Tag Archives: Robert Burton

Perhaps not, but his spatula was meticulous….

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Ffolkes,

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


I’ve previously used this poem; it may be one of Emily’s most famous, so it’s probably familiar to many people…. I don’t know if Emily had pain herself, of a physical nature, beyond what everyone else feels, when they bark their shins, for example…. If she didn’t, her depth of insight was even greater than I had previously imagined….. This is an assertion I believe implicitly; Emily was, without doubt, the most advanced human EVER in that respect, in my opinion, and by all the evidence at hand…. Her poetry must be considered as proof of that, proof that leaves no room for doubt as to the accuracy of the claim..

This particular poem explores a couple different sides of the nature of the beast, again displaying that incredibly elegant, towering talent only she possessed, by cramming so much feeling, so much meaning, and so many ideas into eight short lines of verse, it almost explodes into one’s consciousness, growing there like a flower in spring…. She wrote at least one other poem on the subject, a bit different in scope, but nonetheless powerful for that…. It went like this….

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


As lovely and powerful as her poetry may be, I’ll bet you’re wondering why we’ve begun today with a discussion of American English poetry of the Nineteenth Century…. Some of y’all, who have been around ECR a while, will guess why I’m writing about it; they’re already aware of how much my pain can distract me from Life at Large…. and would guess that today’s words are in response to a bout with it of major proportions…. They’d be right to think that, too….

Yesterday, as part of a personal quest to get into better shape, if only for the purpose of being able to walk around in those places to which I travel, such as on shore excursions during a cruise, I went for a short walk… The day before, I had tried a new technique, of taking a pain pill, applying some of my magic ointment to my back and hips, then going for a walk…

I was rewarded by a relatively pain-free stroll all the way downtown, with a few sit-down breaks to blow, and let the numbness recede from my thighs; all told, I walked about two miles, and a bit more…. This is much further than I’ve been able to walk for a couple years now, so I was encouraged enough to try again the day after, i.e. yesterday…

This time, I applied my cream, took my pill, and enthusiastically left, to try to cover the same ground…. After a couple of blocks, I stepped off a curb, onto a small twig, which proceeded to roll about two inches, taking my foot, and my balance, with it…. Using my walking stick, a quick shuffle, and a hard, rapid twist, I was able to keep from falling down…. BUT….

The quick movement, with the accompanying twist, gave the injured ligament in my lower back a good, hard yank…. This, naturally, caused me to experience the customary sharp, intense burst of excruciating pain in my lower back, just as if a large knife had been thrust about two inches into the hip, followed instantly by the total freeze-up and pain of my entire back entering full spasming mode…. This also aggravates the hip joints, so I was barely able to keep upright, and mobile enough to walk…. Hell, it was ALL I could do not to start screaming and beating on the nearest object, animate or inanimate, with my stick….

Turning around, I made it back home without getting arrested for assault, took an extra pill, ate some magic chocolate, put on more ointment, and went straight to bed, where I’ve been for much of the last eighteen hours or so…. I’m up now, and still in full spasm mode, though quiet right now, thanks to about a ton of Norco and all the cannabis I could eat…. Since the pain has been my constant companion for most of the last day, I thought I’d try to share some of that, though I’m not sure why…. I guess I thought it would make a little different start to the day….

I guess it’s also because it’s really hard to deal with this unless, and until, the experience is purged, at least verbally, in order for me to process it in a timely fashion…. I’ll stop here, as y’all have no doubt had enough of my near-whiny neurotic need to share….

Sorry, but, getting the concepts, and the feel of the experience, outside the mind helps to deal with what is still there, which currently requires a good large piece of my consciousness to keep me from running down the street, screaming in pain, HOPING that someone will tell me to stop, so I can BITE THEM REALLY, REALLY HARD!!!!!!

Now that I have further indicated the depth of my insanity (Six exclamation points makes that fairly obvious…. A mere four of them has been shown by research to be proof of clinical psychosis….), I suppose it’s time to go for a dive, to find some pearls…. Hopefully, I can sit long enough, and keep at this long enough between breaks, to finish…. If not, well, we may just be here all day, so, if I were you, I’d check to make sure I had my box lunch, and a supply of water on hand….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Despair leads to boredom, electronic games, computer hacking, poetry, and other bad habits.” — Edward Abbey

Such as blogging….
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As might be guessed on a day such as this, I won’t be ranting, any more than I already have…. I’m going to go for old-school pearls for both prose sections today, to avoid going back to the archives again…. I COULD go back there, but, even the research involved in that seems like more work than I’ll be able to do…. So, I’m going for a dive, where being surrounded and supported by the waters of reason, I can maneuver almost normally…. You’ll see what I find…. Oh, yeah…. no parameters at all today, just random weird nudges toward virtue and/or dignity (if such is possible during the creation of a Pearl….)…..

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

— Theodore Roethke

“And what is a good citizen?  Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual.  Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point.  A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.” — H.L. Mencken

“Everything, saith Epictetus, hath two handles,–the one to be held by, the other not.” — Robert Burton (1577-1640) — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part ii, Sect. 2, Memb. 3

“Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and consequently should not be any part of your concern.” — Epictetus

“Psychedelic drugs cause paranoia, confusion, and total loss of reality in politicians that have never taken them.” — Timothy Leary

“Addison, what are we going to do?”  “Me, I’m examining the major Western religions. I’m looking for something that’s soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a short initiation period.” — Dave and Maddie on Moonlighting

“There were two brothers called Both and Either; perceiving Either was a good, understanding, busy fellow, and Both a silly fellow and good for little, Philip said, “Either is both, and Both is neither.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Philip

And there you have it…. Madness incarnate, right there on your screen….. Well, it WOULD be, if it weren’t all so damn true….
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After a relatively short break of twenty minutes, spent in a frantic search for my glasses, (which, it turns out, were stolen and hidden by Jo Jo, the Psycho-Cat From Hell…. I found them in one of her cat caves, where she had stashed them after taking them off my desk….), I’m back… I’ve already used Emily today, so we’ll go with another classic favorite of mine, one of the most influential Romantic poets from the eighteenth century…. There are those who say he was THE driving force for the entire Romantic poetry genre that burgeoned during his lifetime, an assessment with which I have to agree…

The Human Seasons

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness–to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

~~ John Keats ~~

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I can see the light at the end of this tunnel I’ve entered; I’m pretty sure I can make it that far….. Again, an old-school, unguided (and, please, no comments about misguided….)** pearl, ripped fresh from the oyster beds of my mind….. and Smart Bee’s nearly endless database of excellent cookies….

** (Without, of course, a reasoned justifying argument to explain the assertion….)


“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD) — Meditations, iv, 43

“Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.” — Oscar Wilde

“Liberty don’t work as good in practice as it does in speeches.” — Will Rogers

“Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies.” — Smart Bee

“- if it GLISTENS, gobble it!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” — Albert Einstein

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~
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Well, I made it, and about time, too…. I’ve again consumed a massive amount of drugs, all with the purpose of smothering my nervous system to the point of insensibility….. After a seemingly endless amount of time spent in agony, trying to keep occupied in my mind, I am now starting to enjoy the results, and will soon be free (True freedom is the release from pain….) Since it won’t be long before all coherence flees screaming into the night (well, early morning, anyway…. it’s still dark here at 0530, now that we’ve begun daylight savings for the year….), I’ll bring this to a grateful close (the gratitude is on YOUR end, I’m sure….)

I can’t do this anymore…. See you tomorrow…. Hopefully, by then, I’ll be feeling more like a human being than a pharmaceutical test subject…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
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

dozer3

Some folks never do understand fractions….

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Ffolkes,

Destroy his fib or sophistry–in vain!
The creature ‘s at his dirty work again.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires, Line 91

Aye, he is, indeed. Up, that is, and at his dirty work, again…. Well, I am, anyway, even if the creature isn’t quite awake yet…. Actually, it’s a good sign, being up early, considering how early I fell asleep. I felt like a little kid, falling asleep before dark, afraid I was going to miss something. I didn’t, though, so it was okay to fall out that early, as I had already done everything there was to do, up to, and including, dinner with my lady. Eating well, good company, and a double shot of Jack will put me under every time, especially now that I’m old and frail….

Hah! Caught ya! Old and frail, indeed…. While I must admit that I am old, and I do get tired pretty fast these days, I don’t think I’m quite ready to join the Geezer Society, or to become a member of the “let’s go sit down for that” group of senior citizens, who never get out to do anything, spending their time rocking on the porch, watching the world go by…. Thanks, but I’d rather be part of the parade marching past, even if I must limp, and, even if it means getting tired all the time, eh? Fatigue is  a small price to pay, for not turning into a slug…. Besides, as a slug, you’ve got to always be on the lookout for salt….

I should know better than to start writing before I drink some of my coffee…. I AM up early again, at 0500, but, since I fell out at 8:30 last night, that is quite enough sleep, and I’ve got no worries there…. But, the content of anything that streams out of my pre-caffeinated brain is suspect, at the very least, and, potentially, toxic, at the worst. This, I think, falls in between, and isn’t dangerous, by any means….. But, then, neither is it particularly interesting, or gut-bustingly funny, and it certainly isn’t going to make anyone run out and wake up the Pulitzer Committee members…. Hell, it may not even hold anyone’s interest as far as this paragraph, and that is sad, indeed….

I must try to overcome my sadness, though, and go on…. nothing else would be honorable. Okay, well, you’re right, it doesn’t have anything to do with honor, but, I’m human, and I, too, occasionally fall prey to those human foibles, of making things up, or more plainly, lying to suit my own purposes, in this case, just getting on with it…. This lie, intended to speed things along, like the lies our beloved leaders tell us, aren’t BAD lies, they’re little white lies, and won’t hurt anyone…. right? Right? Lying CAN be a good thing, yes?….

Well, no, it can’t…. It isn’t really a good idea, even to spare someone’s feelings…. The truth, painful as it can sometimes be, is always best. We tend to forget that, because we sometimes wish we hadn’t known the truth…. But, knowing the truth, unpalatable as it may be, will never poison us, whereas lies will cause us toxic pain, one way or another, every time they are used, either as a passive recipient, or as a guilty perpetrator….. We all hate the fact that pain is our best teacher, but, we all know it is true, which is the source of the old adage about “sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind”, one we all acknowledge as truth, though we don’t always like it….

There I go again, ranting in the intro section…. SIGH…. I wish I could get a solid handle on this stuff; it’s getting a bit frustrating….. Though, that, of course, totally ignores the fact that I do it to myself…. Ah well, I guess we’re all Bozos on this bus, so, I may as well let my humongous proboscis do its thing, and honk away…. meanwhile….

Shall we Pearl?…..
_____________________________

“King Arthur and his armored goons of the Round Table functioned as the Politburo of a slave state: Camelot. Of all who have written on the Matter of Arthur, from Malory to White, only Mark Twain understood this. But Mark Twain was a great writer.” — Edward Abbey

Which means, by implication, all the others were not good writers….. I happen to agree with this assessment, but, then, I’m  curmudgeon by nature, and by training, so accepting an unpopular truth comes easy to me. It’s unpopular because all those other authors have agents, too, and hate to see their charges maligned, even posthumously.

Then, there is also the fact that the lies, of which the history of any historical period are comprised, are considered to be the truth of the matter, as decided by the ruling faction at the time, and with the approval of the priestly hierarchies…. Historical writings are notorious for being colored by the wishes and desires of the church leaders and kings of the periods in question; an adage commonly held by all ages is, “history is written by the winners….”

This is not supposition, by the way…. This is a proven historical fact, and one that, though everyone seems to know it, and accept it, nobody seems to want to do anything about it. Not only that, but, our modern leaders, in both the governments, and, the churches, lie to us on a daily basis, and nobody seems to care about that, either….

It’s as if over half the human race just gives up all hope of understanding the universe, or having any overt personal control over their own lives, and gives up their right to make up their own minds to those in authority, allowing them to do all their thinking for them, and accepting whatever lies they choose to tell, implicitly….. It quite simply makes me crazy….

Those in power KNOW this, of course, and encourage it shamelessly…. The church leaders all preach tolerance, and submission to temporal authority, while at the same time accepting the kickbacks and privileges afforded them by their sanctified status, with no taxes, and all the other perks that go along with being a church.

The government leaders are more obvious in their machinations, but still are allowed to lie, and cheat, and steal, right out in the open, with the full approval of those who elect them…. Until, of course, someone points out the immorality or unethical nature of something, then there is a huge outcry, and some other idiot with a glib tongue is shoved into the limelight, in favor of the liar who got caught… which, in our culture, is the ultimate crime…

Yep…. killing, stealing, violence, lying, all are socially acceptable activities, provided one does not commit the ultimate crime of getting caught doing any of it…. Our culture REWARDS this kind of behavior, with laws that protect anyone who lives within its parameters.

We have, on the books, laws that allow for discrimination, cheating others, and/or outright violence, provided one a) has a legally approved reason (i.e., government or societal sanction, such as for the police entitlements, or, such as “stand your ground” laws, or, most egregiously, laws stating that corporations are “persons”….), or b) doesn’t get caught doing it…. According to the law, if no one saw you do it, it didn’t get done…. I guess that makes sense, in an unreal sort of way…. It sure doesn’t account for reality very well, though….

Okay, I’m done ranting for now…. I rant and rave about this stuff regularly, but, very seldom does it have any real effect out in the real world, which sort of puts it in the “useless wind” category of literature. Maybe someday, someone will listen, or read it, and get a clue, and spread it around a little wider….

It would be, in my estimation, a very good thing for a lot of people to know this stuff, because, believe me, none of your teachers, or preachers, or politicians, or policemen, are ever going to tell you any of this stuff, for the simple reason that they would rather you didn’t know, and would prefer that you didn’t even think about this kind of thing…. They’re better off when you don’t….

Me, I say, fuck ’em….  I prefer to live in Reality, as it exists, to “tell the truth, and shame the Devil,” as much as I possibly can…. the Devil being defined as that part of humanity that lies to the rest of us…. Maybe I’ll just call it The Asshole Syndrome, and let it go at that…. In conclusion, I have only these comments….

“Beware of the half truth.  You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.” — Smart Bee

“Who cannot give good counsel? ‘T is cheap, it costs them nothing.” — Robert Burton (1577-1640) — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part ii, Sect. 2, Memb. 3

“If voting could change the system it would be illegal.  If not voting could change the system it would be illegal.” — Schroedinger’s Cat

“Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.” — Elbert Hubbard

“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.” — Mark Twain

“Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I’m rich.” — Daffy Duck, from Looney Tunes Ali Baba Bunny (1957, Chuck Jones)

And, of course, the kicker….

“History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.” — George Santayana
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What better way to show how the subject of the above rant has affected society, than to exhibit a poet who rejected the lies he heard, and insisted on describing reality the way he saw it, much to the chagrin of the powers that be…..

Cultural Exchange

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o’-Lanterns caper
And the wind won’t wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off going
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whistles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going–
Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa–
Not of her own doing–
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.

Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we move dup to Mount Vernon.

In the pot behind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what’s cooking?
What’s smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.

You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.

Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over–
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power–

Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies–
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!

Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make haste!

~~ Langston Hughes ~~

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“That’s the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn’t good enough for me! I demand euphoria!” — Calvin & Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

Now, THAT’S what I’m talking about! This is an excellent approach to living life, as it deserves to be lived (whew, almost said “should”….see yesterday’s Pearl….), one that provides a lot of good insulation against the lies and general run of bad stuff life can bring…. Well, maybe not QUITE that excellent, but, it does show a good, strong, positive ego, with all the chutzpah Calvin will ever need to get by…

Actually, I just like it, because it’s typical Calvin, and, as such, is a contains many sharp metaphors for society at large… I know, sometimes my imagination takes me right up to the edge of sanity, and peers over to view the long fall, fearlessly…. It’s the only way I can do that without suffering vertigo….

Any who, I’m feeling a bit silly, and since my own writing currently seems unequal to the task of being achingly funny, I’ll leave it to Smart Bee to find some mild hilarity for me…. I depend heavily on SB these days, and, so what? What’s it to ya? You don’t like that? Are you talkin’ to ME?….. Pardon me, while I do a Bob Hoskins in Good Fellows on you……

No, so, anyway, the following will be a randomly chosen pearl, with only a vague concept in mind, a vision of a big, goofy-looking face bearing a huge smile, and a mirthful, yet vacuous expression…. Strait, sparse little spikes of red hair on his cone-shaped head, sky-blue eyes, and a scruffy, unshaven, sparse beard…. big, ruffly clown collar…. you got the picture? Okay, let’s pearl….

“When I met th’POPE back in ’58, I scrubbed him with a MILD SOAP or DETERGENT for 15 minutes.  He seemed to enjoy it..” — Zippy the Pinhead

“We ain’t got hold of culture yet, but when we do get hold of her, we will adjust her and settler her down and make her hum and run like crazy.” — Smart Bee

“If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.” — Voltaire (1694-1778) — Epitre a l’Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs, cxi

“Remember what the dormouse said…  FEED YOUR HEAD…” — Grace Slick

“You boys lookin’ for trouble?” “Sure. Whaddya got?” — Marlon Brando, “The Wild Ones”

“You can’t fall off the floor.” — Paul’s Law  “It takes children three years to learn Paul’s Law.” — Chapman’s Commentary on Paul’s Law

“It don’t mean a THING if you ain’t got that SWING!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
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If you believe that I have crossed any lines, or used an excessive number of Zippy quotes (Thanks, Bill….), you are free to file a complaint with the Board of Outraged Citizens; I think you can get the form online now…. Let’s see how it came out, in toto….

Well, it’s certainly long enough, and has its moments, so, we’ll let it fly…. I suppose they can’t all be masterpieces, but, though this makes it partway there, (it DOES have rants, and pearls, and good poetry….), it’s just not worthy of that sobriquet, and, I have to admit it would be nice to see ONE of them achieve that exalted status…. SIGH…. Frustrated ambition is the pits…. I guess I’ll give it up, and save myself the angst for something more accessible… 

  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….

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

dozer3

Who will pay the price for sanity?….

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Ffolkes,
Times of great import are approaching, it is told. Events are to take place that will rock the foundations of our world, while I, an old man with sharp eyes, sit and watch the important people scurry about, involved in their important jobs, communicating their important ideas….. Only us old men see the truth, though…. Nothing is important, it is all an illusion, and nothing will ever change…. So it has been, for centuries, and so it will remain, as long as men wish to feel important…..

I don’t think it will come even close to winning the Bulwer-Lytton Award, but it’s pretty bad, nonetheless, don’t you agree? Sadly, when I wrote it, I wasn’t trying for bad, but was in fact, until the very end, shooting for a grim sort of eloquence. But, after one read-through, that goal went by the wayside….. Not everything can be worth writing, I suppose, and that paragraph certainly falls into that category…. We’ll just pretend it didn’t happen, and go on, okay?…. No need to mention this to the doctors, or the overseers, now is there?….. I wouldn’t want to lose my privileges over it…..

Actually, I’m sitting here this morning, a bit dazed…. I feel pretty good…. The pain pill I took two hours prior to getting up might have helped a lot, but, all in all, this is the best I’ve felt of a morning in, well, a long time… in recent memory at least, and damn if it isn’t encouraging! Payday is near, I have food left, thanks to those friends who won’t seem to let me go under, the coffee tastes like ambrosia, and I’m not feeling any blockage of my writing mode…. there is HOPE! It’s amazing, really, how much feeling better will improve the attitude we face the day with; I must say, it’s awfully nice to NOT have stuff to complain about….

I’m thinking, since I feel so good, even if only in a relative sense, I should get started without further delay. I’m actually looking forward with glee to this morning’s dive for pearls, which hasn’t happened in far too long…. In any case, Shall we Pearl?…..

“Three out of five people aren’t the other two.” — Smart Bee
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“How people play the game shows something of their characters. How they lose shows all of it.” — Smart Bee

This is SO true! Not only is it true, it is beyond true, because it also implies another truth, which also happens to be true…. Funny how that works, eh?…. Any who, what I mean by that is this: How people approach the idea of playing a game at all indicates a lot of things about their mental status, in short, their attitudes, as well as their character. I spent more than a few years providing psychiatric therapy to adolescent and adult individuals, and using games was one of my favorite therapeutic tools. It became a valuable one indeed in being able to gauge a young lad’s, or lass’s, mental attitude, after tossing them a ball, of some kind, and seeing what they did with it….. Within a minute or so, they would reveal a lot about themselves, that would often be useful later in figuring out how to help them.

If they missed catching it, or showed a lot of awkwardness, it would give an indication they hadn’t played much with balls, and perhaps were not sports oriented. If they caught it, then that showed they had some experience and/or interest. How they tossed it back also showed things about them, and the expressions and body language they displayed, while performing the basic physical skills, indicated their degree of familiarity with the movements involved in the different tasks of moving, catching, and throwing. Whether or not they reacted with pleasure, or fear, or surprise, or whatever emotion they display when the ball is tossed to them (a simple, easy toss, not a fastball…. give us a little credit….) also gives some pretty accurate data on how they deal with such surprises, showing how they feel about themselves in the process….

In a basketball game, one could observe to see whether the player understands the team concept, and how to adjust their own play to flow with others. How a person spends the slack time in baseball, while waiting for a pitch, or a delay, can indicate their inner state, as well as their investment in the game…. And if they refused to play at all, then that showed something about their social adaptation skills as well….. Almost everything these young individuals did in relation to playing games, of any kind, whether physical, or table, party, or other types would tell something about their psycho-social development stage, and even give clues about where problems might be encountered in helping them.

Humans have a very long history of experience with games, and though other animals have been noted to have created games, no species has been anywhere near as prolific, or creative, in the ways in which they test themselves, against each other, and against themselves. Historically, of course, many games were designed to develop the skills needed in the culture for warfare, or for business, or for other sorts of competitive interactions with others of other cultures, tribes, or nations.

In the modern world, of course, the business side of games, and the impulse to compete in every human is highly developed, in hundreds, even thousands of different venues…. Professional sports, amateur sports, computer gaming, Olympic sports, mountain climbing, all tests of various degrees of difficulty in the quest to improve the human spirit by improving the mind and body, under the most trying, demanding conditions that can be devised.

Games, whether we actively play them, or sublimate those impulses in other ways, are a part of human culture and society, and permeate all levels of societal interactions…. How many soccer moms are there who never played a game of soccer outside P.E. class in their lives? How many people enter the business world, and pit their minds and will against others in the financial arena…. No one can tell me that the whole stock market isn’t based on gaming theory, not without a lot of charts, easels, and time to expand equations…. and I wouldn’t believe them then….

Our society spends literally TRILLIONS of dollars each year on professional sports, with all their merchandising and high pressure sales of every single physical item involved in either the playing of the sport (Football, baseball, basketball, tennis, hockey, soccer, and literally hundreds of others….), or involved in the following the sport, equipment to play, equipment to watch the professionals play, tickets, posters, jerseys, and other fan merchandise, including the watching of the sport on the entertainment media of choice, also for sale at a store near you….. It is a HUGE part of the American economy, even the world-wide economy, at least in countries that are connected to the media world.

The impulse to play games, however sublimated it may be, is a basic piece of human nature, stemming from the inherent need for the species to improve itself, thereby improving chances for survival. Though society has advanced enough that not everyone has the need to be able to throw a spear or run fast to survive any more, we still have the part of our nature that says we do need to be able to do that…. so we want to practice somehow…. Games are how we practice those skills; always have been, and always will….

Today, practicing survival skills for many involves sitting in front of a TV, with a beer and like-minded former game-players, to watch a game of their favorite sport on TV, and cheer for the good plays…. Or it means taking your kids to soccer practice every week at three different fields around town, “because sports is good for them”…. Or it means a teenager becoming pale and wan from playing a video game for 36 hours straight….. Or, it can mean calling your broker when you’ve received a good stock tip….. We all find our ways to practice the age-old skills we no longer need, one way or another….

“It’s all a game — play it to have fun.” — Price’s Advice

“Life IS a game, but the rules are written down in so many different ways, there tends to be as many interpretations as there are players…. Do your best to play fair, by anybody’s rules, by keeping to a level field of play, and you stand a better chance of not only winning, but of enjoying the game…” ~~ gigoid
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A new poem from gigoid is still in the cooker, simmering until it is done. As you may know, I can’t rush it, or it will disappear, never to be seen again, at least in my fears, so it will be left to finish without any interference from my conscious mind…. In the meantime, here is something from another poet of no little note…. Enjoy!….

The day came slow…

The day came slow, till five o’clock
Then sprang before the hills
Like hindered rubies, or the light
A sudden musket spills

The purple could not keep the east,
The sunrise shook from fold,
Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
The lady just unrolled.

The happy winds their timbrels took;
The birds, in docile rows,
Arranged themselves around their prince
(The wind is prince of those).

The orchard sparkled like a Jew, —
How mighty ‘t was, to stay
A guest in this stupendous place,
The parlor of the day!

— Emily Dickinson
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Old school! Old school!…. and all the better for it, eh, what? Since tomorrow is Halloween, we will celebrate by blowing away some of the cobwebs of ignorant fear associated with so many of the symbols of the holiday’s featured religion, Wicca…… from which much of the lore of this date is drawn. It was merely hijacked by the Christians as their own, back when they rewrote all the history books to suit themselves….. They’re good at that….

Below you will find a number of quotes, all targeted and locked on one of my ongoing peeves, deliberate ignorance, and the exploitation of that by the world’s religions…. Well, you know what I mean…. people are mean, sometimes, you know?….. They just like to cover it up with talk about redemption for original sins (of which I swear I have no recollection), and penance for sins, and confession of sins,  and hellfire, and such. I think they’d be better off getting a real job…..

“For “ignorance is the mother of devotion,” as all the world knows.” — Robert Burton (1577-1640) — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii, Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority.  Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.” — Giordano Bruno (1548- burned at the stake, 1600)

“Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.” — James Randi

“I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* — I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

(Just threw this in to make it clear exactly “who” we were discussing…..) (Plus, I happen to agree with Freddy on this one….)

“It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price… One must abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms… One has to embrace the world like a lover… One has to accept pain as a condition of existence… One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.” — Morris L. West, “Shoes of the Fisherman”

(Oops, sorry, this is 180 degrees from all of the above, talking about the other end of the scale of human nature….. Well, just use it for contrast, okay?…….)

“In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

(Hmm…. Freddy seems to have a problem with Christians, doesn’t he?….. Can’t say as I blame him…..)

In regards to Oral Roberts’ claim that God told him that he would die unless he  received $20 million by March, God’s lawyers have stated that their client has  not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that  “If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago.” — Dennis Miller, SNL News

“The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.” — Lazarus Long, aka Robert A. Heinlein

Enough! I could do this all day, and not get the point across any better…. Plus, Smart Bee is getting testy, so we will now leave off our regularly scheduled daily battle against the advance of DUMB in society…… Stay alert, ffolkes, the world needs more lerts……
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“I’m having a BIG BANG THEORY!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, all things considered, it could be worse…. That third section almost got away from me there for a while, but, all is well that ends well…. Life is good, except when it isn’t, and that’s about the best we can expect, I reckon….. I’ll take it….. Can you just wrap that up for me? Thanks…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

Luckily, the rabbit lived, and prospered….

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2

Ffolkes,
Skyclad before the pale, he sits to write his way into the day……and in an unprecedented move, he has brought his brain with him!…..

“In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Have the claws of depression ever set themselves in your flesh, slicing their way into your conscious mind to fill it with diffuse anxiety and deep despair? Have you sat, alone in a dark room, and thought of all that you have lost? Does the sunshine make you angry for being so cheerful? When depression rears its ugly head and takes over the soul, the world loses all its color and warmth; everything you see is grey and shadowed, and somehow menacing. Being alone becomes a penance, a sentence for violations of natural law, and sleep is the only surcease from the crushing weight that weighs down the mind, and soul. All the goodness in the world seems far away, and unattainable by any effort we can make. Even hope becomes uncomfortable, because of the fear it will turn out to be false. Thoughts and feelings feel out of control, and the simplest tasks can become a challenge to your reduced level of functioning. Believe me when I say, being depressed is no picnic, and you still get the ants……


Having been a psychiatric technician for so long, I know the effects of depression very well, from both sides of the therapeutic relationship, having treated many depressed individuals, and having suffered its claws myself due to PTSD. It is a difficult condition to treat, from a therapist’s viewpoint, as it is difficult to help someone find the light when they want to sit in the dark, and close their eyes against the light. And from the other side, the negative filter through which a depressed individual views the world denies any possibility of change. For  reasons which are still unclear, a person who becomes depressed is actually more comfortable in that state than they are when they are not influenced by its debilitating symptoms. And from having experienced it myself, I can tell you without hesitation that it is insidiously powerful, and incredibly hard to set aside in order to get back to a more stable mental state, one in which the world again becomes beautiful, the spirit once again takes flight, and life regains its attraction once more…….

The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Measure for Measure — Act iii, Sc. 1

I usually steer clear of using Shakespeare, as his work has been over-used, and IMHO is over-rated anyway. He did write a lot of beautiful passages, and should be considered as a master of the sonnet as well as the play. But I like this one, both for the creative beauty of his phrasing and structure, and for the idea behind it, which I see as a clear observation of the interconnectedness of all life-forms. We’re born, we live, and we die, thus completing the cycle of existence as per the natural laws of this universe (or at least as far as we know those laws…..). And every other creature on this planet goes through the same cycle of birth, life, death, birth, life, death, etc…, until one can only conclude that we must be alike in other ways as well, and are thereby connected in some fashion, both to the universe, and to each other. This connection puts us all on the same level, at least in the eyes of the universe; no form of life escapes death. We humans, though intelligent, curious, and supremely adaptive to new environments, have no advantage over the tiniest creature on Earth, for we all will face our mortality in the end.

     Thus our sense of entitlement, of being the top of the food chain, is not justified, for we have no more power over death than the smallest, weakest life form in our world. Species discrimination based on intelligence is foolish; we must come to terms with our own mortality and accept our position in the universe, not above other forms of life, but shoulder to shoulder. We may as well, because we’re going to die anyway; it’s best to try to approach it with some dignity based on fact, rather than unjustified delusion…..

“If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” — Thumper (1942)

Bill Russell, the former professional basketball player, is considered by many fans to be the best defensive player ever to play the game. He played the game with studied intensity, and with complete dignity, approaching the contests with the same attitude he approached life. He was a proponent of the above attitude, one we all learned as a child, watching Bambi and Thumper inflict their terminal cuteness on unsuspecting children in a theater near you. And, as far as it goes, it is a good piece of advice, well worth considering, and useful in teaching manners. But, as with any childish conclusion, it doesn’t go quite far enough. But Bill said this, “One should play the game as a gentleman, always. But, there are times when an elbow to the chops is the only way to make a point.” (My apologies to Bill, as the quote is a paraphrase, the original being unavailable to check for accuracy; the point it makes is intact)


Yes, being nice to each other is the best way to approach living with others, and not speaking never got anyone into trouble over what they said.  But the rules for behavior amongst ourselves need to be very flexible, and subject to revision moment by moment. There are too many facets to the human mind to ever consider limiting one’s choices of how to react to any particular situation. This is reinforced by the nature of reality, i.e. constant unpredictable changes are normal, so once again, limiting how we choose to act is an inappropriate response, and doomed to failure. As a human, we need to embrace that part of us that is flexible, and creative, in order to have the best chance of dealing with reality while still staying sane……

Speaking of sanity, keeping mine is going to require some work today, so I’ll be off now to pursue other activities, reluctantly. I will leave you with the following thoughts…..

All men are poets at heart
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
All poets are mad
— Robert Burton

Y’all take care out there…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.
gigoid
Dozer

Kowabunga!