Often, in the small hours of the dark morning, my constant companion awakens me to begin the day, pushing me up with the hope of finding more peace than can be found abed, where time becomes an enemy in the lee of midnight…. I gaze at the screen, once my mind is caught up to my eyes, wondering what I can find here to ease the whirling, spinning maelstrom which confronts me out here in the real world of consciousness. I can feel the weight of time, sitting on my shoulders, bringing memories of both joy and pain, denying hope, politely, and, oh, so cruel, with its constant, relentless barrage of what seems to be a multitude of small, yet vicious invisible mites, biting, biting, each and every one of my nerves, one after the other….

My doctor, it seems, doesn’t believe in my pain, for he/she wants me to give up the most stable source of any real peace I’ve had in the past 40 years. The prurient, prudish morality of a soulless behemoth masquerading as a “corporate person”, otherwise known as a Health Maintenance Organization, has decided that it is within their purview to decide for me what the proper treatment for my condition is, without any consideration at all for what that arrogance will do TO me…. Because I insist on making my own decisions about the best way to treat my pain, and my PTSD, they are willing to literally blackmail me with the threat of my own pain to protect themselves from their own imaginary bogies, which they are afraid will leave them open to litigation, thus taking away from their profit margin, the purpose for their entire existence….

But, that, unfortunately, is ranting, which is, at this juncture, both too early, and too big a subject to try to address in the intro…. not to mention the inappropriateness of such a discussion in public, at all…. But, in the mood I’m in, (as indicated by the obvious self-portrait in the first paragraph….), what the fuck do I care what’s appropriate? In fact, now that I think of it, the opening quote from Zippy is perfectly apt for today…. Fuck ’em all, I say. Bring any of them to me, and I shall make them meat…. All I ask is your silence, and some help in disposing of the evidence….

No? Well, no worries, nobody has died yet….. but, the day is young…. A good portion of today’s Pearl was completed yesterday, and the day before, as my newly developed method of writing has become more of a routine, choppy though it is, with its necessary breaks every ten or fifteen minutes to find another (relatively) comfortable position in which to type, or to walk around to stretch, and allow the skeleton to come to terms with the pain currently assailing most of my joints…. It’s a bit choppy, but, it works for me….

Another advantage of this system is the increased vigilance it allows me, to stay on top of those little opportunities to get to the correct area on the map we use, such as this fine looking entry point coming up on our bow…. It’s so conveniently located we’re going for it, even if it does, again, throw the rhythm I’ve found into the toilet…. S’okay, I’m coming to rather enjoy the offhand way I am ordered about by my inanimate objects…. They’re only trying to help, you know, and they are severely underpaid, in my opinion…. But, that’s a rant for another time, and place…. Right now, we’re going in, so, I’d suggest you hang on to the nearest stanchion; our pilot today likes to cut things close….

Shall we Pearl?

“Once, there was NO fun…  This was before MENU planning, FASHION statements or NAUTILUS equipment… Then, in 1985..  FUN was completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP… It contain 14,768 vaguely amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled snack cakes!” — Zippy the Pinhead

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

As the first couple of paragraphs in the above section indicate, my soul is crying out for peace…. This isn’t a cure, but, I find it helps…. Maybe it is part of the connection I’ve always felt to the Druidic culture that flourished in ancient Europe, or, maybe it’s just the way it takes me away from reality…. whatever it is, it works for me….

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

With the proper tone firmly established, we shall move on to the more intellectual part of today’s experimental pearl…. an old school indictment of Asininnies, of the political persuasion, those we call Pundits, (or, sometimes, The Liars Club….). I’d hoped to include the rest of the categories of the larger group, (i.e. Dogma Dogs, Myrmidons, Snakeheads, Pimps, Illuminati, Mundanes, Droids,  or, anyone else worthy of our ire….), but everything that came up was in this smaller group, which, apparently, Smart Bee seems to consider the most vulnerable target at the moment of choice…. Or, it could be these are what came up, with incipient laziness taking over at that point…. Here they are, such as they are….

“He’s not a politician.  He’s just ethically challenged.” — Smart Bee

“Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. In democracy, what you get generally is bad government by a bully, tempered by the pen of several newspaper editors.” — George Bernard Shaw — Man and Superman (1903) Maxims for Revolutionists: Democracy

“You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.” — Smart Bee

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand-fold in the future.” — Solzhenitsyn

“Bother! said Pooh, as he found a politician in his honey pot.” — Smart Bee

“How do you make sense of such madness? The answer is, you can’t.” — Pablo Guzman

“As long as the United States Government exists, there is no real accomplishment being a humorist.” — Smart Bee

Okay, now comes the fun part…. We’ve taken our shots at the pundits for the day; now we get to finish the new format with one final comment, which I’ve personally chosen to represent the metaphor of reality being highlighted in this unusual fashion…. This is what I came up with, as a final word on the Asininnies for today…. It’s a very nice statement of insight on life today, which, I promise, will be my last word for today on this subject…. In truth, the statement is a fine finish for any indictment, for it speaks to the reason any of us might feel the need to indict at all….

“The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth.”  I usually pick one small topic like this to give a lecture on.  Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere gobs of gas atoms.  Nothing is “mere.”  I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them.  But do I see less or more?      The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light.  A vast pattern — of which I am a part — perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there.  Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together.  What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it.  For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined!  Why do the poets of the present not speak of it?  What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?” — Richard Phillips Feynman (1918-1988)

I know…. Bummer, huh?

gigoid, the dubious

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

There are moments in life when the power and presence of serendipity makes itself felt, leaving no doubt in my mind there is more to this universe than we can ever really know…. This poem was the first I encountered today in my search for an appropriate entry for today’s poetry section; it’s the poem of the day on PoemHunter.com, my favorite site to find those verses I need for this part of each Pearl….. It’s a small piece, but, with that incredible characteristic of the very best of poems, brevity, mixed with powerful metaphor, to create a short epistle which gives us much, much more than just the few words use could be expected to give….. Plus, it fits in with my mood….. go figure….

This pearl is, to my mind, a good one. It’s composed of pearls whose primary characteristic is in how it must be examined more deeply than the first reading, to penetrate to the second, and third ideas that are buried within their shy outer bearing….. In short, when you read them, they should make you pause, and say to yourself, “Wait a second….”, then look again…. hopefully. Works for me, anyway…. Just look deeper than the shallow first concept, ffolkes, because the result is a pretty good picture of how to approach reality with something more than just a pretty face…., which, in spite of popular belief by many, not everyone has…. No matter anyway, reality doesn’t care….

“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” — Yogi Berra

“Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.” — Erasmus

“The last good thing I saw on TV was the ‘off’ switch.” — J. Craig Brunson (craig@ukpr.uky.edu)

“Where no hope is left, is left no fear.” — Milton

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.” — Thomas H. Huxley

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Thankfully, it’s done. Just in time, too. I was about to break out in song…. Figuring, rightly, I’m sure, that would drive y’all over the edge, to which we come close enough on a regular basis, we’ll just use our advantage of position (here at the end….) to make our escape, before any of y’all catch on…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, unless embarrassment kicks in….