Yesterday, in the afternoon, I had a period of what I call F.T.D. time, (fuck the doctor) in which my attention required distraction from physical issues… In short, I went pearling, to keep from giving in to screaming bones and twitching muscles, (courtesy of 2 ignorant Kaiser employees who mistakenly call themselves doctors…), which generally makes me want to hurt things…. Any who, I found an old intro that was, to be frank, amazingly strange and wonderful, for some reason… It’s long, and it wanders around unmercifully…. but, it got where it meant to go, and did it with some aplomb… I like it so much, I’m going to subject you to it again, and I don’t even care I may lose half my readers in the process…

Here, then, is the intro section from 6/24/2014….

Ffolkes,

Seemingly, my ego knows no bounds…. or, I’m becoming too much a blogger, having lost track of what is important in the search for material about which to write EVERY DAY…. I also figured out it’s the ‘every’ part that makes the difference; once one has committed to a fresh post each day, there is no more leniency allowed…. or so it seems to me….

Ego, though, is NOT allowed to be the driving force behind all I do; that particular battle has been waging inside me for most of my life, ever since I learned allowing ego to drive one’s bus is to court a life full of misery and pain, not always my own…. which only makes it worse. So, I try to focus on duty, instead, which may have elements of ego in it, from the process of choosing, but, duty, by its nature, and by what I was taught about it, does not lend itself well to ego driven choices. As one who accepts the entire concept of duty, as well as what it means, one realizes duty to others is the only one that counts toward earning self-respect….

I suppose all that’s a pretty high-falutin’ chain of reasoning, basically amounting to an outburst of well, bullshite, ostensibly lamenting my lateness, which, today, is great, indeed…. Having slept an hour past my normal time to arise, the coffee, while ready, has been cooking for all that time, and should make up the difference in time by loading me up with a truly massive dose of caffeine in the first cup…. I can attest, actually, as I can feel my typing speed increasing as I type this sentence…. Not bad, eh? Another couple blathering, wandering paragraphs, and this will look just like a Pearl that started on time…. whatever that may be…..

Face it now, ffolkes…. when I’m this late, there’s no telling what may happen; this process is already about as random as I can make it…. When fate steps in to fuss with the timing, or the layout, or any of the interior furnishings, the degree of randomness only increases, not arithmetically, but, worse, hyperbolically…. which, though, perhaps, a bit canny, is NOT in itself hyperbole…. Besides, I really meant to write the word, “parabolic”, which is the correct word for my meaning…. hyperbolic merely describes the end result better, as it’s meaning implies a parabola with a slope approaching infinity…..

I should know…. hyperbole is one of my favorite tools as a writer, especially when writing about politicians, or preachers, who both have made the use of hyperbole a part of their everyday patterns of communication…. If you don’t believe me, just go listen to a sermon, or a political speech some day, counting the number of times the pastor-person employs it in their speech; it might just amaze you….. Me, I got tired of it, so I don’t much listen any more…. Of course, in my case, that started at about age 4, so I’ve had lots of practice at ignoring their nonsense….

Look, it’s an intro! Not just ANY intro, either…. It’s got a mini-rant flavor to it, and actually sets the stage for what MAY come after…. I can guarantee no fresh rant today; there isn’t time to go further into that sort of byplay with my targets with what is left of my morning. But, that’s okay, I’ve got a good one on tap from the archives, as mentioned earlier this week…. The Wise Old Pine Cone is gone for a day or two, attending a tournament down south with his paduan…. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go with them, so I won’t have any pictures of that…. The old one has promised me I could take some shots of an upcoming lesson when he returns, so, that will be good…. For now….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” — Oscar Wilde, “Oscariana”

Not too shabby, I’d say…. Let’s get right on with today’s mess….

Shall we Pearl?….

From 3/17/2013:

“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

I’ve used this quote previously, usually as part of a group of pearls leading to some point or another; it’s a very good quote, strong, positive, with a solid essence of meaning. It’s also damn good advice, which I try to heed at every opportunity I give myself to rant…. Winnie had a very good point here, mainly because he had the task of getting an entire island full of asses who believe themselves to be independent minded to work together to save those selfsame asses from the Germans, who were themselves displaying their own form of assholiness…. A bloody disgusting task, if you ask me, but, he was obviously the man for the job, as he seldom gave a shit about what anyone else thought, about much of anything….

The insight shown in this statement, however, is much deeper than is at first apparent…. Winnie understood that the average Englishman, as is true for the whole planet, as a rule of thumb, is pretty stupid, and stubborn to boot, being mostly unwilling to listen to anything they don’t wish to hear, whether smart or dumb, much less see any need to act on it. This, as might be clear to others, as it is to me, is NOT a particularly valuable frame of mind if one wishes to survive, and Winnie, knowing his people, was quite willing to use a two-by-four as his primary teaching tool to get his points across to the idiots he was forced to deal with during WWII….

Sad to say, this stupidity on the part of the larger part of humanity continues to this day…. Witness, if you will, the current crop of movies, if you wish to get a clue as to where the mind of humanity is focused…. It may amaze you, and will most likely depress you, to see that there is not a single movie about anything more serious than adolescent acne anywhere to be seen… Oh, there are what are termed psychological thrillers, but, they are mostly just shock literature, designed to make a good screenplay more than to explore the human psyche…. Nothing out there is remotely intelligent, because there just isn’t a market for it…..

I’m not proposing any solutions here; this is strictly a gripe session, for my benefit only. I get so tired of watching the parade of human events, because it so often turns sad, and depressing, to see how stupid and ignorant people can be…. and how cowardly most people are in asserting morality in public…. You know a society is going downhill when the police drive around acting as if they are under siege, and the people do not trust them at all to show either fairness, or restraint. In the town where I live, the worst traffic offenders I see on a daily basis are the police, who set the worst possible example for other drivers, even, and especially, when they are NOT responding to calls….

And the government wonders why nobody trusts them? Our society is sick, ffolkes, and I’m out here with my pile driver to hit that point again. That last paragraph was my second hit, and now, the tremendous whack of which Winnie spoke….

We are all responsible for the sorry state of the world, equally…. Those of us who are not actively engaged in actions which are destructive, are guilty of not speaking up often enough to get the attention of those who are, nor are we engaged in doing anything which will stop their deliberate depredations. They are guilty of being assholes, yes…. but we are all guilty of complicity in that, and can claim no less responsibility for when we fall down the hole we’ve been digging for ourselves…. And, that is the TRUTH….

“I’m amoral, and it’s been bothering my conscience.” — Smart Bee

“To escape criticism — do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” — Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” — Romans 2:1

(I’ve always maintained there is a lot of good advice in the Bible, as long as one doesn’t go all fanatic about its origin…. this is a perfect example of that contention….)

The most significant part for me is that all of these gems were given to me by SB in one swell foop…. Yep, the first seven pearls I looked at were these…. I think that says something about synchronicity, as well as serendipity, two of the nicer manifestations of the forces of entropy in our world…. Enjoy!….

“No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.” — Quintus Ennius

“Do not turn back when you are just at the goal.” — Publius Syrus — Maxim 580

“Je plie et ne romrs pas. (I bend and do not break.)” — Jean de la Fontaine

“I am defeated, and I know it, if I meet any human being from whom I find myself unable to learn anything.” — George Herbert Palmer

“…the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too big; for he knows that there is not limit to dimensions.” — Lao Tzu

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes– we have no wish to find them alike.” — Pascal

“What is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.” — Albert Camus

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Given the circumstances under which today’s Pearl was constructed, the mere fact it is done should be noted for historical relevance; few instances in the long history of mankind will demonstrate the degree of silliness, and sheer irrelevance, shown here today. Not only that, but, it was completed completely in the nude!

Not really; it’s a bit chilly for that; but, I was nude under my clothes; does that count? Yes, I’m a bit punchy. It may not look like it, but, this one took a lot out of me, in spite of the lack of fresh material…. Oh well, enough whining; we’ve all got better stuff to do, now this is out of the way. Y’all should go do that, and so shall I…. I’ll be back tomorrow, ffolkes; that’s the only warning you’ll get…..