Engaging in palliative syncopation….

Posted on February 28, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
In the normal course of events, I don’t spend a lot of time with dead bodies; it has never been, to me, an attractive way to pass the time, nor has it ever tempted me to stop doing even the most onerous chore in order to pursue such mundane activities. However, due to the circumstances I am about to relate, I’ve recently been compelled to spend far too many of my precious minutes in the company of more than just one or two of the poor devils, and I must confess to a certain degree of discomfort in that regard. I mean, it’s not as if they will bore me to death with unwarranted chatter. But, good gracious, my good fellow, must they smell that way?….

Okay, mildly amusing, and just the right touch of macabre I was shooting for. There are times when stopping is hard; this was one, as it was kind of fun to think about what was going on, and what might happen next…. Ah, fiction…. I’ve read as much, or more, than 99% of the folks, or ffolkes, my age, and my lifelong love of reading shows no signs of lessening….

I’ve currently got 10 books on loan from the library, and reading four of them in random rotation, just for fun (Two are old Heinlein books I’ve already read, so they’re just for fun anyway….). I fully intend to write fiction, eventually, but have stuck pretty much to non-fiction in this blog, for the simple reason of maintaining what there is of my sanity….

But, that’s finished…. I’m no longer concerned about my sanity; if the world doesn’t like me the way I am, well, let’s see, how you say in English?…. Ah…. fuck them! Hard!…… Yep, I’m done trying to shield other folks from my mind’s randomness. I’ve decided that I’ve been nice my whole life, and never once killed anyone, in spite of the many, many opportunities, attached to viable reasons, that I’ve encountered over my life, so, society can just deal with all the stuff that holding in those homicidal impulses has created in me….. warts and all.

You may note a bit more harshness to future rants as a result of this decision. The time limit for our making the changes needed for us to survive our racial stupidity is approaching rapidly, and it’s time for me to step up my campaign against the PTB (powers that be), the BRC (Beloved Ruling Classes), and the PPA (preacher/priest assholes), and all those who, for their own aggrandizement, exercise power over others for gain.

It’s time now to take off the gloves I’ve been wearing, and throw some bare-knuckle punches. I’m even considering buying a power-glove to wear, to increase the effect of any blows that land. (A power glove is lead lined, weighs about 2-3 lbs., and effectively turns the fist into a war hammer….) Figuratively speaking, of course…. ( 😉 )

“I ‘m armed with more than complete steel,–The justice of my quarrel.” — Christopher Marlowe (1565-1593) — Lust’s Dominion, Act iii, Sc. 4

Actually, I think I’m kind of looking forward to it. I’ve been relatively nice so far, trying to increase credibility by maintaining a reasonable tone…. but the time is past for shyness, or, for that matter, for being nice to my targets. They have shown no mercy and no ‘niceness’ to any of us, so there is no further reason to do so, even to maintain my own integrity. At this point, laying a few on their chin, and causing some real pain and suffering on their part, ARE acts of integrity, as they serve to give notice of our intent for change.

Until the revolution actually begins, though, I think I can get a few Pearls in…. but, only if I ever learn to shorten up these intro sections and get on with it…. Sometimes, I drive myself crazy….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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Once again, Smart Bee is being cute…. I can’t find anything worth a word or two, after a half-hour search…. To save time, and because it was so much fun yesterday, I’m going to find an Old Pearl to put here…. I’ll be right back…. Okay, that was quick…. Here are two Pearls, both short, as they were in the beginning…. Both were published sometime in 2008…. Actually, the first was published on June 23 of that year; the other a few months later….

A light in the darkness

Ffolkes,
Last night, the Universe lost one of its’ brightest lights. One of those people who make everyone else’s life better, just from being, has passed on to another plane of existence, and boy, I’ll bet he’s p___ed! George Carlin has left us, and it is no laughing matter, though he would perhaps disagree.

I don’t know if most folks understood just how much compassion he had for his fellow man; what else could be the cause for his particular twisted world view? He was well aware that we laugh to take away the pain of existence, and turned the power of his scintillating intelligence on everyday events that would surely make you cry, if only you weren’t laughing so hard at how ridiculous he made them seem. And the man had no fear; no subject was taboo for him. Be glad that you lived in a time that included his presence; we are all lessened by his passing…..

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.” — Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”

And this one….George would have liked this one….

“Eternity has nothing to do with the hereafter… This is it… If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here’s the place to have the experience.” — Joseph Campbell

Y’all take care out there….and have a laugh on George!……

Okay, so this next one isn’t so short…. but, it’s a good one….

special stuff

Ffolkes,
It’s Friday. Just saying it makes it true enough….yay! Okay, enough giddiness. This morning’s offering is short, and not so sweet……

“The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self-mastery.” — Reinhold Niebuhr

I’ve never heard this person’s name before, but his observation is spot on; far too many humans take the first choice, and this is what has led us to the precarious world in which we live. War, the state of the economy, dissolution of the nuclear family, global warming, destruction of the ozone layer, all the most serious, species-threatening issues of current events can be laid at the doorstep of this simple idea. People choose gluttony over restraint, profit over compassion, power over others instead of self-control. And it won’t change, unless we, as a species, undergo a shift of paradigm, and become mature. I fear for our children…..

Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly’s uncurb’d steed,
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.

— Johann Christian Friedrich von Schiller, The Maid of Orleans

Sorry to be so gloomy, but I calls ’em as I sees ’em…..here, this may help…

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau

and remember…..

“Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back.” — Pat Hein

Y’all take care out there……

Well, there you have it…. two days in the work life of gigoid in 2008… and it saved you from a rant! Glory be!…..
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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

Brilliant!….
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Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the center of the silent Word.
— T.S. Eliot

I’ve always been fond of this little snippet from T.S.; it has a certain charm to it. I find to be pleasantly complex, while yet describing a very basic idea. Of course, it’s not a rantable item, nor particular helpful in any sort of self-improvement activities. But, I don’t much care, I just like it, so there….

Actually, I’ve included it where it is as a filler; Smart Bee is being particularly uncooperative this morning. It’s almost as if it were suffering from what I am, and is trying to tell me, to wit:

” — Bother! said Pooh, as his fur turned gray and he began losing his memory.” — Smart Bee

So, in the face of such obstruction, I have only one defense, and that is to go old-school, reverting back to the type of pearls as demonstrated in section one today…. I give you therefore, the next in a seemingly endless parade of aphorisms, all pointed in one direction, or at least, all located in one dimension….. Let’s see what we find….

Content if hence th’ unlearn’d their wants may view,
The learn’d reflect on what before they knew.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Criticism, Part iii, Line 180

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” — William Jennings Bryan

“Our genetic heritage endows each of us with a series of emotional set-points that determines our temperament. But the brain circuitry involved is extraordinarily malleable; temperament is not destiny.” — Daniel P. Goleman

“It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive.” — C. W. Leadbeater

“I have learned this at least by my experiment: if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” — Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”

“Metaphysical totalitarianism of any kind stifles the freedom we have as human beings. It is not acceptable to have a religion where the alternative to faith is punishment – that’s how you train dogs, not develop people.” — Deng Ming-Dao

“There was once a man, Harry, called the Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life.” — Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

Not bad, a seven star pearl, in less than a hundred clicks…. I’ll take it, and run…..
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Well, there you have it, ffolkes, another day’s random walk through the back corridors of my mind, such as it is….. Let’s go see how it looks front to back…. I can’t honestly say it’s the best I’ve ever done, but I plead both age and distraction…. My monthly gelt just arrived at the bank, and I get to go shopping for food! Yippee! I can also get my guitar out of hock, I think, so it’s all good…. In any case, that’s all I can do; there’s only so much nonsense acceptable by the universe, so I’m outta here…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Safely insane amid the noise and tedium…..

Posted on February 27, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the warranty on this state of reality has expired, and I don’t think there will be any renewal, not for us, and not for the dreams we once held. Sad, but true….. A lesser man might become depressed, or fall into the state of mind where a lack of caring, about anything, becomes attractive, rather than the low-level sense of doom that is the lot of those who have any wit to spare. Instead, I think…. I’ll have a beer…..

Or maybe not…. it’s a bit early for a Budweiser, I suppose. I’m not sure exactly what the above paragraph is all about, other than as a possible lead-in to a rant, and it’s WAY too soon in this process to start that….. I haven’t even had enough coffee to be able to blink without concentrating, and I can’t be trusted to tie my shoes yet, much less start ranting about the environment, or whatever…. Hell, as is obvious, I couldn’t get through an entire paragraph without resorting to silliness….. It may be a gift, in some instances, but, just now, it’s more of a PITA…… If you don’t know that particular acronym, well, that is probably just as well…. If you do, then you’ll get my drift….

As might be apparent by now, I’m a little scattered, a little off, today. In such cases, it’s easy to tell how I’m doing, as this intro becomes rather a battleground for sanity, and gets stranger by the second the longer it goes on, and on, and on, and on…… Now, strange isn’t necessarily a BAD thing, not if it’s adequately appreciated, and taken full advantage of….. It’s when folks try to stop it, or make it normal that it gets all crazy and violent. Some folks never pick up on that, and so spend their entire lives fighting against it, rather than being able to embrace it, and allow it to become an asset, rather than a liability…. It’s easy, fun, and much more comfortable than trying to be a conformist…

Since I don’t wish for that to even have a chance to happen, I might do well to get on with business today, rather than trying to squeeze out every last drop of asininity I can from the beginning of this missive. There’s still a ways to go before I can call it a day, so, I’d best be getting to it….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Oh my GOD — the SUN just fell into YANKEE STADIUM!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I’ve just spent more than enough time looking for a pearl, and this is the best I’ve seen….. Pathetic, don’t you think? Although I really like Zippy’s little pronouncement for it’s absolutely brilliant level of strange, it doesn’t help in coming up with something, anything, about which I can write. Having already started late today, and now an hour or more into the process, I am, relatively, no further along than when I began, especially if you don’t count the intro section, which is, if not exactly Pulitzer material, at least has the distinction of a small dollop of humor, bordering on verifiable silliness…..

Well, that last sentence certainly wound its way through the grammatical and punctuation minefield, didn’t it? Any who, I was busy complaining about the lack of material…. I’m so dry, in my own head, I’m actually going to resort to a re-post…. Here is an old, and old-school, Pearl, first published, or sent out via email, while I was still working at NSH, which would make it about six to eight years ago….

At that time, the Pearls were all in the format you see below, and were sent out to about 250 hospital employees each morning via the hospital network….It drove the IT dept. crazy when they’d see the network bandwidth patterns go crazy when I sent it out…. Apparently, the Pearls, enjoyed by so many, were a bit of a load for the network at the time of sending….. Oh well…. Any who, enjoy…..

When Reality becomes moot…

Ffolkes,
Spinning, twisting, caught up in the vortex Reality creates, we look about with trepidation, seeking, seeking, and never finding the path to the future that will ease our way. Entropy makes us weep, with deep regret, the choices we never made, the truths we never spoke, the challenges we didn’t meet. In spite of all this, we go on…with courage and good humor. And why? Because we can…..and must.

Did you ever watch Sesame Street? If so, you may remember a repetitive piece called “One of these things is not like the others.” This morning we bring you another version of that, called “Betty Likes It”. If you don’t get it, don’t worry, it’s just about as obscure as I can be, meant to confuse, as the puzzle is an easy one. Comments or criticisms are welcome, though the latter will most likely be cheerfully ignored. You computer ffolkes should like it…..

RTFM – Read The F#*@^| Manual

I admit it, I tried MS-DOS, but I didn’t inhale.

“If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.’ — Weinberg’s Second Law

For Dessert? I’ll take a piece of cherry 3.14159!

The definition of a successful life must include a commitment to serving others.

So, which is different? If you can’t tell, well, just look for the one that feels the best when you use it…. y’all take care out there…..

This Pearl was first published circa 2006…..
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Where The Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends.

~~ Shel Silverstein
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Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Essay on Man, Epistle iv, Line 261

Ah, Pope! I regard Alexander Pope as the premier of all the romantic poets…. Deeply insightful, and ornately beautiful, his verse continually amazes me. This poem, Essay on Man, has more couplets and quatrains of great power in it, all of which make excellent excerpts, than in any other work I have ever seen, bar none, save, perhaps, Ode on a Grecian Urn, by Keats. Line after line of great composition, and insight after insight into the nature of Man, Mssr. Pope created one of Mankind’s most precious treasures in this epic work…..

I identify very closely with this couplet, as it is rather a good description of what goes on here. Even though I continue to rant and rail against the people and institutions, and ideas, that I believe are holding us from becoming all we could be as humans, I am often struck with how little response I get from anyone who doesn’t feel the same way….. which is another way of saying that I believe that, most of the time when I rant, I’m preaching to the choir, in a manner of speaking…. It’s more than just a little bit of a frustration, as I believe what I have to say is important to all of us, to, as Alexander so aptly puts it, to “teach, or save a sinking land.” If people continue to ignore what I’m saying, the consequences to be faced are horrendous, not from me, but from Reality…..

“All fear, none aid you, and few understand.” This, too, seems to be a completely accurate picture of ECR and the rants that are fostered here. Actually, if the BRC was a little more nervous, and paid a bit more attention to me, I think I wouldn’t be so frustrated, as what I’m saying SHOULD make them nervous, since most of it pulls their covers ruthlessly. At least, I hope it does…..sometimes, I have a hard time with ‘ruthless’…. too much of a softie….. SIGH…. I can’t help it if I don’t enjoy hurting people…..

However, any hurt that I cause the BRC is NOTHING, NOTHING when compared to the pain and misery that will be our lot when the massive stupidity our species has displayed for the past 5000 years finally catches up to us…. Yesterday, I posted a quote from Lazarus Long, from The Notebooks Of, that is germane to this discussion…. It said this:

“Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” — Lazarus Long

We are writing our own judgment, with our continued denial of the facts about global warming, and the serious effects of overpopulation and pollution on the ecosystem, and are being quite insistent on making it happen as fast as we can. This leaves us little time at all to save those of us who don’t go along with this stupidity, who would sooner survive into the next millennium, rather than die, to the last man, in this one.

I only wish that more people would start to throw off the state of mind that leads to denial, and start kicking some 1% ass, as the issues around all of this aren’t the major problem for us. The main problem is the assholes who are in charge of the world, who don’t have a clue as to just how stupid they are being, and are driving us, blindly, down the road to extinction…. Their intransigence in denying all of the evidence that is there is, in my mind, about as deliberately stupid as one can be, and it’s just a damn shame that, because they are stupid, I have to live with the consequences…. or, more accurately, die from them….

Ah well, c’est la vie! Writing my rants, and shouting the message from the vantage of this blog, are about all I can do…. As I’ve said before, all you can do, is all you can do…..

“Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.” — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
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I’ll take it…. and there is nothing about “settling” in that decision. It isn’t bad, considering the struggle I went through to write it…. It’s tough to come up with around 2000 words a day, and make it all fresh and excellent…. Not that I’m complaining; I’m the one who decided on this format…. It’s all good, or, as John Lennon’s mom used to say, it’s nothing to get hung about…. Not sure what she meant by that….. 🙂 Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Don’t bust your gaiters, boy, it’ll get bigger….

Posted on February 26, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Balderdash! That’s all it is…. even if it weren’t so disgustingly gross, I wouldn’t touch it with gloves and a stick. If they want that dealt with by me, they’ll have to come up with some compensation, that’s all I have to say….. Either way, I want it off my lawn, today….. Damn dragons!…. Can’t finish what they eat, gotta leave carcasses lying about on people’s grass like some werewolf…. and, where the hell am I going to dump an entire lawn full of half-chewed sheep? Bloody nuisance, that’s what it is…..

Howdy, y’all…. how’s it shakin’? The lines written above are all smoke, only there to provide a platform for the first word, which, all by itself, is a word of such class and power, it can support an entire paragraph, one with no real information in it, and no meaning at all, turning it into a thing of, well, if not beauty, at least, interest….. Well, for me, it does…. I love the word…… “balderdash”…. it’s got everything a word needs to make it special. Odd spelling, funny sounding, and an ancient meaning, that has little modern relevance, beyond its use, as in this case, as a prop for words that otherwise would have little purpose, and draw no attention whatsoever….

I’m running much later than I have for awhile; late night, dealing with issues, so you’ll need to be careful where you sit. Why? Oh, sorry, forgot to tell y’all…. I got my shipment of plastic Jesus holders, perfect for the dashboard of your car, to sell on EBAY, but the box broke during shipment, and sort of exploded when they threw it on the porch from the truck, so there are plastic shards, some of them quite sharp, and a mass of those styrofoam packing peanuts, everywhere….. It was a bloody mess, I can tell you; thank goodness it wasn’t the fish sauce that’s getting delivered tomorrow…… If that gets broken, I’ll be fighting off cats for weeks….. Any who, I didn’t have time to clean it up last night, so watch where you park your butt….

Alright, I’ll stop now…. It is a terrible thing to wake up to an empty mind; equally terrible, as you can see, is what happens when I try to write anyway. SIGH…. (That’s a big, drawn out, fully ironic, Clare County sigh….) I don’t really mean to do that to people, but, what else can I do in such instances? Order in? Outsource? Give up? None of those options is palatable for me, as they all involve admitting I’m unable to do it myself, and I’m not going there. I HAVE to write…. I get all twitchy, and irritable, if I go too long without spewing some of what is in here, and can bite if severely tested; my insurance won’t cover any of that, and the damn police get so irritated when they have to come talk to me about another dead body….

Okay, I’m done now…. really, I am. I think that’s enough to be able to call it an intro section…. it doesn’t actually introduce anything, but, it does kind of give you an idea of what you’ll be dealing with in the way of thought processes. You might want to take advantage of the full-body armor, and the upgraded helmets today…. The weather looks a bit chancy for this kind of diving, and flying…. Without any further literary abuse, we will now head out to corner Smart Bee, and find a few appropriate articles of stimulation….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Is this the line for the latest whimsical YUGOSLAVIAN drama which also makes you want to CRY and reconsider the VIETNAM WAR?” — Zippy the Pinhead

I’ve decided to publish a book, I think…. It’s actually already written, so it should be out within a few months, as soon as I figure out a way to complete the publishing part…. 🙂 Actually, that sounds as if it is a joke, but, I’m quite serious, which is the funniest part of the joke. I even have the title, sort of… or, rather, I’ve got some ideas for one, but need to pick one & quit waffling…

The basic premise is to polish up the best Daily Pearl from each month I’ve been writing them, put them together into one document, and have an agent see if anyone is interested in it…. I’ll make sure to include my own poems in the appropriate sections of each Pearl, so I don’t have to worry about any attribution for the work of others…… I’ll use the Introduction to deliver the basic necessary accessory concepts, to wit: Peruaosophy, the Philosophy of Pearls, the definition of ffolkes vs. folks, Pearls vs. pearls vs. pearls, etc. I’ve heard of a blog publisher who may be able to help, and I’ll contact her soon, too… when I’m ready with the finished document of Pearls…. Oooh, inspiration strikes!…. I’ve got it…. the title….

A Necklace of Moonstones ; Pearls of Virtual Wisdom*

*Not recommended for use as Real Wisdom. Any use not intended may lead to joyful chuckling, or in severe cases of exposure, cogitation.

So, whattya think? Will it sell? Will it make anyone laugh? Will it make the BRC nervous? Will it piss off the Pope, and the Ayatollah? Will it save the planet, and us in the process? Will it stimulate anyone into thinking about, well, anything?…. Any of the above would be an acceptable outcome, for me…. I guess I’ll have to put it out there to find out, though in reality, only the latter queries are important to me….

Selling it is only important because it means ffolkes are reading it; the money, while welcome, isn’t the issue. With my retirement from the state, and my SS benefits, I’ll be comfortable enough, and be able to mostly do what I want to do. I’d probably end up giving most of it away, anyway, other than a bit of it I’ll use to leave a legacy for my son, daughter, and grandson. I won’t be around this old planet more than, say, thirty or so years more, no matter how much progress medical science makes, so why would I want to hoard it?

No, whatever money I make from a book, or books, will go to people and organizations that are working to improve our chances of survival, or to working on taking mankind to the stars, which I still believe to be our destiny, should we manage to survive our infancy, and the moral childishness that threatens our continued existence. Other than being able to eat, live indoors, see a doctor when I’m sick, play occasionally, and travel a bit, I don’t have a lot of expenses…. oh, and a phone and computer, with Internet access. Beyond those, my needs are few, if any, so I don’t think I’d have any problem with putting the money to work for people….

Talking about it isn’t going to get it on the market, no matter how convincingly I write out the plan…. I have to DO it…. and I’ll start later today, after this Pearl is posted, and I’ve finished any chores that need doing (the trash is getting a bit smelly, full sink, etc……). No worries!

🙂 Wish me luck!….. I will, no doubt, need it…..
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On a day such as today, I should probably put one of my own poems here, but I don’t have anything pushing me to get out of my head, so we’ll just have to make to with somebody else today…. Let’s see who I can find…. Aha!…. Lord Peter’s favorite poet, and by deduction, probably Dorothy L. Sayer’s as well…. Another of the mystic romantics, John Donne.

Here is a two-fer, in two parts… First, a link, to a poem very appropriate, given today’s rant, below, about Mother Earth… it’s a long poem, which is why I’m using a link, so you may also have the second, without getting buried in verbiage right here…. so, first the link, to a poem entitled, “Anatomy of the World”, then the most excellent poem, A Valediction of Weeping….

Anatomy of the World

A Valediction Of Weeping

Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.

On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Africa, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
So doth each tear
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix’d with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,
Whoe’er sighs most is cruelest, and hastes the other’s death.

~~ John Donne
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“We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves cooperatively,sanely, scientifically, harmonically and in regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity around the earth…. We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.” — Buckminster Fuller

Bucky said this some time around 1968 or 69; Google would know….. but I remember it well, as part of the argument that first convinced me of the imminence of the danger from overpopulation, pollution, climate change, and all of the other foolish, self-destructive behaviors in which our specie has engaged for millennia. The cumulative effects of all of these issues is approaching a flash point, a point that, quite possibly, may already have been reached, and passed, without anyone noticing…..

Perhaps the worst example of the entire problem is the movie “An Unpleasant Truth” with former VP Al Gore narrating a summary of these issues, with all the then currently available evidence, all of which taken together was rather impressive, as well as fairly well unarguably accurate. In other words, it told the exact truth, and clearly….

I call this the worst example because this perfectly told truth of the matter was ridiculed, reviled, and dismissed, by the governments, and the public, one by ignoring it, and the other by refusing to listen, reacting instead to an unfortunate delivery style. Yet, every word Al spoke in this movie is true, and is being proved today, with the already extreme climate changes we are witnessing on a world-wide scale…..

“What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!” — Lazarus Long

But, the stupids keep on decrying any changes have happened, and blithely ignore the warmer, dryer winters, the cooler, wetter summers, the shrinking polar ice (at BOTH poles!…), the instability in the biosphere, the tons of carbon monoxide and particulates being added into the atmosphere every second, and all of the other evidence that PROVES them wrong. It isn’t a matter of there not being any real evidence, it is a matter of the evidence being ignored, or challenged, that is proving to be the hardest obstacle to be overcome if we are to survive beyond the next 100 years….

Yep, that’s my estimate, based on all the different estimates I’ve read about, the evidence I’ve examined, and my take on how society is dealing with all of it…. I don’t see the changes needed happening, not yet, nor is there much indication that a way to stop the assholes in power from their insane intransigence, and selfish hoarding of resources for their private use.

The atmosphere is almost full, and the balance of the gases and elements that make up the air we breathe is, WITHOUT FAIL, going to begin to change, eventually changing into air that will not support our life form, meaning, we won’t be able to breathe it; we will suffocate….. This process, well understood by science, has already begun, and will happen faster with each passing day, once it reaches a certain critical point…. That point, if not already reached, is not far off…..

Now, I know there is hope, and that everyone who reads this will give me positive reasons for that hope…. and I agree with all of them. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want my children, or their children, to have to face the same issues in order to save themselves. I’d much rather just shoot the motherfuckers who are causing all of it right now, and be done with it…. Sadly, that won’t work, so we’ll have to figure out something else to do…. I am not enough of a genius to be able to figure out exactly what that might be, though I have some ideas that would help, I’m sure…. But, I’m not in a position now to have those ideas instituted, so they are moot, unless I can assume such a position….

Hope is, therefore, just about ALL I have left….
__________________________________

I suppose I should finish this now, since it’s done….. A moment, if you please…. Okay, not too bad, all in all. It felt a bit rough, while putting it together, but it seems to be standing up just fine, so…. I’m going to declare it “done” before I can change my mind, or my shirt, whatever that means…. I’m going now…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Occasionally, it floated sideways….

Posted on February 25, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Boo hoo? Boo hoo? What a crock of crap!…. Oh, hi, sorry, didn’t realize we’d started…. When I woke up today, the best I could come up with was Boo hoo…. which, as is common knowledge, is no way to start the day….. So, I got some coffee, kicked Murphy off the coffee table where he was snoring, and retreated to the porcelain throne room for a little quiet time with a book. No sooner did I sit down to begin, the damn waterworks start leaking again…. The damnedest part is that I have no frigging clue as to what the hell is causing it….

I mean, I’m still in poverty, relatively speaking, but, I’ve got food, the rent’s paid, and all will be well soon, as I’m just waiting for a decision now on my SS benefits. My kids are doing well, and the lady Ive been sparking is feeling better now, so no personal issues happening, either. My brother’s news regarding his illness was a bit of a facer, but I’m getting a handle on that, so that isn’t it either….

No, it’s just a gift from the gods, I guess, letting me know that my past indiscretions in my choice of work are not completely resolved, at least not to the point where my unconscious is going to give me a free pass….. I can truly be an asshole, when it comes to dealing with myself….

PTSD is an insidious condition…. in many ways, its symptoms and issues are hidden, not only from others, but from the victim themselves, by the person’s unconscious mind, which, in the case of these issues of extreme mental anguish, assumes control over the rest of the person’s psyche.

It’s a pain in the ass, too, I’ll tell ya, as days like today, if not addressed and resolved, can become a daily battle, rather than an occasional skirmish….. Thankfully, I’m currently at a place where the latter is more common than the former…. so, today is a bit of a surprise, though not completely unexpected, given recent events….

The human mind is a complex organism, and we don’t know a lot about how it actually does what it does. Even from a personal standpoint, we aren’t very knowledgeable regarding how our minds work; we know what it does, but know very little about how it goes about doing it.

Not surprisingly, this can lead to a great many issues that a more complete understanding might preclude; unfortunately, that knowledge is currently unavailable, as the mechanics of our mind’s activities is a mystery, for the most part. All we know is what we observe; we know almost nothing about the process, or, for that matter, the end result…. If we did, we could answer the age-old question, “What is the mind?”, with something other than speculation…..

Okay, I’ll call a halt here…. A discussion of brain activity, while interesting in its own right, and in its own way, probably isn’t the best way to begin a Pearl…. neither is a lamentation on the disadvantages of having contracted PTSD in the course of my career choice. So, we’ll drop it now, and get on with today’s business, before I bore y’all to petrification. This is a chatty, fairly erudite intro section, but, it really doesn’t mean much, does it? SIGH….. Someday, maybe I’ll get the hang of this intro stuff…. Shall we Pearl?…..

P.S. A housekeeping note: I noted at least two major typos in yesterday’s Pearl, and am ashamed….. (you can’t see it, but my head is hanging, and I have an appropriately sober, apologetic expression on my face….) I’ll try to proof better today…..

“I feel so inar-inar-inar tic-u-late” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

“I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”– Marcus, Babylon 5

Marcus brings up an interesting point here, when he talks of the general hostility of the universe. I don’t think he quite has a handle on the actual shape of Reality, though, and in his desire to avoid responsibility for his own cupidity, he assigns the universe as villain in his play. Our universe isn’t hostile to us, as he would like to think. Unfair? Yes. Hostile? No…. The universe really doesn’t give a crap about us, one way or another. Things seem unfair, not because they are stacked against us, but rather because they are not stacked in our favor, a slight but distinct difference…..

Reality plays no favorites, beyond a tendency to allow itself to be adjusted by those who have an understanding of how it works, without granting them any dispensation, but rather rewarding their cleverness and wit. Those who believe the universe is out to get them are defenseless against the trials and tribulations that are a natural part of living, because they begin from an attitude of helplessness. Those who at least have the confidence to act in their own behalf are much more able to achieve their goals, than anyone who allows Reality to push them wherever they end up, without any direction made by choice…..

Thus, we can see that courage, as well as knowledge, is necessary to being able to confront Reality on its own terms. Not only is it necessary to pay attention to the way the universe works, and how it interacts among all its parts, but necessary to have the courage to act on what is known, and what the person believes to be right, in a moral sense.

Of course, the universe doesn’t care one way or another if we are moral; it rewards those who act out of immorality as well, if they are bold enough to act. We just feel better about ourselves if we act from right thought, and we make it easier for others to do the same. Acting immorally only benefits the one who is doing the acting…..

But, cowardice is also rewarded by the universe; it just isn’t a very palatable reward, to have our every wish denied, and our every act dismissed, as incompetent, illegal, or just plain dumb….. Lack of courage, and lack of knowledge thus become their own rewards, and the person’s misguided views about reality lead them into issue after issue of conflict with the rest of reality.

In this way, they continually reinforce their own misapprehensions, and will only more firmly believe that the universe is out to get them, and everyone else…. This, in spite of the fact that they are looking at, and dealing with, the same Reality as everyone else, who don’t all seem to have the same problem…. Instead of giving them a clue that maybe they should do things differently, they merely assume that the other people have cheated them somehow…. because that is what they would do….

It’s really too bad in some ways, that so large a percentage of humanity is so lacking in courage and wit as to find the view stated above to be congruent with their own view of the way the universe operates; it’s part of what makes it so easy for those in the BRC and the 1% to control them, and to pull the wool over their eyes.

These folks are so convinced of their own helplessness in the face of all they don’t understand, they will latch onto almost anything someone tells them, if it soothes their fears, and gives them someone or something other than themselves to blame for their misfortunes…. Sad, but true, and a perfect description of what has transpired in society for several thousand years now, as the BRC keeps the majority of humanity in the proverbial dark about what is true, and what is real….. They’ve had a lot of practice, and they’re very good at it….

But, then, it isn’t hard to control someone who is brainwashed to believe that it is the way reality is, so I can’t say it is due to any particularly large degree of wit or talent that allows them to do so…. It is more that the folks who they control are so stupid, they ask to be controlled, because they can’t, and more importantly, won’t, trust themselves to do it….. Sad, but true….

At his point in this narrative, I am becoming a bit enraged, a not uncommon reaction to a rant about the BRC and the 1%…. Heck, this time, I didn’t even have to mention the papists or preachers who are their shock troops, on the front lines of the brainwashing process, in order to get upset and angry over their machinations…. until now. My rage is growing, as it always tends to do when I start to rant on this subject, and I’m not ready to deal with the consequences of letting it get any bigger right now…. too much other stuff to get to today. But, just let me say this…..

Those in our society who deliberately control others for their own benefit are my enemies. I believe them to be responsible for virtually ALL of the social ills we have, as well as the global and environmental issues that are threatening our very survival as a species. They are, for their own personal benefit, hoarding the resources of the planet, and refusing to share them with the remainder of humanity, all because they can, and they want to. The welfare of others is of no concern to them, so they automatically become my foes, in my battle to try to make a world my children, and grandchild, can have the opportunity to live a full and complete life of their own, without being oppressed and controlled by assholes who don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves….. As my old martial arts instructor used to say…. “Fuck ’em….. hard.”…..

— “Bother!”, said Pooh, as he dropped his bombs.
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A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London

Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child’s death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

Dylan Thomas
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“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” — Albert Camus

Without meaning to, Albert gives me hope for the future…. or, at least, for the future success of my writing…. because, boy, if my writing doesn’t fit the description of “ridiculous beginning”, I don’t know what would! 🙂

No, really, I find this to be comforting, especially for us Bozoids, who have a very close relationship with the concept of ridiculous. I mean, it’s what we do, right? Right….. In that vein, I’m going to go old-school again today for this final pearl…. The experiment yesterday, of a completely random process of choice of the pearls to be included, went very well, so we’ll give it another roll today, and see what we can come up with, me and Smart Bee…. Having once again written this PRIOR to the choosing, I have no preconceived idea of what may happen, so, please, don’t forget your helmets and seat belts…. otherwise the insurance drones will pitch a fit….

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~~ Robert Frost

Hah!….. Fooled ya, didn’t I? While cruising Smart Bee, looking for pearls for this pearl (don’t worry about it…. I’ll explain it again someday….), I had a moment of revelation, an epiphany, so to speak, about the course of my life up to now….

I have to say, it’s been a wild ride, if not particularly dangerous in general; there have, of course, been moments of great terror, and great fear. Nobody escapes completely from life’s vicissitudes, but, mostly, I’ve been able to cruise through life smoothly, without any particular danger that wasn’t by choice (my work, for several years, didn’t fit into that “safe” category at all….).

I’ve also had my share, and more, of pain in life, both emotional and physical, especially in the last 10 years, as my physical strength wanes, and my social life has evolved in ways not particularly comfortable for me. But, I can only feel, and appreciate, that pain because I’ve also had my share, and more, of joy, joy that sustains me in those times when pain is prevalent.

So, I’ve seen, and experienced, the balance and duality that defines our existence in this universe, and come to appreciate its beauty as a whole…. and I see this, because I’ve always felt what Robert Frost spoke so eloquently in this poem, and tried to always follow the road less traveled, wherever I’ve gone in my life. I have to say, I’m glad I did…..

So, there’s your old school pearl, in a new school setting, all shiny, and glowing with its own special inner fire…. enjoy!

“I am covered with pure vegetable oil and I am writing a best seller!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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Okay, let’s see how it came out…. Gosh, that’s not too bad, all in all. During the process of putting it together, it didn’t seem all that cogent, or powerful, but, on retrospect, it’s just fine the way it is…. with only one apparent typo, and two added words, for clarity….. In the words of the Artful Dodger, I’ll take it…. and run….. 🙂 In fact, I like it enough, that this is enough….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Our fluffy maroon penguin isn’t satisfied….

Posted on February 24, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Try as I might, I don’t have it in me, much as I wish I did…. what it might be, well, your guess is as good as mine. I’m often struck in the mornings at how empty is the mind at low tide….. Then, I wake up, and it all seems so pointless. Well, maybe not pointless, but confusing, anyway. Of course, I’m used to confusion…. it sometimes seems as if confusion is a state I never leave. But, it all adds up after a while, and even if I knew what I was speaking of, I probably wouldn’t have a good way to describe it….. Nor would you….

There, hows’ that for pointless? Just thought, or rather, felt, today needed a bit of insanity at the start, just so we don’t lose track of what is important…. which is maintaining at least a semblance of normality, at least long enough to get past the social worker’s visit at noon. Why, you may ask, is a social worker coming to visit?….. I don’t know, I guess they’re worried that I’m going too crazy here by myself, and want to see if I need a companion to live with me…. Actually, that’s a lie…. there’s no social worker coming over, and I’m not in any social need…. I just made it up, because it seemed to fit the way the paragraph was headed. Then, I realized, there’s no justification for a SW, and no plot reason I can make up quick enough, so, I gave up, and told you the truth….

I suppose I might now show a little class, by turning the discussion to the concept of telling the truth…. but, what I just wrote above seems to me to be a good example of how the truth can be really, really hard to find, and recognize when its found, because, just like me, they might be making it up…. and how are you going to be able to tell?… Answer me that, Mr. Smartypants…..

Sorry, didn’t meant to call names…. As you might have guessed by now, this is sort of an experimental intro section…. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I just jumped in and started typing, almost randomly, until some direction suggested itself…. A bit like trying to put together a bicycle at Christmas, using the instructions that were written by a three year-old Japanese student of English…. “Insert tab A into hole B, to be pleasing the handlebar”….. So far, I’m not sure how its working…. y’all would be a better judge of that, cuz you’re the handlebar, so to speak…. It isn’t particularly difficult, as it’s kind of nonsensical, and I fit right into that slot….

I suppose it isn’t particularly enlightening either, so I will cease and desist for today, and get on with the scheduled dive….. At this point there is little choice left for me, without starting over, and that is way too complicated for me…. I’d probably hurt myself, whining….. Since I promised myself I wouldn’t whine any more, I will now begin to tell the truth….. Well, I should say, I’ll tell you my version of it, as I see it….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Since my mind is somewhere out in left field today, I figured I’d try an experiment, using an old-school pearl format….. Rather than having a thought in mind when I went diving for pearls, I let my unconscious mind take over, and pick whichever pearls it wanted, without really paying any attention to what they were about…. I have written this short intro PRIOR to looking at them, so I don’t know if they will fall together into a real pearl, or just sit there and look pretty, as the aphorisms they already are….. I’m a little nervous…. let’s see what Smart Bee has for us this morning, shall we?….

“Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.” — Oscar Wilde
(An interesting notion…. I may use this again for its own discussion, another time…..)

“Find out just what any people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; … The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” — Frederick Douglass, U.S Marshal, son of a slave, 1857
(See the above, re: Oscar, and, ditto….)

“Do I look like someone who cares about what God thinks?” — Zippy the Pinhead
🙂

A shot rang out, “BARNEY” hit the floor. No more purple dinosaur!”– Smart Bee
(YES!!!!!!)

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total oblivion. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me and turn my inner eye to follow its path. When the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — The Litany Against Fear (Frank Herbert, -Dune-, 1965)

“Dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch.” — L. Ron Hubbard
(I can see L. Ron, laughing himself into a puddle, as he contemplates the fact that all those Dianeticians took him seriously when he said this…..)

A king who was mad at the time,
Decreed limerick writing a crime;
But late in the night
All the poets would write
Verses without any rhyme or meter

— Smart bee
🙂

“Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
down the foggy ruins of time
far past the frozen leaves
the haunted frightened trees
out to the windy beach
far from the twisted reach
of crazy sorrow.

Ah, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
silhouetted by the sea
circled by the circus sands
with all memory and fate
driven deep beneath the waves
let me forget about today until tomorrow.

— Bob Dylan

Hmm… an interesting group…. I’ve added some comments, prompted by the pearls as I read them, but, otherwise, I think it floats by itself, don’t you? It’s kind of like a summary of stuff I write about, each with its own representative pearl…. cute!….. Onward, he cried!…..
__________________________________

A lot of you may have heard of Philip K. Dick; he was a science fiction writer in the mid- and latter-part of the twentieth century, one who achieved only moderate success during his life, but has since become one of the most revered authors in the genre, as more of his work is published and brought into the public eye. He wrote the story that was made into the movie, “Minority Report”, and several other of his novels either have been so immortalized, or are in the process of being made into films. He wrote over fifty novels, but was never been known for his poetry; in fact, before these were found, most didn’t know he wrote it at all. One of his children apparently found these three poems in his papers after his death, and I share them now, to demonstrate just how powerful his writing could be…. Enjoy!…..Note: The picture itself was found on Facebook, at the Philip K. Dick page his fans have created……
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“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.” — Adam Smith

This is so true, I want to shout it out from the rooftops…. It is the kind of insight that leads to jokes like “Lord, protect me from the works of thy followers.” which are so prevalent in our society. We’ve all witnessed the excesses of fanaticism at times, and, I’m sure, have suffered indignity of some sort at their hands at some point in our lives. Nobody escapes it, as such fanaticism is like having roaches; they are impossible to completely eradicate. Of course, there are methods of killing roaches that are foolproof (placing them in a complete vacuum, for example), but it means killing off the entire species , and the rest of us would doubtless find objections to that scenario…..

“It is hard to be brave, when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” — Piglet, Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

These simple minded fools who become fanatics, whether it is over their country, their religion, their race, or their collection of plastic flamingos, all suffer from the same lack of courage as Piglet describes here. In their case, it isn’t because they lack the ability to be “larger”, like Piglet, but because their minds see themselves as “small”, in relation to all they don’t understand, and this gives them the same sense of constant fearfulness that comes with never knowing when some larger creature will notice you, and eat you, or not notice you, and crush you under foot, with careless indifference….

“Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only that the earth is circular, but also that it is a circle of no great size. For quite a small change of position to south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon. There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead, and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or southward. …All of which goes to show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be so quickly apparent. Hence, one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the view of those who conceive that there is a continuity between the parts about the pillars of Hercules [the strait of Gibraltar] and the parts about India, and that in this way the ocean is one.” — Aristotle, De Caelo, Fourth Century B.C.

As a consequence of all that fear, most of the folks who assume fanatical stances refuse to see, or perceive, as much as they possibly can, and this includes reading, or watching, or listening to things that challenge the truth of what they have chosen to believe. The things they DO choose to believe never challenge them to think, or to go outside their comfort zone in any way; any such suggestion is viewed with anger, mistrust, and fearful rejection, no matter how nonthreatening it may be to normals…. If it doesn’t fit into their narrow little view of things, it is evil, and not to be trusted, in their minds, or what passes for one….

As the quote from Aristotle shows, mankind’s knowledge of the natural world has grown beyond the guesses and speculation that are rampant in the ancient writings about religion, and, thankfully, most of the world is able to understand, and accept the facts in question. It is only those whose fear of the universe is such that they cling to outdated, misguided systems of belief that, though they offer comfort to their preconceptions and misapprehensions, have nothing to do with the real world on any level. And, damned if they don’t get upset, and violent, when those misapprehensions are challenged in any way!…. Idiots….

Sorry, I get disgusted sometimes, especially when I think about those assholes who encourage the idiots, i.e., the priests, preachers, and other members of the priestly hierarchies…. I regard them as the WORST of humanity, in complete lock-step and purpose with that other group of reprehensible semi-humans, the BRC, or 1%, as they’re known these days in the news. The entire purpose of the religious institutions on this planet is to provide behavioral control of the population to the ruling classes, under the guise of religion, by manipulating the masses of believers into following whatever dictates the ones in power may come up with, in order to receive their heavenly rewards…. I swear, it’s the biggest, longest running scam in history….

I’ve already gone a bit overboard here, and really haven’t begun to roll with my indictment/rant yet. Since this is the last pearl for today, I’ll stop here, and just say this…. There are a lot of really stupid people on this planet, as well as a great many good, intelligent, compassionate ffolkes…. but, the money, and the power, reside with a very small number, with representatives from both groups, and as far as I can see, most of them are bat shit crazy, in the sense that they don’t care at all about any of the rest of humanity, as long as they get theirs….. We, the intelligentsia, are perhaps the only hope left to the world before it is too late…. Only if enough of us rise up and throw their sorry asses into the pits will we have a chance of seeing another millennium on our calendar…. THAT is a fact, not a guess; the evidence is there for anyone to see….

So, wake up, ffolkes, and folks, because the day is coming when you will wish you had listened to people like me…..
__________________________________

Well, it’s been a fascinating process today…. Let’s go back and see how it all came out…… Once again, I’m forced to admit, it ain’t bad…. I’ve seen, and written, better, perhaps, but, it will do for today…. I’m feeling lucky, so we’re going to fly, right from here….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..
—

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

gigoid

Scintillating displays of lug nut fasteners….

Posted on February 23, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Have you ever seen one of those silly little toy poodles, or a cockapoo, for heaven’s sake, trying to mate with a big dog? No? Hmm, me neither. Oh well, I was going to ask you a question, but, since you’ve never seen it,… Never mind….

Don’t ask, you DEFINITELY don’t want to know…. In fact, forget the above paragraph even exists…. I beg of you. If word of stuff like that gets out, I could lose my writer’s hack license….. then how would I eat? Oh, wait, it doesn’t pay me anything to write….. Well, never mind that, too….

Let’s hope third time is a charm…. We’ll try this…. Good morning! It looks to be another nice day here in California, and we’re all looking forward to the local flea and farmer’s market (or is that farmer’s flea market?…) at the center of the downtown area later today. There’s word there may be clowns…. so, keep the children and women at home, come on down, and take a few shots yourself! They allow the use of live ammo, and no penalties for collateral damages to local business, even if a clown crashes through their display window while trying to get away….

You don’t mean to tell me your town doesn’t have clown shoots? Hell, we’ve been holding them here every week for years, and the state government hasn’t ever bothered us about permits or anything. We have a direct line to the Barnum & Bailey winter HQ, where they’re happy to provide us with a number of their most nimble specimens each week, as they tend to breed like, well, clowns, when they’re in winter quarters, and they always have more lying around than they need themselves. It works out well for everyone, even the clowns, as they are fed & kept warm right up until they’re released for the shooting events….. Why, they even provide them lazy suckers with free noses!…..

Okay, my whimsy button got stuck, sorry…. I couldn’t seem to come up with anything remotely interesting to start with, so I just let my whimsy out, intending to allow it a few moments to play…. but it got stuck on some dried up Peanut Butter, and threatened to go on for quite a few paragraphs…. which COULD have been disastrous, given the tendency clowns have of getting into EVERYTHING while looking for spare jokes or hand-shake buzzers. It’s all good now, though; I think I’ve got them back in the bottle. I was afraid there for a moment, but, it worked out okay…. Nobody got squirted, did they? Good, there were more lapel flowers in that herd than was safe….

Now that I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, I will try to find the proper attitude of atonement, so the rest of this Pearl doesn’t crash and burn…. I’ve obviously pissed of the gods of literature, and must be punished. I’ll go abase myself at the altar of Smart Bee, and see if that doesn’t appease them at least a little…. I don’t know, they’re a tough room…. Oh well, little choice now…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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Smart Bee is a very interesting piece of software… a database of over a hundred thousand quotes, poems, excerpts from historical documents, entries from the Devil’s Dictionary, and numerous other fascinating bits of information. In addition to the quotes, aphorisms, and proverbs that provide me with subject matter for rants and/or discussions, it also provides me with items such as the following useful paragraph. I offer it here, to my fellow authors, as a resource for a phrase that all of us tend to use on occasion, especially those of us who write about politics or religion in modern society, or in history….. it’s quite valuable in that regard, as it gives us a large group of words from which to draw what we need for our purpose…. To wit:

“This “brain-damaged” epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numbskulled, pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, individually and in combination, isn’t it a little <fill in the blank> to be limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?” — Smart Bee

See? Now, isn’t that just perfect? Now, when you’re looking for just the right adjective to apply to some random Congressman, or Senator, or Popish sort, and you’re tired of all the ones you’ve been used to using, here is a list that will thrill the heart of any true curmudgeon. I mean, look at it! Complete, creative, and chock full of straight talk about the folks we love to hate.

What isn’t readily apparent is the versatility of this list….. Grab yourself a thesaurus (Roget’s will do….) and you’ve got an even larger universe of words from which to choose, as you can take each of those above, and plug them into the book of synonyms for an expanded list for your use. Handy, eh? And so affordable….

So, in the spirit of public giving, I hope you enjoy this little gift from gigoid, and Smart Bee, and find it to be as useful as I do…. It’s just about as good as using Shakespeare’s insults, which have been compiled in a document worthy of reproducing here…. I found this recently, though I first saw it many years ago, on a WordPress site… THE LITERARY MAN ( http://literaryman.com ), one of the blogs I follow, and had to save it for my own use…. It’s also a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to put someone down in a classic, erudite fashion…. Use it as you will….

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À Bas Ben Adhem

My fellow man I do not care for.
I often ask me, What’s he there for?
The only answer I can find
Is, Reproduction of his kind.
If I’m supposed to swallow that,
Winnetka is my habitat.
Isn’t it time to carve Hic Jacet
Above that Reproduction racket?

To make the matter more succinct:
Suppose my fellow man extinct.
Why, who would not approve the plan
Save possibly my fellow man?
Yet with a politician’s voice
He names himself as Nature’s choice.

The finest of the human race
Are bad in figure, worse in face.
Yet just because they have two legs
And come from storks instead of eggs
They count the spacious firmament
As something to be charged and sent.

Though man created cross-town traffic,
The Daily Mirror, News and Graphic,
The pastoral fight and fighting pastor,
And Queen Marie and Lady Astor,
He hails himself with drum and fife
And bullies lower forms of life.

Not that I think much depends
On how we treat our feathered friends,
Or hold the wrinkled elephant
A nobler creature than my aunt.
It’s simply that I’m sure I can
Get on without my fellow man.

~~ Ogden Nash
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“I represent a sardine!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

At this point, after reading that line, you might just be wondering if I’ve slipped my leash again…. and, you’d be justified in that thought. However, rest assured, I’m perfectly sane, if somewhat metaphorically, so it’s all good, right? Right…..

Now, such a bald statement from our old pal is liable to make one think at first that he is either kidding (not bloody likely….), or he is currently having hallucinatory delusions of being a seafood lawyer, or fish solicitor, as my British friends would say. While both of those are possible scenarios, similar in nature to Zippy’s previous episodes of verbal gymnastics, neither is correct in this instance, as I happen to know that he is teaching a lesson in metaphorical manipulation, or, as it is commonly known, lying his ass off, to keep you preoccupied while he is doing something else he doesn’t want you to see, or know about…. He’s tricky that way….

I suppose he might be trying to tell us he is a theatrical/literary agent of some sort, and has a sardine who a) has written the next best seller, entitled “The Truth About Tuna”, an exposé of the fishing industry, b) has a voice like Pavarotti, c) juggles three seahorses while riding a motorized wheelchair, or d) paints incredibly lifelike pictures of cruise ships, from an underwater view…. He might, if that is what he meant, but, it isn’t…. It is all just a distraction, a hullabaloo to draw your attention away from his real purpose, which has to do with several cases of motor oil, a rag-time band, two Senators, and a motel out on Route 666….. You really don’t want to know, now, do you?

No, really, ffolkes, I had a reason to show Zippy’s little gem off today, and it was really a good one…. So, it’s really too bad that, by the time I finished with the second paragraph above, I completely lost track of whatever it was I had to say about it….. That, of course, is embarrassing, but not as much as having to turn tail, right in the middle of a pearl, or what SHOULD have been a pearl, and go old school, just to save my ass from complete well, asininity (what else?….)….

So, here is what Smart Bee came up with, and taken together, the pearls all DO have a point…. just don’t ask me what it is, because even if I knew, I don’t think I can be trusted today to say it correctly, or even interpret it accurately…. So, you’re kind of on your own…. Don’t worry, they’re all safe, just pointed a little….Enjoy!….

“Look under enough rocks and you’ll find _something_ slimy” — Smart Bee

“And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Dunciad, Book ii, Line 34

“Don’t edit reality for the sake of simplicity.” — Smart Bee

“No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.” — Mandell Creighton (1843-1901)

“A thief believes everybody steals.” — E.W. Howe

“I have a feeling that at any time about three million Americans can be had for any militant reaction against law, decency, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, compassion and the rule of reason.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Well, there you have it, such as it is…. Ta then, luvs…..
__________________________________

I’m a bit hesitant to go back over this, but, here goes….. Well…. I seem to have been determined to keep things light today; it’s all covered with a thin coating of insane hilarity, that never quite breaks through into genuine hysteria, but indubitably hovers on the edge of falling over into pathetic silliness. I guess I had to shrug off the heaviness picked up over the last couple of days of processing stress….. Ain’t Life Grand!…..

If nothing else, it might provide y’all with a smile or two, or maybe even a chuckle…. I don’t think you need to worry, though…. I didn’t see anything that should make you blow milk or tea out through your nose from guffawing…. We always have a medical professional on call; they can be here in mere seconds, so no worries, mates…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Bubba won’t know, he’s a Rotary….

Posted on February 22, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Struggling for emotional control isn’t a new experience, not for those of us who deal with the joys of PTSD. There are times when it is impossible, and tears begin to flow at the drop of an emotion, strong or not. On those occasions, I may as well just go back to bed, because getting anything constructive done will be more effort than its worth. Other times, it’s better, to the extent that it takes more emotional impetus to break my control; those days I spend staying very busy, so that those strong emotions remain below the surface of my attention, thus allowing me a degree of control over any outbreaks of angst and salty water leakage on my face…..

So, it doesn’t surprise me, particularly, to find myself in that latter state this morning, as I spent much of the day there yesterday, and it seemed to work okay…. I got through the day without any major mishaps; no casualties, or injuries requiring stitches, and, thankfully, no major breakdowns in public. THOSE are a pain in my old butt when they happen, as I’ve always considered myself to be a person who is able to present a calm, equable demeanor to the world, and it’s humiliating to find myself on the sidewalk, waiting for a signal to change, with tears pouring down my face, while I fight back sobs….

That image doesn’t exactly fit in with my own, or, rather, with the one I would hope to present to the world at large. Unfortunately, it does fit in with my state of mind when some kind of emotional storm is produced by some stressful news, or a stressful experience of any kind, and it’s something I need to either cure, or learn to cope with, as it isn’t going to go away on its own. How I will do that remains, at least at this point, a mystery to me…. which doesn’t bode well for the immediate future….. Stop right there…..

Okay, I caught myself, so that’s good…. I was about to fall into a mind trap of my own making, one I’ve encountered previously….. I was allowing my depressive feelings to color my judgment, and using that coloration to fuel the depression itself. If I continue in that vein, I would soon be blubbering, and lost in sadness and angst for the rest of the day, so I’m glad I realized what I was doing….. I do have a tendency to let myself indulge in such maudlin depression sometimes, and fall into the trap of not seeing how I’m keeping myself there…. It takes a while sometimes for me to catch up to myself, and dig my way out, so I’m glad I realized where I was headed, and took that hard turnaround in the last paragraph…..

Okay, so here’s where we ended up….. it’s all crap, but it’s five plus paragraphs of fair prose, if somewhat querulous in subject matter, and presentation, so I’m going to let the intro fly the way it is…. We’ll go on from here, to the daily dive, into the incredibly vast ocean of human thought, and see if I can’t find something a bit less peevish, and a bit more erudite about which to write…. as our old friend and incurable optimist, John Carter, said, on the occasion of his first trip to Mars….. “While I live, there is hope!”…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Albert, though absolutely correct in his assessment of the danger of atomic war, was somewhat premature in this prediction of the form our doom will take. He, himself, were he alive today, would probably agree that we now face a much graver, if no less permanently fatal, danger, one with even more grave consequences for humanity than an atomic holocaust. There is a possibility, slim though it may be, that we could survive an atomic war, though civilization would be in greatly reduced circumstances. The danger we now face is worse, in that it allows no possibility whatsoever that we will survive it at all….. None….

I’m referring, of course, to the effects of global warming, and the continuing assault on the environment made inevitable by human greed and avarice, and to humanity’s massive denial of the facts that are being shoved in our faces. This denial is so strongly entrenched that it prevents most people from even looking at the evidence that is available, because, mostly, they don’t WANT to see it. It makes them afraid to even think about the subject, so they refuse to do so, in spite of the fact that doing so will eventually cause their demise, as well as that of everyone, and everything, they hold dear….

I spend a lot of time, and words, on trying to convince people that this issue is not one that is going to go away, and will not be solved by ignoring, or by denying, its presence. I try to always point out that none of my predictions are confined to this blog, that there is ample scientific evidence, freely available, online, or in libraries, and news reports, that shows very clearly just how little time we have left to stop our depredations on the environment, and that demonstrates quite plainly how critical it is to find some way to correct the damage we’ve done. Otherwise, there is absolutely no doubt at all that we, as a species, will join the ranks of the Dodo, and the T-Rex, and all the other promising life forms that once existed on Earth, that are now extinct.

If you have, or know of, any evidence to the contrary, I hope you will be kind enough to show me where I can look at it; I would be thrilled to find some hopeful data on the subject. However, I’m fairly confident no one will take me up on that, because, to my extensive knowledge, there is no such evidence, so it would be hard to produce out of thin air…. which is what we all will be breathing in the relatively near future….

Normally, at this point, I’d go into my usual rant about the responsible parties in this mess, to wit: the Beloved Ruling Class, otherwise known as the 1%, or the Corporate Masters and their Pious Lackeys, the Priestly Hierarchies and Political Hacks…. They hide behind their private estate, or bureaucratic, or sacred, reinforced concrete walls, and watch, as the rest of us labor on their behalf, as the atmosphere continues to become overloaded with millions of tons of particulate matter every second, and the oceans are filled up with toxic unnatural substances that cannot be destroyed, or eaten, or otherwise used to enhance life. Our planet is being turned into a refuse dump, and we are about to lose our jobs as subsidized scavengers…..

Today, however, I’m reserving my anger for the Universe at large, for its cruel, dispassionate treatment of me and my family, so I don’t want to take the time for my usual indictment of those assholes…. Besides, there’s always tomorrow, right? I can say that now, and maybe for a time, but, I won’t be able to always say it…. We have been served our final notice of eviction ffolkes, and, any folks listening in…. The landlord, a lady by the name of Gaia, is tired of our constant degradation of the property, and wishes us to vacate, so they can repaint, and put down new carpets…..

“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle — to get one’s head cut off.” — Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass”
__________________________________

Random Visions/Coloring Between the Lines of Grief

Everywhere is dark, and shining,
with points in dissonant pain.
Sharp, senses dull past divining,
tears burn, a torrential rain.

Escape! Flee within to cower,
find an unconscious cave.
Call on Morpheus’ power
deny reality’s beckoning wave.

Light breaks, drawing the inner eye,
leading to the slippery slope.
Risk is critical, we may only sigh,
yet welcome, for bringing hope.

Sanity seems far out of reach
Insanity’s a stronger friend.
Decisions made will merely teach
our way toward Death to wend.

Lost, while still on familiar ground,
the future yet undesigned.
Making way on paths unfound,
to Now, as yet undefined.

~~ gigoid
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“Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul.” — Bhagavad Gita (c. B.C. 400)

I first read the Bhagavad Gita when I was about 17, and, along with the Tao Teh Ching, it has had a profound effect on my life, and the attitudes I bring to living it. The above verses are what led me to my belief in the mind’s immortality, as a form of energy like any other in this Universe, thus, subject to the Law of Conservation of Energy. This has served to remove the fear from Death for me, as I am now able to view it as a mere change of form, to one whose characteristics I do not know, or remember, from previous changes. (How would you know you were alive, unless you had once been dead?) Once fear is removed, Death becomes just another part of living, and is welcome as such, for the inherent beauty it possesses as the complement to Life…..

“All anger arises out of obstructed desire.” — Bhagavad Gita

This is the second verse from the book that I found to be extremely valuable in learning to live with dignity, with honor, and without fear. This statement, by its very nature, implies that our anger is under our control, placing it into our bag of assets to be used when needed, rather than in our bag of liabilities, or, emotions that keep us from reaching our potential as humans, like fear, anger, greed, etc….. Fear can be seen as the desire to be safe from harm, obstructed, and thus comes under the aegis of our emotions that can be changed, by merely changing our desire…. By learning to deal with fear, anger becomes our ally, rather than our enemy…..

In turn, these two principles, when used conjointly, give us the emotional freedom to make clear decisions about reality’s demands and issues, without our emotional responses coloring the decisions with their negative outlook, and tendency toward denial and obstruction. We become immune, or at least, indifferent, to the emotional storms that plague most people’s minds and hearts, for we know how to adjust our attitudes to suit the conditions under which we find ourselves, instead of falling prey to letting the circumstances dictate our response. True freedom, indeed…

Today, when I found this, I was immediately reminded of all of these ideas; concepts I had lost track of in the distractions of living. As I remembered, the pain and anger I’ve been feeling since hearing the news of my brother’s illness fell away, no longer able to sustain their hold over my emotions. I am once more able to see how this is not an issue to be angry about, but rather one to use as an opportunity to grow, and to perhaps be able to give my brother the love and support he needs, despite what he may want, in his own grief…. He is afraid, and trying to keep from either showing, or sharing that fear with his family, and I won’t allow him to die that way, or to be without his family, when it is so unnecessary…..

So, I am feeling better in that respect, and though I am still filled with sadness, I know now that is just my own self-pity, feeling sorry for myself for having to face HIS death, which reminds me of my own…. Grief is, in truth, misplaced in looking at death, and in reality is more of a solace for the living, than it is a tribute to the dead; our grief is more a feeling of loss in ourselves than it is sorrow for their passing. But, it is not a time for sadness, ultimately, but rather a chance to acknowledge the beauty of a Universe that gives us this opportunity to experience the change in our consciousness….

I’m betting that when we change over, we are in a place where our minds are much more in tune with the very base of reality, and able to direct the formation of the next form it takes…. Hey, that makes as much sense as any of the other suggestions of what happens that I’ve heard, and has the advantage of fitting the facts of observable, recordable reality, pretty precisely….. and if I’m wrong, well, I’ll deal with that when I get there…. 🙂

I’ll tell you this quite frankly…. if the Christians are right, or the Muslims, or any of the other organized institutional churches, then I will definitely have a few words for whatever is passing itself off as God, to answer for the actions of His/Her/Its followers…. and I won’t be taking any BS for a response….

“And now there is merely silence, silence, silence, saying all we did not know.” — William Rose Benet
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Well, I don’t know about y’all, but I feel MUCH better…. Proof positive, better out than in…. Ffolkes, what we have here is a Pearl of Virtual Wisdom, of the finest grade, shiny and new, and all original, outside the few short quotes…. Get it while it’s still steaming! Me, I’m gonna go enjoy the sunshine, while I can…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Posted on February 21, 2013 by gigoid

It’s a shame this is necessary, to petition for that which ought to be simple reality…. Please join in the declaration, and share this with your friends….

Ralphie´s Portal

Since dolphins and whales can not speak for themselves, someone should do it for them. Please join me in signing this petition.

From http://www.cetaceanrights.org/:

Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans: Whales and Dolphins.
Based on the principle of the equal treatment of all persons; Recognizing that scientific research gives us deeper insights into the complexities of cetacean minds, societies and cultures; Noting that the progressive development of international law manifests an entitlement to life by cetaceans; We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and wellbeing. We conclude that:
Every individual cetacean has the right to life.
No cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be removed from their natural environment.
All cetaceans have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural environment.
No cetacean is the property of any State, corporation, human group or…

View original post 174 more words

Some lessons are more painful than others….

Posted on February 21, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
As much as I enjoy these morning interludes with the blogging world, there is still a certain degree of fear that goes along with publishing one’s own writing for others to read. One is, after all, exposing the inner self to the world, which, historically, has a habit of treating inner selves rather shabbily, or even cruelly, especially when they are shown for the first time, and often thereafter. It’s perhaps the biggest risk we take by deciding to share our thoughts with the world at large, a risk that is very real, and anyone with less than military grade armor protecting their ego is in serious jeopardy….

My own fear is no match for my ego, though, never has been, so it’s never been an issue for me…. I couldn’t wait to start blogging, as I’ve had stuff to say about life and society for many years, with no outlet for my outrage, or my angst, or my decidedly odd sense of humor. Once I was retired, and discovered that I had all the time I wanted to write, I jumped in without any discernible hesitation, taking to it like a duck takes to water….. but, happily, without the water all over my butt….. 🙂

Then, of course, Murphy came to live with me, as he found his perfect target in my attempted routines, my attempted regular posts, my attempted sleep, and all the other parts of life that he found he could so easily distort and pervert, such that I never know where the next conundrum will surface. I seem to be a fertile field for his machinations, and ever since, oh, a week or so into this time period, since I began blogging, he has made it his life’s work to find a new way to fuck with me, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY!!! If it weren’t such a pain in the ass, I might feel special (cue Gilda Radner’s Church Lady voice for that last word….).

I didn’t mind so much, until the wearisome events surrounding living in poverty began to mount up into a mass that even my well-buried depression couldn’t keep hidden, and my PTSD became a daily issue, with the advent of unpredictable emotional storms, causing me to burst into tears at the slightest stress, or the thought of any stressful concept…… Concepts of a stressful nature….. yeah….

Such as when I found out yesterday that my older brother has been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, and has decided not to take the treatments that might extend his life, to save his family from financial ruin…. It’s a decision that isn’t surprising; our father made the same one.

But, the butthead might have informed his brother(s) of it, so he(they) didn’t have to find out when he called to wish a happy birthday….. (Actually, I don’t know if he told my “little” brother…. if he did, and he didn’t call me, either of them, I’m afraid we are going to have to exchange a few words…. They may need to be reminded of who they are dealing with, and the proper protocols needed to keep from getting their sorry asses kicked…. I may be old, and getting feeble, but, I am still their brother, and I can still be dangerous when aroused….)

As you might guess, this little revelation has thrown me for a bit of a loop, and I don’t really even know how I feel, other than tearfully sad, fearfully mad, and a hundred other powerful emotions I can’t even name. So tearful, a break is needed, to get rid of some annoying fluid build-up that is common when I cry….. I’ll be back…. Okay, well, that didn’t work out so well….

I’m going to have to resort to more emergency procedures today, in order to get this Pearl done. I don’t know why, exactly, but it seems important to do so today. So, in sections one and three, where there would normally be a rant or two, I’m going old school, because that’s all I can do for now. I’ll do my best to make them potent pearls, even though they won’t be as floridly original, or as clear, I’m sure. At this point, enough emotion is swirling around inside me that a poem may just break out in section two, but, if not, I’ll find something sufficiently compelling in a more classical selection, if I can hold it together that long…..

I’m going to go for a dive now, and see if I can drown a bit of this sorrow in knowledge…. I have hopes, because aphorisms have always been a source of comfort to me in times of need…. So, I’ll stop torturing y’all now, and get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?….

“When you get older you have to be careful about always saying, “Things aren’t as good as they used to be.” But it’s hard not to.” — Andy Rooney
(I don’t much like Andy Rooney, but even a blind dog can find a bone some days….)

— Bother! said Pooh, on his deathbed.
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I was a bit nervous as to how this might turn out, given my state of mind, or lack thereof, but, Smart Bee seems to be in a compassionate mood, for a software program, anyway, so maybe it will all be okay….. Here are five pearls, each with their own message for the world to consider….. I particularly like the first one, and the last, and they DO help the pearl make its point…. That point’s a bit subtle, even for me, but, it’s there, if you wish to look for it, and it’s not bad….

“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time–a tremendous whack.” — Sir Winston Churchill

“A time to be born; a time to die.” — Ecclesiastes 3:2

“Allow your children to face the consequences of their actions.” — Brown

“If you ever feel like you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown, just follow these simple rules: First, calm down; second, come over and wash my car; third, shine all my shoes. There, isn’t that better?” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

“If possible, try to find a way to come downstairs that doesn’t involve going bump, bump, bump, on the back of your head. -” — Pooh in Winnie the Pooh A.A. Milne, English author (1882-1956)

See? As I’ve been known to say previously, it’s all in the wrist….
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What I said above about Smart Bee’s apparent empathy today seems to be accurate…. When considering poetry to fill this space today, after determining there is no poem of my own ready to come out, it showed me an excerpt from a Yeats poem, which prompted me to go find these two gems, both of which fit my mood today, as well as the apparent theme, obviously chosen by Reality…. Enjoy!…

A Friend’s Illness

SICKNESS brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?

William Butler Yeats

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Dream Of Death

I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
{She was more beautiful than thy first love,}
{But now lies under boards.}

William Butler Yeats
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Here is a seven star pearl for your perusal, as a finish to today’s effortful outpouring of confusion…. Smart Bee was again very cooperative, giving up this group in less than forty clicks, an astounding rate of success, especially given how it has performed already today. One could get the impression that it was AI software, and was reacting with compassion to my pained mental static….. Lest that be untrue, or, in case it is, I’ll not suggest otherwise…

Meantime, here are seven pearls, that just fall together into an attractive shape, no matter which way you jumble them up…. enjoy! Should it be necessary, there are cleaning solutions and tools in the cabinet by the pantry, including items to clean your clothing, in the event of spills or splashes…. We’re big on safety here, but, Life can be dangerous, especially when dealing with ideas…. unpredictable little buggers…. Why, I’ve seen them jump right out of a frying pan, into a fire…. imagine that!….

“What UNIVERSE is this, please??” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Two wrongs are only the beginning.” — Kohn’s Corollary to Murphy’s Law

“To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe. That’s why I think it’s important to get high. I’m not talking about unconscious or zonked out. I’m talking about being fully conscious.” — Jerry Garcia

One ship drives east and the other drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Winds of Fate

“The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.” — Alfred North Whitehead

“Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.” — W. H. Auden, _Shorts_

Lastly, a perfect find for today…. The counter-curse to the one I received long ago, when the ancient Chinese gentleman said to me, “May you have an interesting life.”….. Now all I have to do is find a competent, ~~relatively cheap,~~ er, inexpensive necromancer to say it to me….

“May you live in uninteresting times.” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

I can’t speak to how today’s effort has been for y’all, but, it has helped me a lot, to regain enough composure to get the rest of the way through the day. The process of creating a Pearl has always been therapeutic, (a big part of why I started in the first place….), and today has served to solidify that characteristic for me…. My only remaining hope is that I haven’t bored anyone to their own tears, or offended anyone enough to lose them in the process, but, that’s always a gamble in this universe, so….

In looking back over this, I have to say, it came out pretty well, all things considered…. Now comes the tough part…. Reality awaits me, outside the door, and I can’t ignore its call this time…. Ah well, such is life…. it goes on, with or without our approval or cooperation, so I may as well try to enjoy the ride while it lasts, for, as the Scots say, I’ll be a long time dead…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

gigoid

Running fast in sequined socks….

Posted on February 20, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
A soft breeze stirs the fragrant air, scents of exotic flowers mingling with the calls of sea birds circling over the beach, adding to the sense of serene isolation. Slow, rhythmic, the murmur of waves brushing against the sandy shore serve as background to the racing thoughts of the man lying on a lounge chair, near the sparkling water of the infinity pool. Long, pale, slender, the man sits up, brushing a hand through his luxurious hair, as he gazes around the pool area, constantly searching for anomalous shadows. His eyes, dark, with heavy brows, narrow in speculation as the door leading to the bar flies open, emitting a blast of sound from the blaring jukebox, rudely dispelling the quiet of the night…..

Not too shabby, I think, but, I’m stuck right where I left it, with no clue as to where to go from there. Too many choices, I suppose, and given my track record over the last two days, I’m not going to make any choices whatsoever…. What a bloody cock-up, as my friends across the water would say, if they were as vulgar as I am…. There were some rather good high points, but, several moments of sheer terror, as I realized just how bozoid I can be sometimes, and embarrassment washed over me for the stupidity I displayed…. Yes, ffolkes, me, stupid, all in the same sentence, and quite more intimately acquainted than intended, let me assure you…..

First, the EOA episode on Monday, when I transposed the names of Ayn Rand and Anais Nin in my head, so firmly that I exchanged one for the other several times in one rant, all about the WRONG person’s ideas…. I think the correct words to use would be….. hang on a sec, the thesaurus is across the room….. okay, that would be…. either “tiresomely ignorant” or “completely lacking in wit”, take your pick. Both are appropriate, though each is just slightly short of the mark in terms of degree…. perhaps, “incredibly dim” would fit best….

Yes, almost a thousand words, possibly more, all based on my dyslexic confusion of authors who were not even the same sex, much less clones that could be confused on sight…. No, just my own stupid habit of not checking what is coming out of my head for accuracy, a habit that I need to break, as it doesn’t fit with my own beliefs in the scientific method. Checking sources for accuracy should be automatic, and I skip that step far too often…. There is no possible excuse other than laziness, and that is an unacceptable reason, in my book….

Second in my list of faux pas, I had a long, very interesting dialogue with a reader from Europe (I know this, because Spell Checker tells me…. the spelling of two words by the Euro method, i.e. “ise” instead of “ize” at the end, is a dead giveaway….). We spent a couple of hours trading comments, and I was thoroughly charmed to be so gently put in my place as a curmudgeon gone mad…. This reader was compassionate, sensible, and erudite, and used many of my own thoughts to remind me of why I should hold on to hope for the future. I was very pleased to have met and traded ideas with such a fine philosopher…. a philosopher whom I assumed was a man, but, in reality is a woman….. DOH! (Picture an old fart slapping his forehead with his open hand….)

Yes, once again, in my mad rush to fulfill my own internal agenda, I skipped over details that would have given me a clue to the fact that my assumptions were erroneous. I’m getting tired of the embarrassment factor, and will, you can be sure, making some procedural changes in my head. I’ll also be watching out much more closely to make sure that what I’m saying, and writing, is true and complete to the best of my knowledge. Reality doesn’t DEMAND that we pay heed to the principle of notary public, but, it sure makes it less frequently embarrassing if we do….

Well, having consumed a pretty fair-sized portion of crow, I am going to try to suppress my nausea long enough to at least finish this intro, and then get on with the dive for today. I think I’ve covered all I need to in regards an apology; now all I have to do is wait for the guilt and angst to fade away…. no worries. I know that this intro is risking losing interest, but, I had to get this stuff out of my head, to make room for all the nonsense that needs to be let out into the light of day, before it causes any further trouble…. Better out than in, right?…. Shall we Pearl?…..

“For getting attention, there’s nothing like a good, big, mistake!” — Bozo the Clown, Tuesday, 1963
__________________________________

Okay, here is the deal…. Each of the following is a pearl of virtual wisdom, and each one can be categorized into a different group than each of the others, to wit, in order: Art, Science, Politics, Sex and Psychology (Sexy Psychology), and Philosophy. As you can see, the categories together make a fairly wide, fairly accurate description of Life at Large, or as we call it here, Consensual Reality. Each has its own message for the universe, with its own kernel of wisdom buried inside….

However, even though they don’t seem to have anything at all to do with one another, they are all subsets of the larger category, and, as such, worthy of inclusion here. The point they make, taken together, would probably drive the average reader insane, but, I have faith and trust in the perspicacity and flexibility of the readers of this blog…. Hell, if they weren’t capable of those characteristics, they wouldn’t be hanging around here for long…. Taken together, the point is blunted, but nonetheless effectively wise, as virtual wisdom goes….

Due to the patently obscure nature of this pearl, not only will it NOT be on the Final Test, but, you will receive bonus points for never mentioning where you saw it…. We here at ECR will, in turn, never mention that you were here…. Don’t forget your helmets and body armor….

‘I don’t mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don’t understand.” — Sir Edward Appleton

Relativity for Children: Time moves slower in a fast moving vehicle. — Smart Bee

“One claim for the value of the British monarchy is that its existence precludes anyone from aspiring to absolute rule. I have a theory that the American presidency serves a similar purpose, precluding anyone from managing the government.” — Smart Bee

“One of the prison psychiatrists asked me if I thought sex was dirty, and I said it is if you’re doing it right.” — Woody Allen, “Take the Money and Run”

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” — Buddha (B.C. 568-488)

I think they made a movie about these pearls…. starring Jack Nicholson, in one of his finest performances.. It was called, “Five Easy Pieces”, and I never understood it at all, until reading this pearl…. Who knew?…. 🙂
__________________________________

Lately I’ve been exploring the poetry of Sylvia Plath, a poetess I’d never delved into before last year, for reasons that are irrelevant to this discussion. What I’ve found is an incredibly talented wordsmith, and a ton of poems I haven’t previously enjoyed…. so, I’m doing so now…. This one doesn’t have any particularly intimate meaning for me, I just like it, as it is a good demonstration of the depth of her talent…. Enjoy!

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

~~ Sylvia Plath

Wow… those last two lines just grasp your shirt-front and shake, don’t they?….. Whew!…. 🙂
__________________________________

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” — Mark Twain

As I sit here, I can almost feel myself getting older…. It seems to be a predilection of being this age, that one becomes somewhat introspective, looking back over our time here on Earth, and making judgments about what we’ve done, or are guilty of leaving undone, in our lives. This preoccupation seems to be innate, but, I don’t necessarily see a lot of it in others my age, in my experiences out in society at large.

Here, on WordPress, the normal demographics of population diversity seems to run a bit higher, in that respect, than it does out in the Big Blue Room…. probably something to do with the fact that those here on this site are, if nothing else, highly educated enough, and/or affluent enough, to partake in the Internet’s community dialogue…. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that there are still millions of folks out there who have never, and never will, see any of what transpires here, for whatever reason, educational, financial, or merely indifference…. In that group of people, those my age are concerned much of the time with survival, and tend to be directed outward, to deal with the mechanics of that critical issue.

To that group, introspection is a luxury they cannot afford to indulge in themselves, as it takes time away from activities and mental attitudes necessary for surviving. I have been living on the edge of that group for a couple of years now, and can only be thankful that I am close enough to the edge to be able to afford this luxury; I do have to make sacrifices to have it, so I appreciate it a lot. It was a pain in the derrière, literally, to have to leave home to find internet access, so, not having to do so is a big plus for me.

In my time of introspection, I’ve spent a lot of it fighting off guilt, for the things I’ve done in my life that don’t meet with my own approval, as so aptly referred to by Mr. Twain. We all have those things hidden in our memories, those failures of ethical or moral standards we set for ourselves, and looking back on them is hard, as there is nothing we can do to change it. We have to learn to forgive ourselves for such transgressions, because no one else, not even God, if ones choose to believe in the traditional dogma, can change the past. (Query: Can God build a wall so strong He can’t knock it down, or a rock so heavy He can’t pick it up?…. Just wondered; sorry, little side trip….)

Since we cannot change the past, nor go back and try to make things better, if nothing else, we must learn to hold those little kernels of painful memory inside us, and find a way to deal with the little nugget of discomfort that will always accompany such memories. It is a delicate procedure, as we must deal with chastising and scolding our own selves, while still maintaining our self-love, without which we can never be comfortable, or comforted. One cannot accept love from another unless they feel it is deserved; it will sour and spoil all the flavor of the interaction, dooming it to failure, and pain.

How do we maintain this self-image of someone who is worthy of being loved by others? Well, that, my friends, is a very long story, indeed, and one I’m not going to start here and now, as it could be days before I surfaced again, and we’re already at the point where most folk’s minds, as well as those of regular ffolkes, will be losing interest, unless I pull some literary magic, or set off some figurative fireworks. Currently, my supply of fireworks is low, so we’ll leave a deeper discussion of this subject for another time. For now, let me say this….

We are all creatures of a Universe that puts a premium on flexibility, especially of mind. This flexibility is enhanced when we spend time on ourselves, in introspection, and inner dialogue, and is ultimately part of what is the only way to ever really achieve any balance or stability in life. It gives us the proper perspective on how we fit into the rest of the picture, and points the way to the greatest degree of successful interaction with the other parts of that universe. It is the best way to stay in touch with what we are, and what we need to be, to survive, and to make our lives meaningful in some way.

“We are injured and hurt emotionally – not so much by other people or what they say or don’t say – but by our own attitude and our own response.” — Maxwell Maltz, “Psycho-Cybernetics”

Well worth a dollar, or a moment or two of your time, I’d say…. Try something new and different, spend some time in your own head…. Of course, one should (careful, there’s that word!….) be cautious in this, as with any potentially mind-altering activity like mindful introspection…. You never know when a preconceived notion will jump up and bite you….. and those ingrained prejudices can be hard to spot, as they tend to hide behind walls of ignorance and fear….. Remember yesterday’s pearl…. The Snark might actually be a Boojum…. Catch it, cook it, eat it with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, and then get on with your life…. 🙂
__________________________________

All things considered, today’s effort will make the grade…. which, given the struggle I had to produce it, is a good thing. I feel as if I’ve gone six rounds with the champ…. but, I think I won, if only on points awarded for honesty, and the bruises will fade in time….. Since I can’t really think of anything further I can do to cause trouble, or to cure any, I guess I’ll go find something constructive to do until the library opens, and I can go find a book to read…. gigoid has spoken; so be 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

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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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Monthly Archives: February 2013

Engaging in palliative syncopation….

Safely insane amid the noise and tedium…..

Don’t bust your gaiters, boy, it’ll get bigger….

Occasionally, it floated sideways….

Our fluffy maroon penguin isn’t satisfied….

Scintillating displays of lug nut fasteners….

Bubba won’t know, he’s a Rotary….

Some lessons are more painful than others….

Running fast in sequined socks….

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