Must have been some imp, fussing with my typing hands, slipping that in on me when I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Mischievous little suckers, those imps…. Well, then, good morning, again, or, on looking, initially….. The perfect word to describe my current SOM (State of Mind) would be “discombobulated”, a word of fine pedigree and stately pronunciation, and perfectly descriptive of how it feels this morning to use my brain. Of course, that right there should have been a clue, when I first sat up in bed; one isn’t normally accustomed to “feel” one’s brain when it is working, any more than we “feel” a muscle move when we ask it to perform a task, or “feel” our fingernails growing….. “Feeling” the brain in action would seem to indicate a certain stiffness and/or a degree of dysfunction….

But, then, dysfunctional brain issues are nothing new in my world, so it doesn’t surprise me that I didn’t notice at first how things were going to be today. There are steps I can take, and will take, to reverse the course of my brain’s initial direction, so it isn’t a catastrophe, merely an inconvenience. Hmph…. inconvenience…. there’s another word that I’ve become all too familiar with in the last couple of years, at the behest of the federal government…. Ah well, inconvenience has yet to transform into impossibly frustrating, though it does approach that level regularly, so I guess we’ll just accept this as one more day started out with less than normal smoothness, and get on with it….

With all of that noted, whatever it was, we should now proceed to our daily attempt to bring some degree of comprehension to reality, to try to stimulate some random coherence amongst the population, with the overall intent of increasing the total amount of thinking that goes on in any particular day on this planet…. The more thoughts floating around, the better chance we have of one of them helping the situation, desperate as it may be. All you can do is all you can do, and this is what I do….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“I always have a quotation for everything  — it saves original thinking.” — Dorothy Sayers

I knew there was something about Ms. Sayers I liked! Besides her books, of course….. My muse seems to be taking a short sabbatical, and I’m stuck here, trying to figure out something about which to write, or rant. I really do feel like I’d like to take some shots at the government, but an appropriate pearl doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. However, some others have surfaced that will do quite nicely for an old school pearl, so I’m forced, as it were, to fall back on that format….. Here then are some relatively random, but pointed thoughts on government, and the peripheral co-conspirators of those who delve into that cesspool of human ambition….

“Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is the governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the king, and yet another will think he is God.  Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy, and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1967)

“A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome.  Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.” — H. L. Mencken

“Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.” — G. K. Chesterton, G.K.’s Weekly, 4/10/26

“A man attains an elevated position only when his mediocrity prevents him from being a threat to others. And for this reason a democracy is never governed by the most competent, but rather by those whose insignificance will not jeopardize anyone else’s self-esteem.” — Nicolo Machiavelli

“Men often believe — or pretend — that the “Law” is something sacred, or at least a science — an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments.” — Smart Bee

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.  Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.  Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.  Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” — Patrick Henry 3 Elliot at 45, Debates In The Virginia Convention

“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.” — H.L. Mencken

I LOVE this job! Oh, wait, that’s right, nobody’s paying me…. well, it’s probably a good thing, then, that I enjoy it so much….. That last line turned this from an merely average poke at the PTB, aka our beloved ruling class, into quite an adequate rip. So be it….. and let us thank our lucky stars I didn’t fall into a rant, which, by the look of the above, would have been a doozy….. (I must have used that word previously, as Spell Checker ignored it completely…..)
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“All men are poets.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All poets are mad.” — Robert Burns

‘Perhaps not to be is to be without your being.’

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be.

Pablo Neruda
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All of us have our little illusions about life, and how we fit into the big picture. For example, I like to think that I am fortunate to have been born with more than an average appreciation of the world in which we live, or perhaps, a deeper understanding than most of how it works, and just how beautiful it is. This isn’t to say that I am better than any other person in any way; it’s just that my perceptions have always been faster, and deeper, and more accurate than those of my peer group, by all the evidence I can muster. It is not just a blessing, either, for it is just as much a curse, tending to cause a certain distance between me and others, one that takes time, and familiarity, and a certain willingness on my part to adapt, to keep that distance from becoming a problematic issue…..

“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.” — Jean Jacques Rousseau, “Emile, ou de l’education”, 1762

To look at this blog, it would seem that I am one who knows little, as I tend to ramble on incessantly, seeming to care not at all that I am exposing my potential ignorance to others. And, quite simply, I don’t care…. For most of my life, I spent a lot of time keeping my mouth shut, and my opinions to myself, even though I could see that what I was thinking was more accurate, and certainly more reasonable, than what I was observing others to perceive, and/or think. Or, in many cases, what passed for thinking….

Over the last 60 years, mostly, I kept my silence on a wide range of subjects, to preserve peace, and to ensure that my opinions, which were often radically different than those of my peer group, did not produce enmity among them. Since retiring from work, and reducing my social interaction to the lowest level of my life, I find that all those opinions and thoughts are pouring out of me at an almost alarming rate. I also find that I quite simply don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it….

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeoning of chance;
My head is bloody but unbowed.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll;
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

— Henley

Not that I will not listen to opposing viewpoints; I am always ready to consider reasonable contrary evidence. But, if anyone gets offended, or upset in their emotional status in any way, by what I’ve written, well, all I can say is, too bad, so sad….. Any such will just have to learn to live with disappointment, I guess…. Actually, now that I’ve gotten used to being able to express myself without any self-imposed limitations, outside the boundaries of good taste, and compassion, I enjoy hearing what others may have to say about my thoughts. Dialogue with a challenging mind can be an intense pleasure, for sure, and I like it when people argue with me with passion, and reason.

“Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.” — Slovenian Proverb

However, I have also found that this piece of advice to be a valuable one. Sometimes (most times, actually….) it is a good thing to say what is there to be said, and then leaving….. This allows the other party to assimilate the ideas, and to come to some conclusions about it, without having the distraction of my presence. If their reaction is one of great passion in a negative sense, then it is better that I’m not there to either witness it, or to suffer its perpetration upon my psyche; in extreme cases, it saves me from having to duck and cover, or to defend myself on a physical level, neither of which is a preferable outcome to peaceful dialogue. So, I tend to say my piece, then boogie, as it were, to avoid any potential unpleasantness….

Having now submitted nearly eight hundred words in support of the first aphorism in this section, I’ll try to bring this to a logical close. I guess I’ll do it like this….. I saw a picture on Facebook, with some accompanying text that is the perfect ending for this small diatribe…. It’s a small piece of advice, well-stated, that summarizes what I’m saying quite nicely, to wit:

“If you really want to learn how to not care about what others think, just study your cat….. Seriously, they don’t give a shit.”

Pax ominbus……
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Not too shabby, for one created sans any help from my muse…. Though, come to think of it, that last section may have been a late gift from them….. Hmm… I guess now I’ll have to apologize to them for doubting their loyalty and work ethic…. So be it. Now that the delusional portion of the program is completed, it must be time to send this on its way through cyberspace into the internet cloud…. as soon as the library opens….. In the meantime…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..