From the front

Composed 1994? (unedited) 

Well, where did I leave off? Oh, yes. The Metro. And I was talking about how quiet it was. Well, it still is. Especially in the mornings when I go to work. The subway car can be full of people but you can hear the proverbial pin when the train is at a stop. This is even with people getting on and off. And between stops all you hear is the clickety-clack and the squeaking of brakes and other metal-on-metal noises. 

A wind announces the next train. Before it arrives, the air is pushed through the tunnel ahead of the train. Your clothes and hair feel the wind before you can hear or see the train come from the dark maw. 

Later in the day on the Metro you hear one or two conversations. In the evenings, rush hour, still just one or two. When people come home from eating and drinking, or when there are foreigners on board, there are several conversations you can hear. If there are two Americans on a car having a conversation, it is as if there are 30 non-Americans speaking. You not only can hear it but you can listen to it. We are noticeable in twos, and ubiquitous if three or four. The British people have candidly remarked we are loud, take up more than our share of space, and talk about nothing for the longest times! 

Talking is allowed. You can talk if you want to on the Metro. But if you are Czech, it is not allowed. It is even almost impossible to catch someone’s eye. People travel anonymously. They are not unfriendly. You will receive very polite behavior, if you ask. But you must ask. There are no conversations that strike up. I am told this is one legacy of the former times. Do not approach first because you never know what someone else wants. [ am also told, “they” will try to determine what you want before responding much less connecting and communicating with you. So smiles are infrequent. Suspicion seems to have become a norm. Perhaps now it ts cultural reticence and not suspicion. Not looking at people is another overwhelming norm. Silence and no looking, as if no one else is there. Most of the time. And that is as it its. Blissful for me. 

I came here at the close of a period of isolating myself. 1 understand this behavior a little more now, and of course I obsess about its rightness/wrongness/meaning/etc. Is it fate or what that I find myself in an almost silent foreign culture? I cannot make contact easily because the culture and language are foreign. And the culture and language, especially the language I am told, are only permeable at your initiative. I guess I am in the right place. I do enjoy the silence, the anonymity, the responsibility of extending myself for what I need. And only that is what is required of me. It is very nice that the responses that I get, so far, are polite, friendly, helpful. When I can speak Czech, if ever, I am told I will find a very rude world? It is hard to believe. I see no signs. But I am unable to hear the ones that may be there now. 

Summer comes to an end. The searing heat of July and early August have tumed to mild weather and some rain. When it was hot, | thought it would never end. Now, [ hope it doesn’t get too cold too soon. 

I went to the Czech National Library. Very big, centuries old. It acts as the national library, like the library of congress for the Czech Republic. And it is the library for Charles University, one of the oldest universities in Europe. The general reading room is like a cathedral with walls painted and such. This room has a ceramic oven for heating, perhaps it still does, and it is about thirty feet high. I have seen many of these ovens in Germany. This is the biggest I have ever seen. 

You need a library card just to get into the general reading room. I had to show residence permit, a copy of a notarized letter from my landlord, my employment contract, and passport just to get the library card. Praise or condemn our slack procedures in the US, if you will. Books are golden here, particularly when they are banned, and many were up until the fall of the Iron Curtain. The library has a special collection of banned books! 

I met with PhDr. Blanka Vlasakova. She is the foreign acquisitions librarian, and she has asked me to name the books I want in English. She will order them. I then will borrow them for several months at a time and then return them. A major privilege. You normally only get to read books in the reading rooms, not take them out of the library. How is all this possible? Someone gave the library the annual quota of German acquisitions and so they have extra money to spend on US publications. They collect books in certain fields so I am recommending purchases. These fields are of interest to me. For this I get books I want and Narodni Knihovna V Praze can then have and use them. She says I came at the right tume--luck. Just give her a list! (This is a slightly longer story having to do with my graduate studies and how I was scheming to get books I need at low cost. If you are interested in the longer story, ask.) 

I have been to two English plays in the last two weeks, one by Bernard Shaw and one by a Czech playwright, a play from the early ‘70’s! Really cheap. Really interesting. Less that $2 for tickets each. And the plays and acting were excellent. I met a poet today. He invited me to a reading tomorrow evening. He promises to read two or three of his English poems. And the bookshops. They are wonderful, but limited for what I am currently reading. But they have wonderful collections of novels, poetry, plays in English. 

Prague is a city which is a haven for art and artists. It’s a place which embraces this side of life--including music. 

Bob Dylan was just here. Pink Floyd in a week or so. Lots of classical music every day. (Communists and former communists love music!) I don’t know anything about music, but I will be learning the bloch flute = I think it is the recorder in the US) beginning in October. Perhaps in memory of Tara, or just that I am tired of my own ignorance about things musical. (I am glad to amuse you.) 

Vaclav Havel, the Czech President, is often quoted in English publications here. He is the playwrightpolitician. And much of what I have read has been inspired and thoughtful. Although I have not read a whole work by him, I should and I will. One of the things he is said to have said has to do with the reasons for being. We are not here to make money and import all the western goods and ways. We must feed our souls, and this is nothing that can be bought. I have read a Czech history. Havel is not the first artist to have ruled the Czech lands. So, I am among people with a history of motives which I think are more like non-material aspirations. I can’t help but say this is different in many ways from the US and its (is it my?) government. 

There are other stories. I have been invited to a meeting in October. The Council of Europe is meeting in Prague to discuss the state of higher education in the Czech Republic, among other things. I will wear a tie and look presentable. 

I have written a grant proposal to the Central European University. This institution is funded by George Soros. Perhaps you have heard of him. He is funding a number of foundations and institutions in the former USSR and Eastern Block. The grant is looking good. The Centre for Higher Education Studies, an arm of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, has agreed to have me do a study of their organization over the next ten months. I am applying for money to do this. Consultants, get ready. I may have some work for you next year! The pay will be about $70 per day. 

And there are other stories. I have been invited to Ukraine by my students. I have found the Czech Sociological Review published in English. I am reading Anarchism: Community and Utopia. Very interesting. This book was published in Prague in English--it was not going to see the light of day because of its outspokenness. Supposedly. It’s pretty abstract and tame so far. I have found a certain apple pastry that is available in bread and bread-like pastry shops. Cakes and sweeter pastries are sold in other shops. I stay out of them. Because I don’t know what’s in this apple thing--looks like a Danish--it can’t hurt me. And I haven’t found one broccoli yet, to buy or in a restaurant. There are Chinese restaurants, but I haven’t tried one yet. And on one subway line, the recorded announcement has changed ever so slightly. There is a “prosim” {please) in the middle of familiar-sounding but still untranslatable Czech. 

I saw the doctor today for the second time. My blood pressure, without drugs, is normal. My blood test, without drugs, shows normal amounts of HDL’s and all that. She gave me prescriptions, comparable to what I was taking under the care of my Denver doctor. My health insurance here pays for them and all the stuff with the doctor. And now I wonder what is going on? Can it be that I am somehow thriving on all the changes? I am going to have to think more about this miracle, if it is one. 

As I wait for the morning tram, I do not see the same people, even though I am there at the same time each moming that I teach in Prague. No matter. I am a foreigner and isolated from them for now anyway. But the route I take, public transportation and walking, is getting to be like a small world. It is familiar, as if I had done it a hundred times already, and I have not. The visual landscape--I need to see more and different visual images. Soon I will, and then my address will be

Far View

 I look to horizons, squinting beyond.
There over fields and woods, a shining pond.
Hope against hope to find eternal light
that would sate my search for precious insight.

I have seen this world, all places about.
Found the fluff and false truths to rid rout.
Faith against faith earnest efforts persist
to find what? the ineffable gist.

The lengths I have gone, walked even hiked.
Passed leagues in distance and wait--also biked.
But this and all--nada, these furtive acts,
not oneness nor whole an abiding fact.

Rest, my soul. Your quest now comes this.
Seems ways need suffice 'stead of dear bliss.

 __________
P. S. Trite to say the way's the purpose. Rather, "Stop the world." No frame nor fate need we lay over experience as template for life, that we lead or have led. 

Did Castenada ever tell us how to do that?

By transcending ordinary reality one acquires wisdom of the right way to live. Ordinary reality, or the world view, is simply one interpretation of what really is. In order to stop the world 'one has to learn the new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting against it the old one, and in that way break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the validity of our perceptions, or our reality of the world, is not to be questioned'. 

Other than taking drugs, I guess not. However one can try without and in trying perhaps realize moments of . . . ?  

(Sort-me aside: My answer has been to try to step into other cultures and language communities, through mental and physical travels as well as multiple places of residence.)

If a change in consciousness is what is the essence of transcending or stepping aside or stopping consensus reality, there are ways intentional and accidental that do that. Make a list and choose.

 

The looting of science fiction

Posted here as a public service, should anyone stop by. 

---

 The looting of science fiction by Ali Rıza Taşkale
Source: https://aeon.co/essays/silicon-valley-has-a-science-fiction-problem
Accessed: 23.07.26
Asked of perplexity.ai: Summarize this article in 500 words +/-.
Recommendation: Read the original--well worth the time; EN to FR translation here of hook quotation from the original.
Response from AI (bold for emphasis by JKM): 

The article argues that Silicon Valley’s fascination with science fiction is mostly a selective borrowing of imagery, not a true engagement with the genre’s ideas. Instead of inheriting science fiction’s social imagination, many tech leaders strip out its political and ethical concerns and keep only the futuristic style. [aeon](https://aeon.co/essays/silicon-valley-has-a-science-fiction-problem)

Taşkale’s core claim is that figures like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos use science fiction as a cultural shield for a very different agenda. They invoke works such as Star Trek or Gerard K. O’Neill’s space-habitat visions, but the article says they often misunderstand or simplify those texts, turning them into slogans for privatized space travel, billionaire-led progress, and technological destiny. [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/aeonmag/posts/tech-billionaires-are-in-the-habit-of-claiming-their-work-is-inspired-by-the-spa/1496069909227335/)

A major theme is that classic science fiction is usually not just about gadgets or rockets; it is about society, power, and what kind of future people should build together. The article contrasts that broader tradition with Silicon Valley’s “reactionary futurism,” which favors radical individualism, unregulated markets, and suspicion of democratic oversight. In this reading, the Valley is less inspired by science fiction than by a stripped-down fantasy of freedom without collective responsibility. [linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/estherschindler_silicon-valley-has-a-science-fiction-problem-activity-7483683339523006464-7AQr)

The article also suggests that this pattern is political as much as aesthetic. Silicon Valley borrows science fiction’s “chrome-plated” look, but leaves behind the genre’s concern with labor, inequality, and coercion. That means the resulting future is presented as visionary while actually reproducing old hierarchies in a high-tech form. [linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/estherschindler_silicon-valley-has-a-science-fiction-problem-activity-7483683339523006464-7AQr)

More broadly, the essay frames the issue as a struggle over who gets to define the future. Science fiction can open up alternative social possibilities, but in the hands of tech elites it becomes a branding device that legitimizes existing power. The article’s criticism is not of science fiction itself, but of the way its language and symbols are repurposed to make private wealth and technological control look inevitable or progressive. [aeon](https://aeon.co/essays/silicon-valley-has-a-science-fiction-problem)

Overall, the piece is a critique of Silicon Valley’s habit of claiming the authority of science fiction while ignoring what the genre actually does best: imagine different futures, not just shinier versions of the present. [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/aeonmag/posts/tech-billionaires-are-in-the-habit-of-claiming-their-work-is-inspired-by-the-spa/1496069909227335/)

Don't you see

 

Stop. I have this postal scene, don't you see?
from a Paris visit an age ago.
Still un-sent--what I witnessed, let it be.
Recalls an ideal I would have us know.

I cried that last visit, felt left bereft--
moved so by what I'd seen and to death loved--
could not this memory? . . . my heart is cleft.
Imagine you had seen this scene of doves.

My eyes now weaker than those days before.
Dreams and hopes did not die with careless ease.
This postcard I kept live, and days of yore.
The pursuit and pact I've never ceased.

End my hold thus my mind to spread this view?
Alas, now to share I've none, or close  to few.

 

We needs be just

Flawed genius is ever od'ous our fact,

so much we abhor sans grace-giving tact.

Oh those figures, their image our envy,

but for deeds they've done--by each and every.

Lance his wins, in spite his half-hooded man,

final denial's failure--False! Now banned.

Wilt in his day, his tall staff the actual stilt, 

could scarce decline a horizontal tilt.

Billy boy too his loins bowled him over,

playing as dogs do--ever the rover.

Heidegger would be great, ideas to note; 

but for apology? we miss his quote.

Accept the highs, must we low parts forgive.

We must needs be just with balance and sieve. 

Interpersonal mud, July 2007

[Presumably in response to a student, or?]

Now you have raised a good question about what I have done again, and I have to try to do the first bit of hard work so that you can understand. Maybe you will; maybe you won't; maybe you will understand me in a different way than I understand myself. Maybe you will have your own opinion. That is all OK. 

If I am entirely truthful with myself and write it down or talk about it, then at least I have done my part, which is the first step in conversation. In the end, hopefully not before, I and you can evaluate or judge what has gone on in conversation, or discussions, and make any decisions based on that, or not.

This is all a short course in language or learning or knowing or personality or ego psychology, or whatever you want to call it. Here is the shorthand view of the course parts so far.

    Description = to tell it like it is as best you can.
    Explanation = to tell why you think it is using reason and feeling.
    Understanding = to know what it is and why that is so.
    Evaluation (or judgment) = to say whether what is and why are good or bad or nothing at all.

And of course there is opinion: your own view and judgment with your own understanding almost always without much description or explanation or discussion.

What have I left out? Oh, conversation (discussion/discourse), and decisions. Discussions are about coming to the same understandings between people. Decisions are about doing something with or about the understanding or opinion you have.

Oh, and do these things always follow in order? Of course they don't. That is the reason for confusion.

    Confusion = what the heck (= hell) was that and why.

Now, isn't school fun! 

Instrument of peace

 "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace."

So it  (the Prayer of St. Francis) begins and continues as a petitionary address to Lord. In part or whole, this line and those following have been the focus of contemplative meditation for more than twenty-five years. Oh, there have been days or weeks--lapses in practice--but in the main, this has led me to more than less satisfactory periods of calm and a sense of oneness with the cosmos.

Throughout this practice it has always bothered me who this Lord is. The facile answer is God or Christ, but that somehow never convinced me, so much so sometimes that I abandoned using direct address and skipped directly to "instrument of peace"; and that has sufficed, mostly.

At one point, amidst a particularly intense period of extraordinary if not mystical experiences having to do with this peace prayer, and sometimes not, I looked into the gray hood of the figure I kept seeing or imagined I saw and found there my own face, meaning that I was not petitioner but in some sense the lord? There would be mental gymnastics I did that justified or perhaps explained that I as Lord was the intent, but not proved that this was indeed a plausible truth or view. In the end, the Lord escaped identity certain. 

Today that chimera (a fantastic, unrecognizable, or impossible idea or figment of the imagination) dressed not in gossamer but a Franciscan's medieval hooded cassock the color of gray still won't look at me and reveal his, maybe her, identity. I want to know to whom it is I am addressing and perhaps am or stalked by; and should I abandon contemplative meditation on the words of this spiritual passage, which I still believe is worthy and practical to drive into conscience/consciousness and manifest in deed?

I have tried alternative mantras the most recent of which grounds, for the most part, daily life: Live, let live. Without boring or ruining for myself further explication and elaboration on why this is particularly useful and sacred today, I shall let it be! and continue to remind myself that here is the most appropriate key to living and being that I need right now. For there is not much that I can do to save others except to live as I profess, or to reach for its/my higher self and manifestation in the world. That is enough. The Lord can remain in the background, second string, still a mystery, still a source of coming to a still point now and then. 

The last line of the peace prayer has been translated differently into English. The French "is awakens to eternal life." The Blue Mountain Center's version is "dying to self that we are born to eternal life."  And the version from my Catholic upbringing is "dying that we are born to eternal life." 

(For different purposes I have commented elsewhere on these lines.  See https://alt-trans-display.blogspot.com/2025/08/it-matters.html and https://inter-linear.blogspot.com/2026/01/fr-en-prayer-of-st-francis.html.)

The Blue Mountain Center's version is slight manipulation of language/emphasis. The proponent had strong Eastern influences growing up in India, and so the self or Self appears. But wait. The original French has two lines above the last, "it is in self-forgetting that one finds." Perhaps Blue Mountain's English version has captured the more accurate meaning, or has the better interpretation from the original. 

With the version I grew up with, consistent with the focus on the afterlife, we gotta die to go there. Pretty practical from the Church's point of view, to focus on the end of times and living as one should as insurance, or is it obedience?

This is not all for the French or its English translations, and because it is not all, using this spiritual passage suggests the richness of contemplative meditation based on it. If one awakens to eternal life, that is different from wanting to die to get there or being born (again). 

I rather like awakens as a preferred translation from the French.