Ffolkes,
It’s a Tao thing, there is nothing _to_ understand.
~~ Lao Bee ~~
Secret Garden
Galway, Ireland
Hajime…. It’s a Sunday. The world sleeps as I type, as it generally does, even without applying the incredible power of the Metaphorse. It seems to me, in fact, the world is weary. Yesterday, and again today, the feel of the air is sluggish, as if the very air we breathe is telling us to slow down, in the mad rush toward extinction in which our species seems to be engaged. What is more, I can feel the air’s sense of expectancy, as well; the world is waiting, with bated breath, almost as if there is some moment approaching which will have some great significance in the overall picture made by life on Earth…. The future is, if possible, even more on the edge of possibility than usual, whatever that means….
Oh, well, what the fuck….. Humans are capable of ignoring/denying ANYTHING, even their own sanity and/or chosen beliefs, whether true, false, or somewhere in between. So, we’re going to ignore the feeling of sitting beneath the twin-bladed sword of doom/salvation, and just get on with the mess we are creating here. The world has enough of a mess to deal with on its own, and so do we. Should it become necessary during the completion of this Pearl to make a quick exit, stage anywhere, well, you’ll understand, I am sure….
Now we’ve got the nonsense and niggling out of the way, such as we may, why don’t we get on with the rest of today’s somewhat epic effort…. I’ll give fair warning; there’s a long, introspective rant below, which took me a couple or three days to complete…. and, it still feels as if there should be more there (there is, but, it wouldn’t fit….). But, ’twill do for our purpose, which is merely to get someone, anyone, to think, and, to encourage them to make others do so as well…. The more we can get thinking, actual reasoning, the better chance we’ll all have of making it to the next century…. which, at this moment, is a wager showing very poor odds…..
For now, let’s be happy for the time we have, and get on with this…. We’ll use the teleportation unit, and be where we need to be, now….
Shall we Pearl?….
“Past of try is tried. Past of do is done.”
~~ Jedi Master Bee ~~
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Camille Saint-Saëns
The music I generally listen to when composing/creating/writing is, about half the time, written by this man. He was one of the most prolific of all composers of music, of any genre, not just classical. Every piece I have heard was, to be completely honest, beautifully written, and pleasing to the ear, without ever becoming redundant, no matter how often one hears it. This is a group of pieces with which I’m not familiar, but, am readily willing to expect ’twill be as enjoyable as all the others…. Enjoy, if you please; I know I will….
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“As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a Dream.” — The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, 1675
This one is a bit long, and wanders around quite a bit, but, that’s what happens sometimes in a dream….
In my life, I have seen much, studied much, and tried to learn all I could. This was never a conscious decision on my part; my earliest memories are all of times when I tried to find out things I didn’t know, just because it felt right; my curiosity is, and was, insatiable, about EVERYTHING. The entire world I perceived was fascinating, and I wanted to consume it all…. Everything I saw, and heard, and smelled, and touched, just made me want to find out more; I knew I didn’t know, and I had to, as if I needed it as badly as air to breathe, or food to eat.
As often as not, the results were not what I expected, but, since I didn’t know about anything, my expectations were not much of an issue; this, I think, gave me the ability to accept whatever I learned as real, and true. When what I was told by others didn’t match what I had already learned, I had no problem voicing that, which often created issues with adults, who seemed to want me to believe anything they said, even when it made no sense. “Why” was a question adults quickly got tired of hearing, mostly; kids were usually more willing to at least consider it as a reasonable request for information, even if they didn’t have anything particularly useful to tell.
I’m not sure how just now how that has affected my outlook in life, but, I do know I refuse, and always have done, to accept obvious untruths from whomever voiced them. Being small doesn’t mean I wasn’t smart; I also learned when to argue, and when to shut up, to avoid provoking large, seemingly violent big persons. But, once that particular lesson is learned, it also teaches one to be ever alert to the possibility of being lied to, whether it be in a gentle, attractive package, or, an intimidating one. In short, I learned to keep the crap detector on full at all times; when I didn’t, things didn’t get along as smoothly…. which disrupted my learning, thus defeating my purpose.
“Sometimes we are afraid to question because we confuse it with doubt, at times when doubt cannot be indulged. Questioning is not the same thing as doubting. …Living the questions requires a willingness to live with paradox, to endure confusion in our rational minds that only the intuitive mind can entertain: intuition accepts the paradox instead of changing it.” — Christina Baldwin
How, you may ask, does any of this relate to the quote with which we began this journey through my head? I couldn’t say, yet; this is not a fully thought out piece of literature, it is an introspective examination, of a thought which occurred to me as I stood at the back door with Leelu, looking at the cloudy sky (me, in a dream/thought state), and the birds, (Leelu’s primary interest). It went through my mind that, in my total time here on Earth, I’ve lived in shouting distance of the Edge of Life, since first beginning to walk the path of a scholar/warrior. Since I was born to a warrior, and a warrior’s wife, that covers pretty much all of it.
All my life I have been aware the world is a violent place, even though there was no more in my home-life than in any other; less, I think, than most, as my father and mother were well-matched, and he was not a violent man. He merely understood it, very well, in himself, and others, having been in the Army, when I was born, since WWII, which ended five years before I was born. He stayed in service after the war, as the economic advantages were not insignificant, even then. But, though he assumed the mantle of a warrior naturally, and wore it well for twenty years, he never became hard, or stupid, due to the regimentation of the life in any such organization.
When I left home, I began to study life more than I had already begun, and, in earnest, as it was now just me. I can’t say I made fewer mistakes than anyone else, but, I have never allowed myself to become destitute for lack of work, or, failed to act as honorably as I was able, no matter how hard life became…. As all of you know, it can get pretty tough out there…. Especially when, as I have done, one becomes a specialist in the methods and philosophy of dealing with violence, in martial arts first, then, in my work later in life, wherein the arts became my most valuable set of tools, an important asset to my knowledge and experience in toto.
A few days ago, while considering how to express a comment on another blog, I thought back over my life, about how many wars this country had been involved in during that span. I was, thanks to my age, and experience, not particularly surprised to learn I could not remember a single time the government of the United States had not had our troops occupying space in other lands, for purposes which had never been made entirely clear.
As I later found out, the true reasons for any of those occasions were never fully disclosed at all. In fact, from what I have read, researched, and can gather from available evidence, the government of this country has been actively lying to the public on a regular basis since before WWII, and, most likely, since the advent of the Industrial Age, in the nineteenth century.
While hardly a surprise, given the state of affairs in most of the world today, as one who is all-too-familiar with human nature’s violent side, it is nonetheless disheartening. As a warrior myself, I cannot say violence has no place in the world; I can, however, from that same basic experience, say that the unbridled violence we see is NOT a natural expression of the true nature of a complete human, so often found in those who have been a warrior, at least at some point in their life.
A true warrior knows when to fight, and, when to refuse to fight; in today’s culture, there is no restraint applied to the natural tendencies we possess; the moral/ethical duty of being a warrior is ignored completely, in favor of expedience, and ego-driven desire for power. As a scholar, as well as a warrior, this is clear, and, saddening….
A few days ago, I discussed what I believe to be the motivating factor in an issue connected to this one, to wit; the ongoing and persistent abuse of women, children, and other creatures, so common in, and, so much denied by modern society. In my mind, the ongoing state of war extant over too much of the planet’s surface is a result of the same failure, on the part of humanity at large, but, the males of the species in particular, who have perverted and ignored all the damage their childish, ego-driven, plainly cruel behavior has caused, for millennia, to ALL the other forms of life here on Earth, including their own species mates. This is, without a doubt, insane.
There really isn’t much more to say about this at this point in this narrative. In my own time, I have consistently refused to make war on anyone, for I have been given no valid reason for doing so. As a result, my own experience with violence in human nature has all been on a personal level, to wit; unarmed and armed hand-to-hand combat, mostly in the pursuance of my work as a mental healthcare technician, working with the most floridly insane, violent individuals in the craziest state, in the craziest country in the world, who regularly lost control of their emotions and behavior, becoming, in short, bestial in nature, without restraint of any kind. Eleven plus years of that supplied me with all the learning I needed to form an opinion on the value of that side our our nature, trust me….
As a result of that, I have the skills to keep myself safe, in any situation…. but, the entire reason I acquired those skills, as a martial artist/warrior/scholar, is so I could AVOID fighting, and killing, as best I could. In over 750 physical altercations during those years, I was given more than ample reason to learn to avoid fighting in my own life….
I hate it; I hate what it does to me, and to those with whom I contend. So, I learn, to try to discover how to stop violence before it gets to the point where a moral/ethical decision must be made, as to whether or not to be fully human, or, become like those who are not fully so, bringing pain, misery, and, possibly, death into one’s own life…. So far, I’ve been lucky enough, and skilled enough to be able to say I have yet to kill another human, nor any animal since before learning it was wrong. Or, as we like to say on the streets…. so far, so good….
The day is young, though…. and there are a lot of assholes out there, with balls but no dicks, or brains worth using, who could do with a good thumping…. They can usually be found hanging around centers of government, or churches, or, high-rolling hotels…. Anywhere the twin delusions of the value of money, and the necessity for a God, hold sway, actually, would be a good place to begin any hunt for worthy game….
So be it…..
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Accentuated Lessons
Bold statements of calculated intent
Become common rule of the malcontent.
Avarice assumes such attractive wear,
Beguiling deception, illusory and fair.
Grasping and pulling with ghostly hands
Legally proper in all the signatory lands.
Seeking and finding each vulnerable soul,
Anguish as payment, for exacting the toll.
Wraiths of commerce’s invisible dead guards
Still haunt the dreams left in sad empty yards.
While absentee nobles sit in stiffly elegant splendor
Served by sad-faced detainees, in abject surrender.
Escape from reality is illusory at best
Often we falter, and fail its daily test.
Only when focused on inner strength,
Does peace stay with us for any length.
Peace lies within, always…..
~~ gigoid ~~
9/27/2012
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This particular set of pearls is what I’d call a necklace, made of gems found by complete serendipity. I made no conscious choices, just picked the lines which struck my eye/mind’s fancy as they came up on the screen, in the exact order you see, though not all at once. I also had to wade through about 150-200 unsuitable quotes to find them, but, that doesn’t take long, when they’re so obviously right…. Still not sure what it all says/means, but, it’s all connected, for sure, one way or another…. But, then, isn’t it all?….
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“The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes,
And feel for what their duty bids them do.”
~~ Byron ~~
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“Every adult needs a child to teach;
it’s the way adults learn.”
~~ Frank A. Clark ~~
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“Only the ephemeral is of lasting value”
~~ Ionesco ~~
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“If we let things terrify us,
life will not be worth living.”
~~ Seneca, Epistles ~~
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“Call any vegetable,
Call any vegetable,
And the chances are good
That the vegetable
Will respond to you.”
~~ Frank Zappa, Lyrics in “Absolutely Free” ~~
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Courage can’t see around corners,
but goes around them anyway.”
~~ Mignon McLaughlin (The Neurotic’s Notebook) ~~
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“The frightening thing is not dying,
the frightening thing is not living.”
~~ T-Bone Burnett ~~
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I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers,
and have brought nothing of my own
but the thread that ties them together.”
~~ Michael de Montaigne ~~
~~ Essays, Book iii, Chap. xii ~~
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“The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt within the heart.”
~~ Helen Keller ~~
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“I’ve gone to look for myself.
If I should get back before I return,
keep me here.”
~~ Bill the Cat ~~
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“The purpose is to identify not with the body which is falling away,
but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle.
This is something I learned from my myths.
Am I the bulb that carries the light,
or am I the light of which the bulb is the vehicle?
If you can identify with consciousness,
you can watch this thing go like an old car.
There goes a fender, etc.
But it’s expected; and then gradually
the whole thing drops off
and consciousness rejoins consciousness.
I live with these myths — and they tell me to do this,
to identify with the Christ or the Shiva in me.
And that doesn’t die,it resurrects.
It is an essential experience of any mystical realization
that you die in your flesh
and are born to your spirit.
You identify with the consciousness in life
~ and that is the god.”
~~ Joseph Campbell ~~
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Well, there you have it, for what it is worth. And, no wise cracks from the gallery, if you please. We do our best; judging can be left to others, as long as they’re reasonably civil. If not, well, remember who’s the curmudgeon around here, and we’ll be fine, if not always unbloodied…. On that cryptic note, I shall bid thee adieu until tomorrow, when we’ll see what sort of trouble we can cause, one more time…. at least.
Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch
À bientôt, mon cherí….
Naked Pearls III
gigoid 