait…. no, it’s okay, it will work here…. sorry, but, when irony strikes….)

Honest politician — Oxymoron

“All authority is quite degrading.” — Oscar Wilde

Lastly, to round it off at nine… a very cosmic number, BTW… a summary of the other eight pearls, from one of the sharpest political and social philosophers of the twentieth century…..

“Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an ‘inconvenience.’ We have opted instead for an authoritarian system *disguised* as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.” — Frank Zappa
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Soliloquy of The Solipsist

I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
When my eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon’s celestial onion
Hangs high.

I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look’s leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.

I
When in good humor,
Give grass its green
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any color and forbid any flower
To be.

I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it’s quite clear
All you beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.

~~ Sylvia Plath

SIGH…. gotta love genius….
__________________________________

“Can I leave now? My brain is full.” — Smart Bee

I’m not sure exactly why, but this appeals to me; I’ve felt this way often, and can empathize strongly with whoever wrote it….. In its quiet little way, it also points at my own current state of mind, in that I seem to be out of outrage…. There are so many examples in my sphere of perception, of the evil being done every day, by the government, by churches, by random assholes with more testosterone than brains, I’m finding it hard to pick out just one or two to rant about…. For me, that is a disastrous state to be caught in, since much of what I do here involves ranting about stuff that tickles my outrage….

I suppose y’all might just be laughing at me just now, as this may seem like a minor complaint…. and, in a cosmic sense, it really is. But, lest we forget, MY cosmos is the one being affected, which will affect what I write about, and when, and how much, and y’all will be the ones that have to deal with the fallout….. You’ll be singing a different song, then, I’ll wager…. Ripples in the pond, don’t’cha know?….

This isn’t to say that’s what I WANT to happen; I’ve given my opinion previously on how much I dislike being unable to write something, whether it’s a rant, or an old-school pearl, or a poem…. Writing has become for me as important as reading, and I’ll consider writing ANYTHING, if it seems even the slightest bit intriguing, just like I’ll read just about ANYTHING, including milk cartons and cereal boxes, if that’s all there is to read…. Now, writing has assumed an equal importance in my scheme, and any glitches in the process can stimulate worry…. mankind’s true nemesis….

“More people have died of worry, than ever bled to death.” — Lazarus Long…..

Rather than spending any significant amount of time worrying, I decided to seize on what I had, and just jump in & start writing…. So far, it isn’t too shabby, but needs…. something…. aha! A hook…. I need a hook…. okay, let’s see what we have laying about…..

Nope, nada damn thing to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, which kicks the worrying up a notch or two, for sure…. Calliope has deserted me for other parts, the headlines are too bland to get worked up about, and the Westboro Baptist Church of Fools has been strangely silent of late…. All I have here, as I gaze around the room in pathetic hope, are the same old items I’ve been looking at for seven months now, since moving here…. most of which has either been already explored, or isn’t worth mentioning….

I see now I should have, perhaps, prepared for this a bit better; research is always useful, and it would be nice to not have to get all antsy just because my imagination is coming up empty. Whining about it isn’t going to help, or solve the issue, so we’ll skip right by that, and go into strategic planning mode, followed by a dip into tactical operations mode, and we’re home free…. Let’s see now, first, a small diversion… I can do that…. Look, over there! It’s a pearl!….

“Why can’t we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a ‘War’ on it?” — Rich Thomson

Now, THERE’s a question for the BRC, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t get as much response as we’d like…. Good strategy demands, after a diversion, a foray out into enemy territory, to gather intelligence…. so….

“All power rests on hierarchy: An army is nothing but a well-organized lynch mob.” — Edward Abbey

Okay, that’s intelligent…. now, we shoot back…..

“If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” — Anatole France

Yep, that had to hurt…. Okay, so now, all we have to do to have achieved our strategic goal is to finish them off with unassailable logic, combined with a bit of humor…. no worries…

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” — Albert Einstein

“It’s not the pace of life that bothers me, it’s the sudden stop at the end.” — Hobbes

See? It’s all in the wrist…. Using two pearls for the last thought was deliberate, though it helped that both of them came up one after the other, as if pre-ordained…. But it just fit, as the first supplies the unassailable logic, and the second the humor…. and, as we all know by now, timing is everything……
__________________________________

As probably came through loud and clear, I was a bit worried about this Pearl; it didn’t want to come together without some rather tricky meandering. All in all, though, it came out okay, and, once again,…. wait for it…. It’s done! That factor alone accounts for at least half of its charm, in my book…. What’s more, it’s still quite early in the day, so there is hope that the less than auspicious beginning can be mitigated enough to make the rest of the day a bit less chaotic… Time will tell, I have no doubt, whatsoever….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Mesmerizing patterns in colorful silk….

Posted on January 24, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
It isn’t my habit to begin the day with blood and death, before I’ve even had my morning coffee, so I was mildly surprised to find both awaiting me as I stepped into the hallway outside my room. Since the body lying half-in, half-out of the elevator was pale, unmoving, and there was a box car’s worth of blood pooled around the area, I didn’t bother to check the pulse, but just pulled out my phone to call it in to dispatch, avoiding transfer of the still sticky mess on the floor to my shoes by walking to the other end of the hall. As a detective in the Homicide division, I figured it was awfully damn accommodating of the murderer to drop his handiwork right outside my door, and I wasn’t going to let anyone else take over my first home-delivery corpse….

What do you think? Decent opening for a murder mystery? I haven’t figured out the cop’s name yet, but you can bet it will be something hard-boiled, and cynical. Hey, probably the biggest market out there in the book world is murder mysteries, and if I can come up with an engaging character, it could lead to a whole series of books, thus assuring me of a more comfortable retirement, and keeping me busy enough to not intrude into the lives of my children more than is healthy, for them, or me. Not that such has been an issue, but I don’t wish to be a burden on them in my ‘golden’ years, and it would be cool to hit it big with my writing…..

We writers of blogs probably all have a similar dream…. Some editor or agent will be cruising the Net, and stumble across our work…. they’ll be so impressed they offer us a the gig of a lifetime…. For me, that would be a daily column, wherein I can share with millions of folks all my angst and silliness, in the process, perhaps, convincing a few of them to make some changes in their own sphere of influence, and little by little, the world will change….. for the better…… Well, that’s the dream, anyway….. All I need now is the agent, the editor/publisher, and a venue…. 🙂 I know, it’s a dream, though, so it can be as foolish as I want it to be….

Foolish, or profound and insightful, it would no doubt be best to just get on with it. Nobody can read my writing, if I don’t write, so, let’s get into the water, and find something I can turn into a gem of great beauty…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“The mockingbird can change its tune eighty-seven times in seven minutes. Politicians regard this interesting fact with envy.” — Smart Bee

Hah! What a perfect opening pearl! Funny, and as true as the day is long….. It’s almost enough to start me off on a rant, since it zoomed right in to focus on my favorite group of miscreants to pester with my pointed stick. I say “almost” because I’ll need a bit more than this to really find a vulnerable point at which to poke; this is good, but it’s a bit imprecise for good ranting…. Let’s see what else we can come up with…..

“Innocence, most often, is good fortune and not a virtue.” — Anatole France

Hmm…. not bad, but not quite right, either….. Politicos, and other denizens of the BRC, all want us to believe in their innocence, but seem to want us to buy into that without any proof of said innocence. Not to mention, I would wager serious money that none of them qualify to use the term to describe themselves, in ANY area of their life, so, in that sense, it’s too easy…. We’ll go on, & look for something “mo bettah”….

“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.” — Napoleon

Nappie’s rule of thumb here could be said to be a summarization of every political party platform I’ve seen during an election in the past 60 years, and would no doubt make a decent rant, as the recent swearing in of our latest electoral fantasy winner provides a number of such promises, that could be used for examples…. But, to be fair, I suppose we should give Barry a few weeks, at least, to see whether or not he will make any effort to meet his stated goals, or if he’ll just put it away in the drawer marked, “election promises” along with the tax cuts, wars ended, and bankers punished for their crimes….

“One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations… is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.” — Jimmy Carter

Damn! That tears it! I forgot entirely about Jimmy Carter, so of course, since I’m looking for examples of how politicians screw with us, Murphy sends me off into one of Jimmy’s totally rational ideas, and my entire premise is shattered. Of course, Jimmy Carter is that exception that proves the rule for politicians; he is a morally upright man, who has worked his entire life to make the world a better place, working for the benefit of all people, yet somehow got roped into politics. He’s such a nice man, he didn’t want to say no, and got stuck in public office for most of his adult years.

Shoot, now we’ll have to cancel the rest of this pearl…. It’s no doubt too late to salvage the sense of outrage needed to produce a rant, and it doesn’t seem as if Smart Bee is going to cough up anything that hits the correct spot…. So, I’ll just leave you with this final indictment, and get on with the rest of this….. whatever this is…..

“A politician has to be able to see both sides of an issue, so he can get around it.” — Smart Bee
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“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” — T. S. Eliot

MORNING AT THE WINDOW

THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

— T.S. Eliot

Bonus round:

That such have died enables us
The tranquiler to die;
That such have lived, certificate
For immortality.

— Emily Dickinson
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“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” — Clive James

I love to dance, so this makes a lot of sense to me. It also explains why there are no true politicians who are capable of either sustained laughter or the simplest waltz, much less a tango…. Ah hell…. brain freeze…..

I hate that. Calliope has apparently deserted me to stimulate another fledgling poet somewhere, and Thalia, the muse of comedy, is currently on sabbatical. Polyhymnia, muse of sacred poetry, bores me to tears, and Clio, muse of history, is busy on another blog. In fact, all nine of the classical muses are unavailable, so I’m stuck with whatever I have in my head, and that means we’re all in serious trouble….. The pressure is building, and if I can’t find some sort of outlet in the next few minutes, well, the carnage will be extensive, rest assured…..

On most days, Smart Bee would provide me with at least SOMETHING to bridge the gap, but, so far today, it has been relatively uncooperative, as the first pearl demonstrated. We may have to resort to emergency procedures, which, since this hasn’t occurred before, are untested, and might not be altogether safe…. They do contain explosives, in small, manageable portions, for clearing a path through any debris that may be encountered. Quantities of debris are often a result when I have to use the emergency tools…. I realize it’s a risky policy, but, hey, we run this operation on a shoestring, and all we can do is all we can do, y’know….

— Bother! said Pooh, as he went blotchy from that time with Eeyore.

There! I didn’t want to do it, but circumstances forced my hand. I don’t enjoy pulling Pooh’s covers like this, but, given his true nature, as revealed here, he deserves it. People need to know this kind of stuff, before they let their children get all dewy-eyed at his purported terminal cuteness, and find out later how twisted he really is. It’s a sad and all-too-accurate commentary on human nature when one thinks of how many young minds have been corrupted by this evil little bear of no brain; people tend to fall for such apparent innocence every time, and allow themselves to be disadvantaged, and victimized, by evil wearing the guise of good.

There, see, even the worst of pearls can be turned around, if one is patient, and has no shame. I’m going to allow this to die a peaceful death at this point, since I can’t seem to think of anywhere else it should, or could, go….. Must be the lack of muses….. In any case, we’ll bring this faux pearl to a halt now, with no regrets whatsoever…..

“YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN DOLL HOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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Shameless, I know…. just shameless…. You might ask yourself, though, what YOU would do if you found yourself in my position, with a blog to post, and not a damn thing worth writing in your head….. Another day, maybe I would have put a bit more effort into at least providing this with some class, or elegance, but, hell, it just didn’t seem appropriate today. I guess I just woke up on the wrong side of my head….

We’ll just have to console ourselves with knowing that it is done, which, after all, is the real quest here….. Well, that, and maintaining the pitifully weak grasp I have on sanity….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Mitigating the dangers of priestly concern….

Posted on January 23, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Eerie, plaintive organ music is playing in my head, and there is something lurking just around a corner, at the edge of my vision, that darts away if I try to look at it. There’s a cold chill in my room, and I keep having to look over my shoulder, as it just feels like I’m being watched….. If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone was trying to mess with me, by setting me down in a horror flick, complete with evil poltergeist, and maybe a slasher….. Of course, I don’t have a basement, or an attic, where I can go explore the patently scary-dangerous noises, or any teenage girls on hand to provide the obligatory screams, but, I wouldn’t put it past Murphy to try to fuck with me in a new way like that; he’s pretty inventive at times…..

Ah well, so be it….. I’m not a big horror film fan, ever since 1954 when my older siblings dragged me to see the opening of the Creature From The Black Lagoon. At four years of age, it wasn’t a big hit with me, and I’ve never liked that sort of movie ever since; just never saw any sense in paying people to scare me. I manage to find enough things in real life that perform that function just fine, thank you very much, and didn’t see why I should give someone money to do so, especially since money seemed so hard to come by (four-year-olds don’t get a lot of money-making opportunities…..).

I spent the entire movie in the lobby, after the monster’s first appearance, until the ending, when I went back in to find my sister and brother, and caught the ending scene. Even at four, I was a bit skeptical, to see the chisel-jawed hero knock the Creature out with a right cross…. Though I was only four years old, that didn’t seem realistic, to see a normal sized man punch out a seven-foot tall creature that made an eighty-foot long boat rock when he climbed aboard…. My innate feel for the physical world told me that was silly….

That was my last experience with attending horror flicks; I’ve kept my personal promise to myself, to never waste money on fear, especially as entertainment….. I just don’t get it, myself. Why is it considered a good thing to make yourself afraid? Many, many people get a big kick out of it, and I’ve never been able to understand why that is; I hate the effect that adrenaline has on me, and did so even before my experiences in living with it all the time. It has never been “fun” to feel those kinds of feelings, not to me, so I have a hard time understanding the impulse. The experiences I had later in my life, when I was getting regular doses of adrenaline administered to my system, only served to reinforce those feelings in me, and I still avoid horror films, to this day…..

It’s just another example of diversity, I guess, and goes to show that it’s probably a good thing that everybody is so different. All those people who like the horror film genre can have their entertaining sessions of manufactured fear, I can totally ignore it, and nobody is bothered at all….. Just don’t ask me to go with you to explore the attic when there are funny noises coming from it, and an organ is playing in the background….. You’re on your own, in that case…… You may borrow a knife, or a baseball bat, but, no way I’m going up there with you….

Shall we Pearl?……
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“Excellent.” — Moritz von Schwind (1804-71), Austrian painter, last word

I suppose it’s normal to begin to think about Death more often as one gets older. It does seem to assume a larger significance in our view of the world, as the time for its manifestation approaches, even though we know not at all exactly when it will happen. As dying words go, this one is, well, excellent, and I can only hope that I will have something as elegant and classy to say when my time comes….. Something on the order of, “Wow, that was quite a ride!”, or “I wonder if there will be ice cream in the afterlife?” You know, classy stuff, deep with insight and philosophical significance…. Right…..

Epitaphs also become more of an interest with age, I’ve found. I saw a really cool one this morning as I cruised Smart Bee…. “Here lies XXX XXXXX, for all that it matters.” Very droll, eh? Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found epitaphs to be a very interesting, even intriguing form of literature, with some of the finest examples of wit, and even wisdom, ever written by human hand (though, come to think of it, what other type of hand might be writing, I don’t know….. just an expression….).

Limericks, poems of all kinds, questions, answers, declarations, assertions, complaints, insults, political comments and judgments, all can be found at their best on gravestones, tombs, and crypts all over the world, from all periods of history…. I’ve seen translations of the funereal hieroglyphics on the walls of Egyptian tombs that, essentially, were jokes in the form of an epitaph, and some of the ones I’ve read from early American times were absolutely hilarious. Books have been written, I’m sure, compiling the wit and wisdom that is displayed in such hallowed grounds, and I may just spend some time at the library trying to find one, because it would be an extremely interesting read…..

The subject’s interest is, of course, easily understood, as Death is just about as common an experience as exists, for all of us. And, it isn’t hard to comprehend why such a serious subject is such a magnet for humor; if we don’t laugh at Death, we will most certainly cry, for it is the single most terrifying experience we have to face in our lives, once the trauma of being born is healed, or, at least, forgotten. We humans, for some reason, have no idea what happens before we are born, or after we die, and that lack of knowledge is terrifying to most people…. well, to ALL people, really. Some just handle it better than others, I suppose….. All of which is why, I suppose, most people eventually try to assume the following attitude about life in general….

“Don’t take life so seriously… it’s only a temporary situation.” — Smart Bee

This sort of assumed lackadaisical outlook is, if nothing else, comforting for most folks, and ffolkes, too. I’m a firm believer in laughing at Life, Death, and the whole nine yards of Reality, especially at myself and my attempts to deal with all the above, and not only because it feels better than the alternative…. It’s also healthier. But, that aside, dealing with the serious side of Reality is a hard row to hoe, most of the time, so balancing that stress and struggle with some humor works well to mitigate the difficulty we all experience in getting on with our lives through the moral and ethical morass that is modern day society.

We aren’t going to get much help with anything from the BRC, or the priestly hierarchies, and society itself is too amorphous to depend on for anything so mundane, so we may as well take the reins for our own happiness into our own hands…. and part of that is facing the concept of Death with courage, and humor, and a sense of wonder, rather than letting it fill us with dread and unreasoning fear…. Mind over matter, ffolkes….. if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter…..

“It’s OKAY — I’m an INTELLECTUAL, too.” — Zippy the Pinhead
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It’s Death Again

It’s Death again – He’s always there –
Watching, waiting – e’er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood –
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he’ll never go.
The adamant phantom; don’t you know
He will but wait until it’s time
For me to hear His fateful chime? –
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: ‘You’re next, it has to be…

Erected to the memory of
John Macfarlane
Drowned in the Waters of Leith
By a few affectionate friends.

🙂
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“I’ve never killed a man, but I’ve read many obituaries with great pleasure.” — Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

I really love the power of understatement; this one from Mr. Darrow is an excellent condemnation of a huge class of people, unnamed as yet, but whose names are indelibly etched on our memories, just waiting to be included in a list of people the world would be better off without…. We all have a list by that title in our heads; anyone who denies it is a liar, plain and simple, and fooling no one. As a human being, it is part of our nature to hate, and nobody is so morally chaste as to escape those kinds of feelings now and then. Nobody…..

Sometimes, what amazes me about modern life is that there are so FEW outbreaks of random violence… I’d think that, with all the pressure our society puts on people, there would be a lot more of us who crack, enough to lose control over our baser impulses, and start trying to cross names off our list of preferred targets….. The way they usually go about it isn’t the most logical, or tactically intelligent, but what do you expect from somebody in an emotional crisis? Logical thinking? Not going to happen, sorry….. I’d say it would be time to get nervous when some guy starts blasting away, then disappears, only to attack again later, in a new place…. That would indicate more planning and strategy, and a much more dangerous person…..

I’m not sure just why I started this pearl…. It might have been in response to yet another random shooting spree reported yesterday in the news, in which a teenager started firing at people because of some argument he/she had with another teen, or something like that… another totally insane reason to start killing people, but, then, do you really expect rational from these people? It isn’t rational to expect them to have an understandable reason for their insanity, it doesn’t work that way…..

But, the media will spend an incredible amount of time and energy exploring every nuance of what this idiot was doing when they snapped, until no secrets are left to the young person’s life…. In looking at the entire incident, including the media coverage, I am tempted to give a big sigh, and lament the death of society, or at least the apparent death of decency…..

Amorphous anxiety seems to be our legacy as members of today’s culture; our lives consist of a series of unpalatable events fueled by unwarranted lies, and made worse for a societal tendency toward sloth combined with a severe lack of compassion; the sheer futility of it all seems to be the only message that comes through clearly. The fatal flaw in human nature that keeps us from becoming truly moral creatures is still in control of our destiny, and any impetus toward rationality is disallowed.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.” — Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

This is the flaw we possess, all of us, and that which has plagued us throughout our history. One of my blogging friends commented a day or two ago with a relatively famous quote, in response to another discussion around the recent spate of reported shootings…. “All that is needed for evil to succeed, is for good men to look on and do nothing.” (She didn’t report the attribution, but according to Google, it was first stated by a man named Edmund Burke, with a number of slight alterations in wording since its appearance.) This single truth has been the biggest stumbling block to human progress for our entire history, and continues today to keep us from making any progress toward improving our chances of survival in the long run.

Once more, I’ve painted myself into a virtual corner, so to speak, since I don’t have any good solutions to offer to our dilemma. Oh sure, I can tell anyone what is needed for us to start making the world into the kind of place that would be home to EVERYONE…. I think, down inside, all of us KNOW what is needed for the world to be a better place. But, until it becomes common practice for people to make decisions based on compassion and love, rather than ambition and avarice, things aren’t going to change much, because the folks who don’t care about others aren’t going to stop what they’re doing…. there’s nothing in it for them if they do. Only when good men stand up, and refuse to allow that kind of usurpation of the rights of everyone else, will any changes take place…..

So, you tell me….. When is that going to happen? And how do we convince people that it needs to happen? Answer those two questions, and we might have a direction to go……

“If you ever go temporarily insane, don’t shoot somebody, like a lot of people do. Instead, try to get some weeding done, because you’d really be surprised.” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
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I tend to cook, and then eat what I cook, rather than pull weeds, when I’m feeling homicidal, but that’s just me…. otherwise, Jack’s advice is unusually relevant, and surprisingly valuable, coming as it does from perhaps the world’s most egregiously stupid person…. (Don’t worry, Jack doesn’t mind the insults; his creator made him that way deliberately, so I doubt he’d sue me for stating the obvious success of his caricaturization….) That single thing is probably why I’m so overweight…..

Well, here I am, at the end of another Pearl…. I find myself almost melancholy; the process of creation has, of late, been particularly….. satisfying….. So, going on to the rest of the day’s activities brings some sadness at having to cease an enjoyable experience. Now, all I have to do is take my own advice, delivered so freely, to allow the change to happen without reluctance, or resistance from me, accepting the good feeling, and going on to the next…. Okay, I can do that….. Watch me….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Look, it’s twitching!….

Posted on January 22, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Assorted visions of inept tennis professionals dance dimly before me, laughingly serving cold cuts and hors d’ouevre to a group of banking officials dressed in mufti. Even when the music swells into a cacophonous roar, those faithful and patient rhododendron drivers continue to ply their vegetated wares to the lingering crowd of Elvis impersonators in the parlor. Fortunately for all, though every single eyelid was twitching in time, the audio synchronization was off by a full three seconds, thus preventing any further emotional outbreaks. Such is the way with all pastoral passions, in this land of enchanting cardboard homeless shelters…..

There, take that! I dare you to make any sense of it….. This paragraph has been especially designed and built to resist all attempts to do so, and we need to have someone try, to see how it does under actual reading conditions. If it tests out okay, I’m going to try to sell it to some random member of the BRC, to use next time they want to distract the public from what they’re really doing…. I don’t know, this one might be a bit esoteric for a politician; maybe a priest could use it to confuse some poor sap who wanders in from the cold, looking for food….. This won’t get him fed, but at least he won’t know why….

I’m feeling a little radical today, if you couldn’t tell….. At the least, it is becoming clear that we here at Exploring Consensual Reality have no traces of cherophobia, nor will it ever find any place here to settle in (cherophobia = fear of having fun….). If you believe in the traditional idea of God, well, then you can say, “God forbid!”, and let it go at that. Nobody’s perfect…..If you have some doubts as to the accuracy of the dogma, well, congratulations, and welcome to the party. We’ll be serving up some rather tasty political or social discourse later on, and you will enjoy it, I’m sure….. and there are handy-wipes in the receptacle under your seat…..

For those of you who may be new to the way we do things around here, all I can do is wish you luck; it’s too late for the rest of us to even think of turning back. And, as for Big Brother and the Beloved Ruling Class, they will have to wait their turn at the table; they get no special perks here….. Hmm, I am beginning to suspect that this is getting a bit out of control, and might need to have the choke chain tightened up a tad. I had to let the insurance lapse, so we can’t afford to let anyone get bitten…..

It’s a good thing, probably, that this intro section has now reached the five paragraph standard that was set some time ago; I’m not sure how much longer I could keep it out of the visitor’s gallery, where it would no doubt cause undue hardship for many. Besides, I’m getting a trifle confused, from wandering so far from what passes for normal around these parts; I think we should get on with today’s dive before it gets totally irrational. I’m thinking….. No, I’d better not…. Never mind, we’ll just grab our mask and fins, and go…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses….” — Edward Abbey

I like this….. I was thinking the other day about the things that people believe about God, as is a habit of mine, for some reason I’ve never bothered to examine; it’s just what I do. Any who, it occurred to me that most people have a vision in their mind, of what they believe God would look like, and their view of the universe, in a way, is influenced by whatever they see in that vision. Since I can’t accept the vision that is provided for us by all the different religious systems of dogma, or rather, any of the multitude of similar visions, ffolkes who read this blog might wonder what I do see when I look at my version of how a god should look….

Actually, I can answer that one with ease…. I just look in the mirror. And so can you…. You see, that answer is already documented, in my own personal philosophy, Peruaosophy, wherein Axiom #3 states, “Thou art God, you know…. Let’s do lunch.” I know that the phrase, “Thou art God”, is stealing from Robert Heinlein. His character, Michael Valentine Smith, the Man from Mars, used it as the basic premise of the religion he started in the book, by which he tried to teach the people of Earth all he had learned from living with the Martians, a very advanced race, who were completely in tune with the Real Nature of the Universe, which is to say, they had realized that they were God….

It probably sounds a bit egotistic to make that statement, but in reality, it is not. We are all God, just as every living creature, every rock, every planet, every piece of dust, and everything else we perceive, and don’t perceive, all together, is what I believe to be the real God. Everything that exists is a piece of the whole, and bears within it all the power and glory of the whole. This isn’t a new idea, and in fact, most of the Christian faiths attempt to weave this little piece of reality into the fabric of their own beliefs, but in a way that corrupts and demeans people, in favor of a delusional old man with childish passions…..

“A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.” — H.L. Mencken

🙂 It is this little bit of truth that most likely persuaded some ancient cave dweller to fabricate the religious structures that define current theological thought, knowing that most folks AREN’T capable of original thought, and would accept anything they put forth as truth, as long as they didn’t have to think about it themselves. How else to explain how perfectly normal, intelligent people will buy this BS? Most of the actions they ascribe to God, and his myrmidons, in the Bible, and other holy treatises, are those of a spoiled child, with no impulse control, and no empathy for the creatures He is purported to have created…..

One of the dead giveaways for me has always been this idea of Free Will…. The whole construct is flimsy, from a logical standpoint, to begin with, and then to make the assumption that some divine entity GAVE us this characteristic, and then placed limits and rules on how it should be used….. I’m sorry, but that is just TOO much for me to believe all at once. It doesn’t make any sense, until you factor in who is telling the tale. A quick look at the motivation behind the story will make it obvious that, oh, that’s right! This is all intended to benefit the preachers! Only the priestly classes benefit from making the assumptions they spout; that much is abundantly clear…. It’s insulting, to me, to think that they think I’ll fall for it….

But then I realize that they would HAVE to make that assumption, because almost everyone they encounter buys into it, without ever looking at it any deeper than the surface, accepting what they are told about what it all means. Sadly, it is NOT a common trait in this, or any other, country, to teach critical thinking to our children, so they tend to believe anything they are told, before they have learned or developed any defense against such cognitive repression.

I’m not sure exactly how I slipped through the cracks, but I do know there aren’t all that many of us out there, who question the validity of humanity’s most commonly held delusional systems….. Most of us aren’t too vocal about, with good reason…. Me, I don’t care anymore what anybody might think, and I’m past any fear I might have had regarding retribution from crazed ignoramuses who might get upset at my beliefs; if they want a piece of me, well, come on down, either virtually, or in reality; I’m easy….. and a lot more dangerous than I might appear on the surface. Plus, guilt never slows me down at all, having been eliminated from my emotional make-up long ago….. I only feel bad about what I CHOOSE to feel bad about, not what anyone else might think….

Okay, I’ve done it again…. written myself out of material. I can’t decide in which direction to take this, which is a sure sign it is enough. One of my intentions in writing this piece was to clarify my own beliefs, so that nobody can point out that I am against a lot of stuff, but don’t have anything with which to replace what I would get rid of…. To be perfectly clear, in all respects, I will leave you now with a reprinting of Peruaosophy, my personal philosophy, as today’s poetry selection, so it doesn’t take up any more space here….. As for here, I’m done…..
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Peruaosophy

The wisdom of pearls…
(The world is my oyster; which way to the pearls?)

Axioms

1) I think I am; that’s close enough.

2) The nature of the Universe is Change. Unpredictable, innovative transformation of Reality is the Norm. If you have a problem with this, you’re in for a rough ride in Life.

3) Thou art God, you know. Let’s do lunch.

4) Excellence is its own reward.

5) Girls think differently. So do boys. Don’t fight it.

6) Axiom #2 X axiom #5 = And God so loved the world, He said, “Quit whining!”

7) Do your Duty. Respect Life. Honor the Truth. Share your Love.

8) Go back. Everything you need to know is in the first seven axioms.

~~ gigoid

Hmm…. editorial note: I’m thinking this may need a new axiom, as I just realized there is one thing missing…. I’m thinking it would fit in at #8, with the appropriate adjustments to the old #8, which would become #9, a much more cosmically balanced number…. The new axiom would say, “Your head was not designed to be used as a chair.”…… Thoughts? Comments? Derisive laughter?….

You’ll be glad to know, perhaps, that no innocent assumptions were harmed in the construction of this philosophy….. We did, however, mercilessly eliminate a significant number of lies we’d been told since childhood, and, I have to admit, had a lot of fun gleefully murdering numerous misapprehensions offered up by unscrupulous power mongers in the guise of religious dogma…..
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“I want another RE-WRITE on my CAESAR SALAD!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

As is patently obvious by now, I hope, I value my nonsense. Life is serious business, most of the time, and it doesn’t always leave us room to have fun. So, I believe that one should take the opportunity, whenever it presents itself, to inject a bit of silliness into whatever is happening at the moment. It doesn’t cost anything but a bit of time and wit, and the results are often much more beneficial than we could imagine. Most of the world’s most brilliant minds know this rule of thumb, and aren’t afraid to tickle the ribs of life…. Goodness knows we all can use a good chuckle now and again, as we find our way through the maze that reality builds for us, or we become all dry, and our souls shrivel up like a prune…..

“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” — Willie Wonka

This principle, you will note, is prevalent throughout everything I write; that is my intent, and my hope, anyway. No matter how serious a subject, there is always something ironic, or something just plain silly, that one can see in the midst of all the heaviness, and it can not only make the subject more palatable, but more understandable, as well, by clarifying the definition through the use of contrast. Kind of like using a colorful frame for a boring picture, it brings out those parts that may not have been noticeable otherwise….. In cooking, think of how a bit of cayenne pepper, and a dash of Tabasco, can wake up a Hollandaise sauce, turning it from heavy and bland, to rich and savory, in an instant…..

“Are you having fun? I am.” — Smart Bee

This is the key, right here…. Life can be fun, or it can be a burden; the choice is entirely ours as to which it becomes for us. It goes back to that Free Will issue I mentioned above, in a way. You can accept the limits that society and custom place on you, and live within those constraints very comfortably, if a bit boringly. Or, you can take the responsibility for your own feelings, and your own actions, and choose a life without coloring within all the lines. No matter how often they tell you, or how convincing may be the arguments, you still have the choice in your own hands whether or not to go along with the program, or to write your own….. Personally, I prefer to write my own, and I like it that way, strange as it can get at times…..

Roses are red,
Violets are blue
Some poems rhyme
But this one doesn’t.

— Smart Bee
__________________________________

Whee! What a rush! That last section almost got away from me, but, I was tougher than it was, and I got it to fall into line there at the end…. It’s a battle sometimes, to get it down just so….. Let’s see how it flows…. Judgments on quality held in reserve, I’ll take it. If nothing else, it drapes well…. and, it’s done, my favorite condition for a Pearl….. Hasta la bye bye, amigos, until mañana…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Ned Moore, aka gigoid, is a 70 year-old, (!!!… When did that happen?….), retired dilettante, who would rather read than eat, most days. His first blog, "gigoid’s folly", has been emailed out to folks he knows for about 18 years now. He still considers it his best defense against angst, and the ever-present specter of sheer insanity..... Due to rigorous curmudgeon training requirements, he has discontinued his Facebook presence, but still indulges in the occasional Twitter session... In essence, he's socialized, but, not overly sociable; all labels and stereotypes are forbidden in his presence... and he doesn't care what anyone thinks about that..... In fact, he doesn't want to talk anymore.... If you feel you MUST contact gigoid, his email address is: alphagigoid@gmail.com You can go read now.... Go on, beat it.... gigoid, the dubious

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