Now, THIS is unusual, even for around here….. I’m up, I slept pretty well, I don’t hurt anywhere particularly badly, yet, I have no motivation to write at all…. It just doesn’t seem attractive to me this morning; the idea makes me nauseous, actually. If I didn’t know better, that would make me think I might be pregnant, which is, shall we say, less than good odds? Yes, let’s say that, and leave it there….

It’s true, though…. I really am not in the mood for this….. Of course, it might just be lack of coffee I’m feeling…. Let me work on that for a moment or two, okay?….. I’ll be back shortly…..

Nope, not the coffee…. Did you miss me? I thought not….. Even though I damn near fell asleep while worshiping, I feel torn, pulled on one side by my unwillingness to just give up, and my very strong desire to do just that…. I can’t even say why I haven’t found any of my usual strength of will; I only know it’s nowhere to be found. This, of course, is probably just another little gift from Murphy, to let me know he’s still there, and still an asshole…. as if I had forgotten….

This doesn’t even really make any sense…. I have a new format to play with, which has afforded me new opportunities to enjoy life, by getting me out into the world more often, camera in hand, to seek out interesting situations and/or places of interest to record, thus giving me both a focus for my daily need to get more exercise, and a relatively new activity to pursue while out there getting it….. It also gets me out of the house, so I’m not feeling as if I’m stuck between these four walls…. again…. I had enough of that feeling back when I was waiting for my SS, and was actually stuck from going anywhere due to having no funds to do anything beyond pay rent, and eat….

I guess it’s all just an adjustment my body/mind has yet to catch up to, so I’m feeling a bit of fatigue related to the adjustment process…. It’s typical to feel like this when getting used to new things; even if we accept the need for change, our persona doesn’t necessarily agree, because our subconscious minds don’t like to change. They prefer to always maintain the status quo, with no surprises, please…. When that desire is thwarted, as it often is by Reality, it (the subconscious….) retaliates, by making us feel fatigued with no reason, and eating away at our motivation, to prevent us from making the dreaded changes…. or, so it hopes….

So, how does it feel to witness mental illness, right out in front of you, complete with explanatory side comments?…. I don’t know about y’all, but, I think I’ll find something else to do now…. This…. intro, for lack of a better term…. has reached the point where I’m  no longer willing to play along….. It’s becoming an embarrassment to my literary self-respect, with good reason, and I am not going to sit here and put up with it, not while I’m still in charge of my own fingers…. We may not ever get to any pearls if I don’t put my foot down here, metaphorically speaking…. So, stand back please, while I do my version of the literary boogie, and trip the light fantastic, alphabetically speaking….

Shall we Pearl?….

“How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.” — Albert Einstein

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I’m not sure exactly how this is going to work, but, we’re gonna give it the old college try, anyway…. First, you will see a seven-star pearl, whose parameters are obviously set to “pick on the Asininnies”…. Don’t worry, you’ll see…. After the pearls, you’ll find a series of photos, some by me, others not (but, they’re attributed….)…. Your task, should you accept it, is to match the pearls to the pictures…. but, no worries if it doesn’t fit, or even if they aren’t in the same slice of reality…. It’s all just a pearl, ffolkes, so enjoy…. Here are the pearls….

“Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.” — Plato, The Republic. Book VIII. 558

“I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book iii, Chap. xiii

“What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? — They are the _irrefutable_ errors of mankind.” — Nietzsche

“Authority and liberty are two incompatible ideas…. Liberty diminishes in proportion as man progresses and becomes civilized.” — Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970)

“Say what will convince, not what you believe.’ — Bureaucrat’s Law #2

“It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular.” — G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England. 156

“The White Rabbit put on his spectacles.  “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty ?” he asked. “Begin at the beginning,”, the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Well, there you have it, such as it is…. which is pretty good, all in all…. Maybe it’s just me, but, I think this pearl says quite a bit about the state of modern civilization…. about which we may also say, such as it is…. Here then is the Art to go along with this seven-star pearl…. Let’s see how it works today…. Of these pictures, two are not my own…. The caterpillar mimicking the snake, (and very well, I must add….), and the magnificent warthog Dad named Magnum both came from the London Daily Telegraph website, from their Pictures of the Day feature found & accessed on June 3, 2014…. The other five came from my camera….

I often wonder who this person was, and though it would be simple to find out, I don’t really care much…. He just LOOKS like a politician to me….

A wonderful plant near my where I live…. beautifully wild and free, in rejection of its urban placement….

The houses of parliament, and Big Ben…. what else to go with a pointedly political pearl?….

An American Wall of Nutrition…..

Magnum the Magnificent! A zoo captive, but, a good dad, apparently…. and so magnificently ugly!…..

It’s spring in California, and even the most pathetically neglected flowers will bloom to the best of their nature…..

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“…’cause anyone who would buy this record couldn’t give a fuck if there’s good musicians on it…. ’cause this is a STUPID song… …AND THAT’S THE WAY I LIKE IT!” — Frank Zappa, lyrics to “Little Green Rosetta” in “Joe’s Garage”

It’s late, & I’ve been at this for far longer than I had thought my motivation would take me…. It goes to show, I suppose, how focus and interest can completely ignore any factors outside of its own area of focus, and time will pass, unnoticed, until the interest is all used up, and reality can once again intrude…. We’ll finish up with the quickest sort of pearl, a relatively random old-school variety, sans any formal parameters…. Plus, the first one is a pearl I’ve been saving for a couple days, just looking for the right spot to include it, as it is a new contributor to me…. Enjoy!….

“No, sir, th dimmycratic party aint on speakin terms with itsilf. Whin ye see two men with white neckties go into a sthreet car an set in opposite corners while wan mutthers Thraiter an th other hisses Miscreent ye can bet theyre two dimmycratic leaders thryin to reunite th gran ol party.” — Finley Peter Dunne

“Happiness is an imaginary condition,formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.” — Thomas Szasz, in The Second Sin

CARTESIAN, adj.  Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, _Cogito ergo sum_ — whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence.  The dictum might be improved, however, thus:  _Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum_ — “I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;” as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made, — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“The contact with manners then is education; and this Thucydides appears to assert when he says history is philosophy learned from examples.” — Dionysius, Ars Rhetorica, XI,2

“A faith-holder puts himself below his faith and lets it guide his actions. The fanatic puts himself above it and uses it as an excuse for his actions.” — Gordon Dickson, Chantry Guild

“Many a man has decided to stay alive not because of the will to live, but because of the determination not to give assorted surviving bastards the satisfaction of his death.” — Brendan Francis

Men of reason have endured; men of passion have lived.” — Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) — Maximes et Pensees (1796)

Well, that certainly came out well…. especially there at the last line…. I think I’ve always known this instinctively, which is why I have always tried to approach life with “passionate reason”….. It seems to be the best, if not the only, way to life life well, exactly the way we wish to live it….

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I am sure, without even going back to look this over, that I’ve caused all the damage I can for one morning…. I mean, how much can you expect from me in less than three hours of random, yet somehow consistent effort to create, or, to give a reasonable facsimile thereof? Don’t fret, you don’t need to answer; it’s just one of those rhetorical questions one always hears about…. just wanted to show y’all what one looks like….. Any who, having done and said all there is to say, I’m outta here…. See ya, ffolkes….