When creating a title, the primary characteristics I shoot for are two-fold. First, it must make little or no actual sense in reality; second, it should have nothing at all to connect it to the contents of the day’s post. That’s it. If it turns out to be a compelling phrase that actually brings new people in to read, simply because of its weirdness, so much the better. Once it is done, and typed into the subject line, THEN I go finish writing whatever parts of the Pearl aren’t done…. Simple, yes?

Today, however, about 30 seconds after writing it in the email, Murphy himself stepped in; I saw it. An invisible hand pushed a jar of magic cream over the edge of the table where my computer sits (I tend to keep it close by….), knocking it to the floor, where the lid flew off, and the cream flew out, spreading itself in a nicely formed splash pattern, all over the couch and floor, BETWEEN two parts of a shelf, where it was nearly impossible to reach….
Perfect place for me to ruin my back completely to clean it up….. SIGH…. He is SUCH an asshole!

However, I managed to get it cleaned up, in spite of the massive pain in my back, the curious cat, who had to investigate both the spill, and the cleanup process, closely enough to be in the way the whole time, and, the immensely painful, dangerous act of trying to get up from the awkward position on the floor needed to get AT the fucking mess…. Now, it has furnished me with WAY more than enough BS to fill up this intro, so, I suppose that would be the iconic silver lining all those assholes talk of all the time….

Fuck this. Let’s get to the oyster beds before somebody comes to the door, and I end up in jail for killing an innocent person, Not a great start to the day, I’d imagine…. Instead, I’ll employ one of our newest toys, which I found in an old cabinet, in a dark corner of the Tardis….. Looks old, but, serviceable…. I’m going to push this button, right here, marked, “Anywhere at all”…..

Shall we Pearl?….

“When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.” — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, CW, I, p.143

SIGH…. That’s why you get this choice, because it was simple, and, you can take over the finding of any further selections for yourself, by following the link to the page on You Tube where this version of the Fifth lives…. Enjoy! I gotta go figure out how to get the next section done before she starts biting for attention….

This particular icon, which I stole from another blogging friend, isn’t often seen atop this section. But, this particular example of mindfulness and insight from Gautama Buddha, made its use mandatory. So be it…..

Let’s examine this assertion for its relevance in today’s world, shall we? Why not? We have little better to do than try to discover some of the reasons our world is in the throes of a desperate need for accepting change, for, if we do not, I suspect there is little hope for our entire species, as well as many others, to survive the coming century. Hopefully, we can find a consensus amongst the people of the world which will afford at least an opportunity to live through it, rather than merely more proof there isn’t any chance at all….

How, you may ask, do the words of the Buddha apply today? Well, let’s see….. Hmm…. Perhaps, the quote above the Buddha’s laughing face, by Pope, says, in essence, much the same as does the Buddha; the difference is only one of POV, and, perhaps, a matter of syntax, and, who the fuck cares about that?

We all SHOULD, of course, but, hey, nobody much even likes to say “syntax”, much less learn what it means, or how important it is to communication…. Humans are funny that way; if they don’t wish to learn something ( which is, in essence, denying their very nature, as the creature most able TO learn….)( Maybe….. Hard to say exactly what the dolphins have figured out already that we don’t…. They are the only ones on this planet with a bigger brain, comparatively….), they just WON’T. Perverse, as well as lazy, it seems….

Since we humans ARE lazy, and, I’m human, I’m going to change directions here. The concept under discussion is the human mind, and, how it works for us, essentially. The accuracy of Buddha’s observation, and understanding of that nature shows us, in an unequivocal fashion, how the world’s status today, in a state of inordinate chaos, in society, in government, in personal relations between people, has, at its root, this part of our nature, for it leads us to depend on the illusions and delusions we are taught from the cradle, to use expedience as a reason for acting, to using Ego to drive ALL of our social interactions, until the confusion reaches the point at which we see it, where nobody on the planet has any sort of peace….. not to mention the simple fact we are going to kill our entire species, taking thousands of other life-forms down with us, if we don’t change rapidly the way we are approaching life.

That said, it seems Smart Bee wants to place much of the blame on our theory, a badly mistaken one, that we NEED to be governed, for our own good…. Such bullshit! Let’s see what he/she/it found for us, rather than listen to my ranting any further, shall we? We shall….

“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.” — H. L. Mencken

“The sense of justice springs from self-respect; both are coeval with our birth. Children are born with an innate sense of justice; it usually takes twelve years of public schooling and four more years of college to beat it out of them.” — Edward Abbey

“On a throne at the center of a sense of humor sits a capacity for irony. All wit rests on a cheerful awareness of life’s incongruities. It is a gentling a awareness, and no politician without it should be allowed near power.” — George Will

“A hand grenade exploded in a school of fish will supply food for days.” — U.S. Armed Forces Survival Manual

“Lawyers: the best argument against gun control..” — Fuckin’ A Bee

“Money confers the power to command the labor of others. Love of money is love of power. And love of power is the root of evil.” — Edward Abbey

“The “beast” is a myth we have created, a scapegoat, upon which we project the image of ourselves we are unwilling to acknowledge. When anyone behaves in a peculiarly unpleasant manner we tend to answer that he behaved “like a beast,” when the fact is, of course, that no beast every behaves so iniquitously as men frequently does… The myth of the beast is perpetuated from generation to generation. The result is a perversely distorted view of the nature of other animals, and a profoundly impoverishing failure to understand our true kinship with the rest of animated nature. So-called primitive peoples have never lost this kinship with other animals… Without the benefit of a Darwinian theory of evolution our technologically less advanced peoples in their creation myths and in their conduct toward the animal world exhibit a far deeper understanding of the interrelatedness of all living things than does so-called civilized man.” — Ashley Montagu,_The Humanization of Man_, 1962

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Having thus completed THIS duty, I can now go perform the next. That’s how it works; the completion of one duty provides the privilege of acting upon the next. Otherwise, it becomes hard to look one’s self in the eye each morning in the mirror…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, as long as the sun comes up again…. As I’ve said in the past, the odds on that are pretty good….