Ego (soap) ditty

 

My ego is not me.
One's soul is there to see.

But wash I sometimes must,
to clean off crud and rust.

Best use on self good soap!
So my soul will shine--I hope.

Bezoars of the world

 Question. 

"I studied the Portal device from Facebook I received from the [a friend's] daughter, rather an expensive gift. This device is useable when you are a member of Facebook a service I have been led to believe have many negative complaints linked to its use.  What objections do you have, if any by subscribing to Facebook?   I’m inclined to thank [friend's daughter] and return the device as I’m reluctant to joining. Let me know your thoughts."

Response.

Technology is a tool to extend and expand human capabilities. As such these tools can also be used for regressive and ill conceived--sometimes truly evil--purposes. A hammer is designed to help construct; however, we know that one can be used to attack someone other. The same is true for all technologies that so make up our environment that they become implicit, taken-for-granted, no longer noticeable as such--all around us.

Meditation can get us from the everyday mundane to enlightenment's heights, and the methods suggested for practice can also function as ends in themselves, to wit pleasurable states of peace and harmony without ever arriving at any heights.

However, identification with and idealization of one's meditation teacher and any procedural purity s/he preaches can lead us off the path of self evolution to discordant and ill- or misguided states such as hero worship, proselytizing, and polarizing, if not inhuman, acts and rhetoric.  

A film or photo or piece of art can evoke emotions and action-effects, bringing amusement or tears of joy in some cases and in others action for a better, more beautiful/just/compassionate/etc., world. These artifacts can also feed, that is support in some way, the unstable and disturb the sensitively consciousness--people like me.

Facebook and related technologies work the same way. Obsession with the latest posts or messages or images as well as taking  me-centered photos have led to psychological aberrations and ignorance of physical realities, or lack of appreciation of the power of same.

"She died falling off the cliff as she was taking her picture to share on Instagram."

Yikes, talk about (self-)abuse of technology.

However, keeping up with the grand-kids or calling cheap to someone on the other side of the world, these enhancements to our experience of the world shine in a true and good light. What's to complain about?

A lot, but these concerns fall outside of the technology/tool discussion for individual/collective good. We live in a sociopolitical world, and we can weigh, for example, what media companies will do in a less-than-enlightened way with the data we surrender to them, this in the face of the fact that one voice will not be heard if you opt out.

In return for "intended social good," these companies do for their own and not their client-customer's good. What today's mega-company CEOs and their hired minions do because it was "just my job" and "it was just there for the taking," well, you can decide for yourself. You will have to work to get enough information to make a good decision for yourself. Or, if you don't care about the Zuckerbergs and bezoars of the world, you have your decision.

This device you've been given can improve and expand our communications across distances. Whatsapp, for example, is easier and faster and better than relying on email and Facetime, or the phone. But you will be lining the pockets of the new masters of the world, the do-(almost)nothing-for-others, the likes of which include Zuckerberg and Bezos. So consider the pros and cons to the degree that you need to, and make the choice you are comfortable with.*

On the other hand, at least for me, I would not want the damn thing to watch me or listen to my political rants. The white bigots, or God forbid, the serious theists might come calling.

_____
* For a start to a complicated issue I have made overly simplistic, see https://www.forbes.com/sites/prakashdolsak/2020/12/16/different-styles-of-philanthropy-mackenzie-scott-and-jeff-bezos/?sh=54403eab50da

You will annoy, and yet

"He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine," said Dorothea, inconsiderately.
"You mean that he appears silly."
"No, no," said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on her sister's a moment, "but he does not talk equally well on all subjects."
"I should think none but disagreeable people do," said Celia, in her usual purring way. "They must be very dreadful to live with. Only think! at breakfast, and always."*

Summary of Celia's contribution: Disagreeable people are those that talk equally well on all subjects. and such people are dreadful to live with, especially at breakfast, and always.

Drilling down: To talk equally well on all subjects means--is knowledgeable, very, and/or speaks convincingly as if s/he is knowledgeable, albeit annoying virtually (as in "in truth") always.

For who would communicate "what they know": You will annoy.

Guide to map (biased): Ask questions. Pronounce sparingly, and only if asked overtly or tacitly.

Alternatively, Do the homework and pounce; start or finish the fray.

On the other hand, Dorothea: Regardless of appearances and limits in knowledge and ways of expression, her beau is a good person. You have to know him [the person]. 

Guide to revised map (also biased): A little understanding, a little patience, a little license, a little forgiveness, a little live-and-let-live, a little . . . what should we call it?

Meta guide to maps: Withdraw or engage. To withdraw is clear. But engage? how?  (Why is another question.)

Engage with the best that you know--and as most openly and effectively as you can till words end, even if not all yours are those agreed upon as sufficient to proceed.

Thus it is clichés all the way up and down beginning with: Choose your frays.

_____
* _Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life_, George Eliot.
** One answer appears previously and rationalizes this blog.

What do you know—about us?

That, when it is over, we shall meet again where there is no marriage, where there is nothing gross, where love perfect and immortal reigns and passion is forgotten. There that we love each other will make no heart sore, not even hers whom here, perhaps, we have wronged; there will be no jealousies, since each and all, themselves happy in their own way and according to their own destinies, will rejoice in the happiness of others. There, too, our life will be one life, our work one work, our thought one thought—nothing more shall separate us at all in that place where there is no change or shadow of turning. Therefore," and she clasped her hands and looked upwards, her face shining like a saint’s, although the tears ran down it, "therefore, ‘O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’
_Stella Fregelius, A Tale of Three Destinies_ By H. Rider Haggard

Would we have existence homogenized thus? 

How long could it be that we would reside in this loving bliss before we would remember life as it was with places to go and people to meet? films to experience with tears of laughter or those of grief? meals to savor and satiate, giving us full stomachs to boast over with guiltless smiles at our overindulgence? 

Would we not miss changes and differences and spice and variety?

I know this about me among us. I would find suspended animation a suspect state if it offered residing just so forever and ever. 

Subtract the human from me to embrace me thus, so that I could not move or live in awareness without longing, without contrast to show what is good and true and beautiful, without the bliss of living moment to moment in passionate pursuit . . . and have that interruption that brings the light of how good it was and can be again and again with but will and choice and action.

However, I'd do without the death part. (It is only human, no? to contradict oneself, or deny the inevitable.)

A correspondent wrote

A correspondent wrote that I was condescending, lecturing, angry(?), and so again I am caught short, or brought up short--what is the idiom? because of my words.

The last time this happened, not so very long ago, I resolved to stop all corresponding (two-way communication/conversation) that I tried to maintain and develop via email. The resolve included limits--only answering questions when asked or asking questions. 

Offer no subjects to discuss or contributions to what others are interested in.

It has gone well until this recent step into it, unawares I was upsetting those who seem to prefer protected conversation spaces, or safe subjects sanitized. 

In contrition this time, I confess I believe and have always believed this from _She_.

http://catalog.lambertvillelibrary.org/texts/English/haggard/she/

 

[S]o I lay and watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch of heaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world! Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know. Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were drowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first result of man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by the persistent effort of his purblind observation? It is not but too often to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any intelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because we could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It would destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small. The vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, and the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it may be otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of the flesh is but to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown by Fate, which he calls pleasure, thankful if before they burst they rest a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and his hour comes to perish, to pass humbly whither he knows not.
_She: A History of Adventure_ by H. Rider Haggard

But no one yet has censorship authority over this space, where I, at least, can try to work things out.

Your self-importance is equal to

This opinion piece has been posted all round the place. 

An Open Letter to the Legion of Lamentation*
By: E.P. Unum
July 13, 2020

I got a copy seemingly authored by this guy.

Here is my byte, which I can easily defend based on his(?) words.** But I won't bother, today.

98 per cent bullshit. No discussion with this guy, and ignorant of key points and deeper analysis of subjects that he pretends to know something about. Just another America-is-the-greatest blowhard shooting his mouth off. A shotgun blast any particle of which requires more information, more context, more thought, and more understanding.

Rip, you can Rest In Peace and crawl back into your cave. The fact that you believe anyone is interested in what you think/believe is just the least of the chains that your entitled culture (take a sip of your elitist beverage) has bound you up in and from which some of us are thankful we are still able to see for what they—the chains—are and escape to higher and better ideas and action. Set yourself free of us now that you have had your say and shut up and listen more carefully to others, or just go ahead and let others live as we let you. Your self-importance is equal, and no more, to that of mine and that of other citizens.

Respectfully yours . . .

___

* https://liberalsarenuts.com/2020/07/29/an-open-letter-to-the-legion-of-lamentation/. BYW, this site is full of stuff the above can be used to describe.

** "Being offended isn’t a mark of virtue; it’s a sign that you’re a big, blubbering baby who will throw a tantrum if you can’t get your way. Wagging fingers and shouting obscenities at me is just plain disrespectful, and might get you a punch in the nose." Now, who comes first to mind who can justifiably be described this way? If the author's answer is the same as mine, which I don't believe to be the case, then we have two of them at least.

A voyage at sea to change perspectives--DRAFT

[06.08.20 Updated. The following was composed from notes provided as background and philosophy to a business enterprise involving sea voyages infused with new challenges for participants-as-crew from which to become, or become again, full-bodied self-aware and to make resolves to act on their dreams. In a phrase, to experience inspiration (again).

These words have been provided for that enterprise's use, should they find them descriptive of what their effort currently envisions. I take no credit for what I have tried to express for others more enlightened and inspired than I.]

Embrace meaning and direction to live life to the max. Such sage advise notwithstanding, we confine ourselves sometimes in our own perspective, and as that doesn't help us survive and thrive, we become stuck and perhaps temporarily lost. To be confused about or to lack meaning prevents living life as we would, in concert with the highest and best expression of ourselves. We become immersed in a seeming fishbowl with blurred vision to where we are and what is beyond.

By contrast, floating at a unique but ever changing point on life's ocean of endless horizons in all directions and immeasurable heights above and depths below, appears attractive and reassuring. Some may be content to ride the winds and currents. But for others infinite possibilities overwhelm, and not content in a timeless, aimless float, are compelled to know where they are and where they can go, and then set off decisively on their journey.

Give me a compass. Calculations performed at twilight bring clarity of location and direction in daylight. The coordinates using one's star illuminate a sense of self and the singular environment in which one lives. It is as if one would use the heavens to navigate in a sea of possibilities using present location, one's chosen star, and the horizon ahead.

There are no ready answers for moving out of darkness or uncertainty except first to use the knowledge and awareness of now you, body and soul, are here. Informed by experience plus acquired knowledge and expertise nested in values and beliefs show the possibilities and the ways to head. As and after you articulate your own place and aimed-for possibilities, framing anew results. The fresh air of renewed perspective lets you breathe and refresh your spirit, in a phrase, to be inspired. Would that we could accelerate our purpose by feeling and smelling and breathing that fresh air and having the body-felt experience of being alive that comes from succeeding at new challenges.

Show me how to use the sextant you are suggesting. The metaphorical sextant requires your current position. You find, or re-discover that by sensing yourself where you are in the clearest terms possible. Language is a primary means for people to express who they are to themselves. Your unique identity composed of knowledge, skills, experience, attitudes and personal characteristics, including talents, has to be described for self realization and vitality. To know thyself is not automatic. All aspects need to be examined anew and brought together again. A separate time and place can aid this process, as can some guidelines for completing the task.

The sextant requires a point in the heavens to light the way. This is the second element--what you are about, meaning or purpose, your star. You know in your heart what that is--the light in your eyes that others say they see, the flame that burns eternally inside and you feel the burn almost physically. It is that which haunts and starves your soul if ignored or delayed. It is something you are driven to do something about, to get on with, without which you cannot feel fulfilled. If you are not clear what that is, you are perhaps staring at what is so close it is hard to focus. Sometimes we need different mirrors that other eyes provide to help us realize what was there all along, perhaps from fellow travelers and catalysts, who have different perspectives on what we think we are about.

To complete the triangulation with an imaginary sextant requires a horizon or navigation point in the distance. Although always advancing as you move toward it, at any given time you can fix that point, which sets direction, maps your journey, and readies the sails for your journey. As the sages have also said, the trip takes you rather than the other way round. And in surrendering to the charts of your voyage bequeaths power and  motivation to embark and persist. The optimism that results reconnects you to the goodness of being, and being who you are. Although you may not need it, it is reassuring to have the support of fellow travelers and those who have gone before, call them catalysts, as you conquer new challenges to strengthen the resources you have within.

Oh, to escape from my fears of facing me, much less venturing forth through new experiences.  How to re-kindle the confidence that lets one explore endless possibilities with curiosity and benefit from new and refreshing experiences? You can do it alone, and essentially we all do. But with the support of compassionate and in their own right expert fellow crew members in a safe and supportive environment for rejuvenating you, uncertain seas become less threatening, calm, and sure; and prevailing gentle breezes of accomplishment will power you and whatever your enterprise on your way.

There may be occasional miscalculations. You can always re-calibrate and correct your course. Whatever seems to impede an important and necessary trip is temporary and perhaps illusory. Having or recalling when you felt inspiration to reach for your star keeps you oriented and on course.

Voyage at sea. The literal sea calls to some as a particularly apt venue through which to acquire new or renewed meaning and a clearer focus on living life as you would. It is a time and place away to focus on what it is you want and need in life. Some will not find the sea as their chosen way out of the doldrums or fishbowl. But for those who find this way of adventure to understanding and purposeful action, and given the invitation to join others on such a journey, a decision to board ship is but a nanosecond's consideration. Promised rewards earned through dedication and work toward what will fulfill await.

Know that taking readings with your sextant often requires a bit of coaxing and practice. Experiencing something new, yet others have safely traveled through before, changes perspectives and will tax you, but the taxes are minimal. Others have gone before and can attest to the tried and trusted ways out of so-called fishbowl perspectives, which are by definition limiting.

The distance between my perspective today and the perspective of who I think I should be is the intensity of inspiration. The moment I developed a new prospective with the least toll on myself and my environment is the feeling of inspiration.*

Although others have taken a sea voyage before and found themselves by surrendering in pursuit of their outer limits of what is comfortable and familiar, and their experiences have necessarily been different because they were different people and not you, anticipate that your voyage will certainly be unique. Encountering different perspectives on the journey and having entirely unique experiences along your way enrich one's ability to accept and adapt with the least resistance and the least threat to the essence of you. Going beyond one's patterned perspective will introduce you to new and different ones that will assuredly enrich what it is you aspire to do with the time we have to live life to the max.

_____
* Direct quote from the founder.

Tautological twist--DRAFT 4 with Addendum

[Updated: 06.07.20]

All speech is political. Or, what any expression asks of us.

If we understand speech as "engaging in the creation and advocacy of realities through the invention, elaboration, or imposition of discourse,"* the term political does not constrain us in understanding that all speech is just that, political.

Why discourse and not all expression? Yes, why not, for an in-your-face expression in any form functions the same way. It is as if what one attends to, even if just to notice and move on, shouts: "Look at me, hear me, smell me, taste me, touch me, feel me . . . understand me, don't dismiss me, remember me, act as if you cared. . . ."

Thesis: Once one attends to that which has been expressed and before s/he fully re-cognizes the content or message, the invitation to discourse interaction completes the validity of the claim that all speech, that is expression, is political, having to do with power over an other.

Expression, in the broadest sense, imposes its presence to an attending percipient and at the same time attempts to colonize present awareness with itself and its import, if not more. Making this demand evidences inherent authority and power, even if the effect is the import's dismissal, or is it export's?

Now take the above paragraphs. In asserting what they do, they ask you to consider if not buy the explication. In form (words strung together) and content (meaning), we have a kind of co-incidence. As the meaning of the expression says all speech is political, the utterance by the nature of utterances (expression) at the same time says the same thing, or more accurately, enacts it.

Funny that that seems/is so, is it not? Reading, listening, viewing, etc., self proclaim--Pay Attention (at least).

One could say more about "all speech is political", for example what famous person first uttered this idea, what philosophical development it has had over the centuries, who were its historical or civic champions for belief in its truth or validity, why it should only obtain when matters of politics and government are concerned, and so forth; however, mere existence, ready-at-hand to be attended to, suffices to prove the simple self-evidency of what speech/expression is at the most fundamental, phenomenological level, of or having to do with the exertion of power and persuasion to achieve some effect on the percipient, or audience.

Now all this is a rabbit hole, or performative jumble. If what I assert in form is at the same time an example of what I assert in meaning (content), and such an explanation or description may be universally applied, then this perhaps is some kind of hermeneutic spiral to infinity, or  hall of mirrors with no end to seeing the same image reflected again and again up to and, by extension, beyond the horizon, or fruitless Sisyphusian conundrum. In sum, my thesis is a trivial pursuit most feel unnecessary to say or realize.

On the other hand, having gone to this depth of the reflexivity of expression, I would call this insight(?), an inescapable tautological twist, and as valid and "true" as any other defense of the opening assertion that better and brighter stars have argued.

So be it for now till a lighter, clearer day dawns, if I may speak with authority and do gently impose upon thee.
_____
* Brown, Richard Harvey, _Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality_, University of Chicago Press, 1987

ADDENDUM (29.07.20)

If you are reading this sentence and trying to take in what it says, you are being manipulated to do something the words intend for you to do.

Words, or any expression put out and available for readers and others to receive or perceive, have a minimum of two reasons for existence. 

+ One, to convey something--an idea, feeling, information, etc.

+ Two (as you are fulfilling the first reason for the words being there before you) the words themselves demand: "Look at me, hear me, smell me, taste me, touch me, feel me . . . understand me, don't dismiss me, remember me, act as if you cared. . . ."

Words (or other expressions (e.g., art installation) calling your attention) are a way "power is achieved and used", power being the core idea in the notion of politics or political.

A word to the wise--DRAFT

Re: free speech/expression

1. Isegoria--saying what's on your mind with a view to engage in discussion with others for a better union.

If you frame what you say in terms of this and thoroughly researched information, not opinion (one-sided "interpretation"), you are safer than otherwise.

2. Parrhesia--"the right" to shoot your mouth off anytime, anywhere, to anyone.

"John Stuart Mill argued that the chief threat to free speech in democracies was not the state, but the 'social tyranny' [or worse] of one's fellow citizens."*

What's a person to do? If you must commit parrhesia, note the above caution and guidelines and:

• Limit yourself to the best medium for expression and influence for a specific audience.
• View opposing views as worthy of hearing and understanding, if not acting upon.
• Act upon the agreed upon after listening, paraphrasing, asking questions, highlighting common ground, and, not leastly, having your brief statements heard, etc.
• View most of any other noise as theater and find there entertainment.

Shut your eyes, ears, and mouth otherwise. Someone or something will fill any void. Hold on tight if this happens and you are still passive but "invested".

_____
* https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/two-concepts-of-freedom-of-speech/546791/

Popcorn for politicos

[The following is in response to a letter I received detailing a bunch of stuff seemingly Republican, right-leaning, Trump pardoning, chaos-embracing, conspiracy-spinning, generalized other bashing . . . you get the idea. Pardon for the repetition of part of an earlier post about guns, but it seemed appropriate to insert for purposes of diverting attention from an argument no one will come to a consensus about in present-day USA.]

I already have my popcorn and I'm enjoying the chaos, er fun. Thanks for your lines nicely delivered in this human drama. (Wait, gotta pop more popcorn.) Very entertaining, if in some places different from my lines and character when I have to deliver on stage. But I'm not going to do that here, or am I?

Okay. You got me. I'm a leftie, have been all my life. You righties have tried to do us in or teach us otherwise, but I still prefer my way of looking at and doing things my sinister way.

Do you know we on my side die earlier than you guys do? because the world is controlled by you bastards! We are at least 12 percent of the population, and yet never acknowledged by the majority--you guys. All lives matter. Of course they do, goes without saying. But so do Black lives, leftists matter, Asian-Americans matter, even though in my case I have never been recognized or accepted for that label which is who I am genetically What about MY identity and rights? In this me-culture, everyone forgot about me!

Hell, All Lives AND Black Lives and My life matter, in spite of white fear of losing the majority (think "superior") view.* I ain't part of no Democratic conspiracy, just one of the humans in a race where whites want now desperately to win ("dominate") and others just want to compete in a fair contest.

Now to be equitable, I do try to understand the right side of the spectrum. I brush my teeth sometimes with my right hand, and I sometimes zip my fly with my right hand; but hey, I draw the line at shaving right-handed. I may be a leftie but not stupid like the white sheep majority.+

Now about those guns. If we give everyone from 5 years of age and up a real gun, what would happen? First, chaos. I agree. Let the show continue.

Well, the never-to-die dream of being a cowboy or cowgirl toting a gun on main street for show or action has never died . . . nor has blowing away instead of achieving consensus with the bad--those other--guys. As I said, I have my popcorn. Citizenship paid for just as have righties, over and over. (Or do they on the right pay taxes? I hear a lot don't.)

Other than the first killings of people who look funny or look different or just look and we can pop 'em off just for fun, what else would happen if we really embraced our inner gun and wild west heritage?

+ A small, mostly passive proportion of the populace would object vocally and then retreat to mumbling and solitary protests in private and out of sight.

+ A large proportion of the populace would embrace the freedom and call it a right not a privilege.

+ A large proportion of these would acquire, or be gifted, guns.

+ The guns and munitions industries would institute a holiday where everyone was encouraged to shoot their guns off to the air above in unison at noon and gather later for a barbecue and gun games. Among these there would be 21-gun salutes, wild random shooting with cries of yippee, and some tears at wounds and casualties perpetrated by the careless and untrained.

+ Annually we would witness more mass shootings but eventually accept them as the cost of freedom. No more tears need be shed. Shit happens.

+ A small proportion of crazies would do crazy things like hold people hostage, snipe at passersby, kill someone because of a verbal disagreement or unjust job termination, etc.

+ A very small proportion of experienced gun owners would see religion and give up their arms and campaign for the repeal of the freedom, without success.

+ Criminals would continue to use guns to get what they wanted, but increase their arsenals to newer technologies to accomplish the same end. To stay competitive, you know.

+ Non-gun owners would be marginalized and deemed impoliticly correct or worse. They would become a new discriminated-against group with appropriate epithets to describe them.

+ Foreign visitors to the country would decrease.

+ TV shows and documentaries and info-docu re-enactments would increase showing us more and more violent scenes to savor before bedtime.

+ Since 5 year olds would be entitled to a gun, they would find new products to badger their parents about--pink or blue pint-sized rifles and pistols made of plastic that shoot real bullets, one at a time, just for safety.

+ Laws would be enacted to prevent carrying firearms into designated places such as the men's room at the local movie theater, the garage of a friend, the desert . . . places where the likelihood of accident or perpetration would be less or more . . .

In short, live and let live, that is unless someone you don't want around shows up . . . and eats his chicken fried steak with his left hand. "Shit! See that? Yikes!" Especially if s/he doesn't use a fork and knife "like we all do hereabouts".

Stay safe _in_ the funny farm and keep those entertaining messages coming.

Oh, and thanks for the movie recommendations. So far can't find 'em on YouTube, 'cause in the good ole US of A, you gotta pay for what you get--no free lunch.

_____

+ For a look at Truth and the heights of American culture, see https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/videos/jordan-klepper-vs-trump-supporters/210669160181460/

* The reference for the fear of whites and Asian aspirations, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-battle-cry-of-the-white-man/2014/08/05/961858f4-1cd4-11e4-ab7b-696c295ddfd1_story.html

Dustbin treasure?

Cleaning out the dustbin, I found this from 2007; however, the date must be earlier, around 2000, for that is when I was associated with Learnability. I put it here as a reference for myself to check to see if what I thought/did in the past still has relevance in light of today's re-newed need for "distance learning."

Let's see.

Conversion Services

[space reserved for results of assessment]

Why I am not a writer

The answer is complicated of course. In short, I'm a coward. Or perhaps more sensitively stated: I'm a co-operator, a conflict avoider, shy or reticent (either will do), chicken shit (marketing averse), people-pleaser, diaphanous jelly fish without poison to offend or defend, lacking in ego/testosterone and over flavorous edible fodder for alpha-types and competition freaks. Or maybe, just maybe, as one who loves to write and has lots of ideas on the burners or descriptive voyages under sail, too busy to pursue all of what it means to be a writer today, especially disagreement with what or how I have said/written something, which in the end is fluff . . . I don't have time or care.

So much self promotion, at least from my view as an expatriate living abroad, one who observes the pursuit of greed and gold and glory by those who write . . . mostly crap for a populist audience with little attention span beyond 140 characters, or some such byte for like and mis-quotation. Do I sound like a sore loser, or miscreant? I beg, rather claim decidedly not.

Writing first, if you must from some inner devil that won't let you have a complete and fully-satisfying day if no words have been recorded somewhere in or on a notebook, is a thankless pursuit. No one other than you must read you or what you have to say, which is the same thing. Paul Auster got it right--more than once--when he said no one is obligated to pick up and read your stuff. Therefore I write for no audience.

•  What is it like to write for no audience, not even apparently for me? Paradox again--this piece is for some reader, I suspect, although it appears here as one entry in a storage place for almost finished pieces of my puzzle(-ment).
• Writing for no audience is writing what is in consciousness now. Look neither forward nor back. It is a process, a self description--with all the voices, all possible topics--no inhibitions, no intent other than itself, a kind of being through what looks like a doing.
• It could be stream of consciousness, a label. But labels are applied to something after having looked at it, a kind of analytical post scriptum, or description of what we have come to see or know as it is on its own. But writing for no audience is not intended or a purposeful art. It is more like art for art's sake, sans even that label. It may be what is done. But who knows or cares if process-now writing has no audience?
• Writing for an audience is to have something to say to share. Writing for no audience is therapy? recreation? re-creation? an outlet for what un-articulated things may be brewing in the great stew of the soul's manifesting? a way to let me become? the playground of conflicting selves where we can work through and then stop and move beyond. So with nothing but all of that license, there is no audience, no aim I want you--you, you, and you-me--to get.
• Does this writing matter? Silly question. Only to do it when the up-welling needs to have a place to go--and then that purpose may be too Western, too serious, too task driven, obligatory.
• When does it take place? Anytime, anywhere. But empty Chinese restaurants in towns I visit--where I am unknown--are my favored places. (You-other will have to sort out your where.) I like it when the family is eating and talking at their own table before other guests arrive.
• What is it like? It is pleasure. It is affirmingly being, my being alive and here. It is flexing and discovering. It is asking questions and writing to learn the answers. It is filling a notebook, a record of the good times and bad, where I have been and when. For asking and trying to answer why questions.
• Will I read all that stuff? Maybe. When I am old and wear purple and sit in front of the fire, scanning then burning--so no one will have evidence of my having been here--except their memories should they have at some time met me of spent a little time "trying to get to know".
• Writing for no audience with only what flows out as the something-to-say is like touching my self to make sure--to pinch myself and respond. It is for no other--not him or her or them, not for me sometime-when. But for now. Moments to hold before they're all gone. Moments to treasure and count up the riches now. Moments to let go of--after their clear acknowledgment. Moments to hope for should life surprise me with being as I would have it. We are such stuff as dreams are made of--you know the rest.
• And when I put my pen down, I close my notebook and relish that home cooked meal in silence, wondering if the Chinese food is so beloved because of nature or nurture. If my writing for no audience were to speak aloud, s/he would say the answer is like all things--apparently, probably, sometimes, mostly--it is a little of all. And that as answer will have to suffice until the next time I think about and want to sort through the dustbin of my living.
• My writing is about what it says it is about, that as ambiguous as that is and then some. I suspect the sum is a whole, of a piece, and nothing. It is about a life trying to affirm itself as it tries to erase the trace of self which is of little account in the world of measured things. It is every time with every word the flicker of that flame before it goes out, or is given another moment to shine its light for someone, somewhere, somehow . . . if even that. Silence.

Well, well enough said. That, most of the above, was true in 2000. Except the coward part. That has its first articulation here. I'm not sure the rest is as true today. Consider this imperfect draft of things as they are or appear to be, which is the same thing.

The act of writing--your pen moving on paper, fingers performing  QWERTY sonatas--AND all the other stuff, not limited to querying publishers, paying agents, membering in associations, pitching, forcing excretion of hype copy, contracting for cover designs . . . I land on the first side of the equation, all the stuff you do to get to there, I have said it without any interruptions or distractions, most importantly the distractions of getting others to read your stuff. That is not where it is at, for me doing the essential task--producing words in sequence to produce unified and coherent wholes to fix 'em still so's I can contemplate true or not, or to just let them out 'cause the world as participation in physical realities is just too tragic and malevolent to spend much time there, except in a Chinese restaurant with crunchy fortune cookies, at least two, with uplifting bytes you know will never come true but bring smiles or a nod of assent and you say, "Yeah, that one's got it pretty much right."

Now back to work.

Addendum (15.08.20)

Dated 09/01/2014

Honesty in writing.

I write safely. That is, I do not reveal in journals or other places what I truly feel, have thought or done. I steer clear of things that "accidental" readers might judge me for, things like indiscretions, how I really feel about so-called sins or things not in accord with major views, etc. So, what you get, if there is a you, is something akin to how I would like to be seen. There are secrets of the heart and past deeds I would rather people not know about. This might change . . . the nature of a subject might dictate otherwise at some point, or "the truth" might be hidden in fiction's coverlets.

Addendum (15.08.20)

From 28 January 2014

Before this day is done, I note that writing so-called fiction absorbs me--now that I have started from a singular image and then let 'er rip. The other way was to fully visualize the story and scenes and characters, etc., whatever etc. happened to be. This time the story unfolds on its own. I don't know where it is going. The fully conceptualized and visualized was exciting for just these two processes, but then writing it out took away the fun, the involvement. I knew where it all was supposed to go and how. This latter approach has me in the story as if I am reading and discovering the plot, conflicts, characters, and so forth. I seem to have more energy and interest in proceeding, because I don't know what is going to happen or where it will end up. Fascinating. I hope the evolutionary will be revolutionary, to take me to another level and restore my confidence in what is inside and what I can uncover and/or create.

Addendum (15.08.20)

From 03 February 2014

so i will do what i can to put myself in a place where no one can hurt me...into my writing, it is happy and safe there, a different world to live in...that is why i like it, a place to forget the pain

Phenomenon of It--DRAFT

I

Cast thine attention to what is important
to see, not understand, clearly for what it is
in your experience--without bias, your own included.

Choose the words to describe that perception.
Almost clarity's the result, if not comprehension,
comprising the what and how exclusive of all you or others
think, or believed or said about, now, the It.

Phenomenology's the process, not the product.

If you talk about it or It and how others experience,
that's a discussion of a subject or synthesis of views
of it and some how of it. Greater clarity perhaps,
and infused with understandings important about
an elusive object, or subject, of our attention.

Descriptive analysis is not phenomenology.

II

Round and round the circle goes,
up and down till it gives you woes.

Now the gyre with the It I would
narrows and points to see the very what it could.

At its center the still clothed stands
to be unfrocked before my truth can land.

Seeming tall and straight--naked now she sits--
with I along to see everything s/he it fits.

What is ever changes it it stays the same,
as I from inside out the circle game.

A game with rules simple strict, to wit--
to the thing itself no foreign nit.

No conceit conceive except to pre-perceive,
tentative hold, 'sans bias' what we re-ceive.

Take not for granted what now you see,
for it is is and not its elusive be.

I would its essence comprehend,
but to describe? it moveth round the bend.

I would put me first and what I saw,
but now the circle's the great big maw.

Before it eats me my mind all up,
Time for dinner. Better pause and sup.

Or do all else while the wine ferments,
you can your gaze from it 'fore relents,

till all is clear as clear it must,
for in study and reflection I verily trust.

And once the gyre turns and says its said I say,
then another sparkly thing can draw all well away.

Addendum to previous post

We rarely understand what people mean until we ask them. Moreover, they may not know themselves what they mean until they’re asked. This is why, on subjects of any depth and complexity, the dialogue, rather than the sermon, is the model for intellectual engagement. The sermon may preach humility, but only the dialogue puts it into practice. For only the dialogue embodies what Emerson called “the secret of the true scholar,” which is that “[e]very man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.” What the true scholar learns is not just “some point” on which he had been ignorant. He learns from that particular instruction the larger lesson of his own ongoing dependency on others, [and] the limits of his own experience.*

I believe the previous post was an attempt to say just this and about that subject. I am a prisoner of my own experience, and without dialogue, a conversation attempting to go somewhere, why should I be the one to initiate by broadcasting. Some have seen through my sermons or lectures and taken up a point or two and commented, or they have asked for the background, what I meant, etc.

But because of my insignificant voice, I have brought myself up short and said, "Stop it. In form and content you are discouraging people from their rightful place in the world and in your life. Stop disrespecting others. Be quiet. Listen. Ask questions. And so I shall try, harder."

Thus my dialogues appear here and elsewhere.

Of course this blog is a performative contradiction . . . except no one reads this blog. It's just about sorting me out so that I can get straight on some things. Audience of one, no apologies.

_____
* From "The American Scholar: Low Definition In Higher Education - Lyell Asher". 2016. Theamericanscholar.Org. Accessed December 28 2016. https://theamericanscholar.org/low-definition-in-higher-education/#.WGNhSvkrLIV.

I don't believe*

Higgs boson

"Do you think that beyond the edge of the cosmos or the other side of the smallest particle or wave, there we'll discover what many believe is there but has no name, no concept, no evidence thus far other than the absence of all sens-I-able things?"

"Isn't this to say that the micro- and macro- material universes have their ground in non-materiality--see, we don't even have the words."

"Oh, dear. Now we've got a problem. No words to talk about what we don't even know is there, God or nothing."

"That's nonsense. There aren't just two options."

"Whadayamean? There are only those two."

"What about some other reality? Like in string theory. They have quantum explanations and then there are string interpretations, but no one has ever seen a string, not that I know anything about it. Except, a theory is a theory based on ideas. Could be the same for the ends of things as we know them."

"You mean a theory other than the so-called theory of God or the theory of nothing."

"Right. And basically we made all this up. God and nothing. Realities we never dreamed of come into our awareness through science every day. Why not something we've never even dreamed of?"

"I guess that's possible. When you look at it, the god most people talk about looks pretty much like a larger people-like person. Pretty much. And he or she has changed costumes over the years."

"If you want to go crazy with this, then a people-made god all powerful and all of that, well, s/he could be in, around, and through, be the very essence of anything and everything. Doesn't sound so much like a god as a condition of the reality we already know. Look at that beetle there. He's god, and the space between him and you is god, and you are god. I am sure this is heresy to someone."

"You can be sure."

"And that leaves us where? I don't think we know, in spite of testimonies to the contrary from reputable voices throughout the ages."

"Something bothers me. Nothing I get. Like no thing, which is hard to imagine, because you can't even label or describe that for there's nothing there, not even nothing. It's a paradox and I can't hold it in my head, no one can in fact. Then there's the assumption that there is a god or spirit on the other side. We can't by definition--because of omini-everything--imagine him, her, it, other."

"But we have tradition and theologians and people like that. People who contemplate and study . . . "

"Yes, and again, everything is a font from them. Don't tell me about books written in chosen languages by chosen peoples and all of that. What about the rest of us? God prefers one group over another? Doesn't sound like god. We are constrained with who we are, where we come from, our traditions, granted, and all manner of physical things and phenomena. You'd have to step outside of all of that to see what was really there, and no one has done that except one, reportedly, and he didn't stick around long enough to tell us much."

"So why do we study the stars and the Higgs boson and keep on going with all of that?"

"To get more questions to answer. If we had no questions, what'd we do with ourselves."

"Questions about?"

"Nothingness or realities beyond all sensory comprehension. Or, that which we can conceive of as immaterial realities embracing and permeating all of that which can be sensed directly."

_____
* I don't believe I wrote this, but it comes from my working-writings file and is in the style of dialogues  I have written frequently. The piece also reflects some of my thinking and the ways I have expressed myself about such things. But all the same, I have some doubt about how well this is constructed and said. I wrote this?

If I am repeating something someone else has written in whole or in part, please excuse AND inform me.

Her remaining days

Her daytime attendant would arrive early in the morning and help her dress. They then would exit the apartment as her parents felt relief and respite from the fitful night. The attendant would open the car door and she would sit quietly in the back seat. She liked riding in the car. And off they would go to the care center as they did yesterday and all days before since she was two. There her days would each be the same, but from appearances she would experience them as first and new; and the routine, the predictability, would embrace her all the days of her life, as the days embraced her parents and the silent attendant. No one knew what went on inside, or if.

Grandfather sleeps

Grandfather sat on the tree stump on the small rise above the family's sumptuous vegetable garden and looked first at it and then into the distance. His work was done. July's harvest had led to August's, and now September would come in three days. He knew he would not see it, nor the bounty that was always September and early October. Others would reap what he had sown, and that was good. With a hand slowly rising to his heart and lowering his head to look at his chest, he exhaled uttering one word that no one would hear. "Love." Then he slowly listed to the right and fell off the stump and onto the ground. He lay there, lifeless in a fetal position with a modest smile for his family, his eyes closed for eternal sleep.

Whatever could have transpired

The judge took the gavel and smacked it on the sound block resting on the ledge before him. "Court's adjourned," he said, and the assembled as well as the defendant and lawyers, prosecuting and defense, rose and stood in silence. The judge exited left and entered his chambers. All knew he would not return and that the curious drama had come to its end  No one moved, not the bailiff, jailer, nor the court reporter seemingly  knowing and bewildered at the no-decision decision. No one moved. No one had satisfaction. Contrary to everything we expect of such formal and public proceedings, the only option seemed to be to disperse. But all just stood there facing forward.

Temporary assurances

Before the snows arrived that year in late August, Mara and her newborn sans name except for "little one" settled into her aunt's family lodge. It was warm and welcoming on the now brisk mornings, and soon winter as well as homespun sympathies would ensure their home for a time, a time next year when decisions about where to go and what to do next would have to be made. The only thing Mara was relieved about was that he would not come calling, for he was somewhere out there, who knows where and who cares, really? Not so much a new life but one with temporary assurances, and that was enough, more than enough, refuge and shelter from storms of the heart.

Lizzie's mom

"Lizzie, if you're not going to live by the rules of this house, well, you can just find another mother and maid, and cook, by the way."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do. There are things that are just not on. You've crossed that line, again, and I'm sick and tired of it."

"That's three cliches, mom."

"I don't care what that is. You'd better--"

"Better what?"

"Stop. Stop, I say. Where'd you get such sass?"

"From you."

"Out you go."

At that my mom's hands grabbed my shoulders and turned me around. She marched me--my cliche--to the front door and pushed me out onto the porch. She grabbed the wildly swinging screen door and pulled it shut and locked it. She looked out through the screen door, her face now a blur peering out at me.

"You're taking this. . . . Unhinged, you are. Unhinged."

No bearing

Alternate ending, considered to have no bearing on a canonical narrative.

Sissy stormed out of the diner and crossed Highway 50. She stood there and with the feeling of stamping one foot repeatedly in defiance, she signaled to hitch a ride with an oncoming semi. He blew right past and in the wind-wake and dust he created--no, that her so-called partner created, she actually stamped her foot three times.

Meryl looked out the screen door of the diner and called, "You really are deranged. You'll be back straight away." A moment later she added, "The loneliest road in America is not the easiest place to hitchhike."

A white pickup truck slowly approached Sissy and stopped. The next thing Meryl didn't see was Sissy, just the tailgate of that white pickup heading east. "She'll be back," she said to herself, not a doubt in her soul. She turned and stood at the counter waiting to pay the bill for two half-eaten breakfast specials.

The poem that I wrote*

On Sunday, November 24, 2019.

This is the poem I wrote the other evening that you asked about. Before reading, you need to know it is part of a novel or drama I am working on about a character, Johnnie Passnstyle. The writing I am doing is like a novel and like a play.

So there is a cast of characters plus a narrator, a kind of chorus figure, in this case a kind of genderless voice. This person stands apart from the others on stage and tells a story, makes comments, introduces action, etc., like in Greek plays and in Shakespeare. Below the poem in its final form plus a kind of translation of the ideas.

[the poem begins]

Unenviable me--my cry of woe--
a choral voice no words to sow.
Without words direct from others?
S/he, that is me, left with druthers.
No wise insights to impart,
from stories! that'd be their start.
Time has passed and passes now,
like waves wash'd against life's prow.

Seasons come and seasons go:
We know not what we would know.

Enviable I, the Winter's Tale, its choral voice,
could accelerate time anon apace.
I would try such a narrative trick
and eclipse my dear heroine's shtick.
But only she can say what went and passed,
so better that I this ditty leave--at last.
I yield the stage to our only sage.
Johnnie's words let this story wage.

[end of poem]

This is translation, but the poem itself is better and more than this.

Unenviable me--my cry of woe--
[I feel sorry for me. I am complaining.]

a choral voice no words to sow.
[I am like a narrator with no words to say.]

Without words direct from others?
[I ask the question about not having words from other people.]

S/he, that is me, left with druthers.
[Without those words, I, genderless, have only my preferences about what to say.]

No wise insights to impart,
[I have nothing wise to say or teach.]

from stories! that'd be their start.
[It is from experience or stories we hear, that is how one gets something to say.]

Time has passed and passes now,
[Time goes on.]

like waves wash'd against life's prow.
[Life is like a boat at sea with waves that bump against the front of it.]

Seasons come and seasons go:
[More time passes now measured in seasons.]

We know not what we would know.
[And still we have nothing to say, or do not know what to say . . .]

Enviable I, the Winter's Tale, its choral voice,
[I am envious of the narrator (chorus) in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.]

could accelerate time anon apace.
[He or she could speed up the narrative by summarizing details.]

I would try such a narrative trick
[If I could, I would try the same trick in storytelling.]

and eclipse my dear heroine's shtick.
[I would do this by shortening what my heroine has to say, or summarize what has happened that we didn't see or hear on stage. Her shtick (Yiddish) is her story that is very familiar to her to re-tell.]

'We meet not others along life's way but ourselves.'

But only she can say what went and passed,
[Only she is able to say what happened to her.]

so better that I this ditty leave--at last.
[So I had better stop my little song, this poem--it must be boring for you.]

I yield the stage to our only sage.
[I am stopping, will leave the stage of this play, and will give it to the only one who can speak with authority.]

Johnnie's words let this story wage.
[Let her, Johnnie, use her power to struggle to tell the story in her words.]

At this point the novel-drama of Johnnie Passnstyle continues in the heroine's words and in verbatim conversations that she is able to recall, and report, exactly (a talent she has).

_____
* Also posted on Passnstyle' blog.

Monday, December 17, 2018

He looked at the cashier in a way that said, "Are you from outer space?" To which she replied to the inaudible question, "Indeed." He then looked down, confused. How should he understand this latest ambiguous remark? She held out her hand. Within seconds, he took it, turned it over and kissed it. She blushed and muttered something inaudible and declared, "What will it be, your good looks or cash or credit?" "Credit," he said. She waited a long moment and then said, "This is the only time I can do this." He thanked her and held up one finger in a remember-me (or -this) sort of way, which she took to mean he would--remember her and the favor. He started to go and she asked when would they meet again. "After work," was his reply and he walked away without turning back to see her reaction. She then turned and dropped some no small change into the cash register drawer and said, "Next."

Red waiting room

Cast thine eyes down to see--if sorely sore.
The floor pattern is straight columns and rows.
Then, sameness's face relieves you no more.
Ever this open office, so closed, goes.

See here, and people that go by dot gov,
no matter whether this country or that,
engender no true fondness or dear love.
No help for those who stand, sit or sat.

Red is all a bureaucracy begat:
In that door, the tape's endless before us.
Yer blood will boil hues and brains fry in fat.
Patterns and lines, red tape--there's the end-us.

Now listen to me. The most can be said.
Help from hell here? a polite "Drop you dead."

Museums for cheap tourists

Whether or not Jesus ever existed--I allude to those textual critics all over YouTube who make this claim, or strongly suggest it--the religions that "He" inspired inspired great works of art and architecture, not to mention other cultural contributions worthy of, for example, reading (C. S. Lewis, John Milton, Gerard Manly Hopkins).

So whether God-from-psychological-need, or having had an inexplicable mystical experience assuring one of something other and better,

or

True, that is s/he/it is irrefutable/historical fact--therefore evidence-based surety of existence, I still bow in reverence and respect and wonder and appreciation in the museums I go to, if admission is free, or as-you-deem-appropriate: to wit, Christian places of worship.

In my travels, I have visited these museums and without fail come away moved to silence by the simplicity or sumptuously adorned collections and installations on display. I recommend these culture centers.

Okay. I am a cheap tourist.

Free love, free dove*

There once was a lass from Brno,
who thought all men she did know.
But when she met me--
Her! I drove up a tree.
And she teased me a man with her show!

At the tree I gazed up as one should,
and I saw what everyone could.
There in little distress,
a shorter wonder-filled dress,
she promised me whatever I would.

For my view she backed the way down
to my waiting arms all around.
But against my delight,
she took a quick flight,
and escaped away to the town.

After I turned and that way I ran
as fast and faster--I can--
but when she got home,
I was left all alone.
So thus with my song I began.

She looked out the bed window
and said 'I'll not be a widow.
Climb the vine to me.
We can play like we're we.'
Sooo . . . went up for a jolly good go!

We two we trans-sported our love
until fate looked down from above.
He's a nasty old trickster.
Sad, I'm not longer with her.
She's back up her tree, a dove.

The moral you see--drive no girl up a tree,
for there you ne'er get what you see.
It's better to know
how things usually go.
For then you will like her--be free!

_____
* A Valentine's poem for . . . someone.

Watch out! or

What to communicate:
Revised: 25.06.20

Is it true, kind, and necessary?

What is true a speaker discerns to be so using the most accurate, if not the best, way of saying it. What is true is the speaker's own, even though that truth is not the Truth--and s/he knows it.

Kind or not is the speaker's intention measured by the recipient.

The speaker intends that the addressed know what is in, or on, the speaker's mind. With such earnestness, the intent is kind in being "helpful" and specifically addressed to the other(s).

How this truth is packaged and transferred may be kind or not depending upon how well the speaker anticipates the recipient's receptivity to that selected for communication.* It may also be kind in terms of whatever the recipient brings to the act of understanding message and intent.

Some niche of care on the speaker's part motivates communication to someone, and likewise on the recipient's part to hear, that is to comprehend (anything) from that speaker.**

However, there is no necessity to communicate anything to anyone except to shout, "Watch out!"*** Or perhaps, "MYOB."****

_____
* Ref. George Herbert Mead.
** Ref. Martin Heidigger.
*** Ref. LLL  philosophical precept first articulated by a Little oL' Lady, forgot her name, and later documented by the Live and Let Live school of omni-acceptance.
**** Mind Your Own Business  (and I'll mind mine). Ref. George Carlin, among many others, but still not many enough.

The Muse had her muse*

"The door was locked, the key buried in the earth."

As she turned the key over and over in her hands--

If--
it was to the closed garden,
she could see inside,
it was different from other places,
she liked it;

Then--
she would shut the door behind her,
make up some play of her own,
play it quite alone,
could go there every day;

Because--
it had been shut up so long,
she wanted to see it,
nobody would ever know where she was,
the thought of all that pleased her very much.

(Not a child to ask permission or consult.)
_____
* Inspired by _The Secret Garden_, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Capter VIII, The Robin Who Showed the Way

Legal distinctions of difference--DRAFT

I choose to be the unquestioned and irresponsible master of my hands, during the hours that they labour for me. But those hours past, our relation ceases; and then comes in the same respect for their independence that I myself exact. --Mr. Thornton, manufacturer, from North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1854

Times have changed since these words by a fictitious industrial era capitalist in mid-nineteenth century. No doubt such sentiments have been expressed before and after, not just in literature. However, today this older business norm seems to have little relevance.

When off the job, and even before one is hired for a job, one's "character" is surveilled for fit, to wit whether or not there are words, deeds, images and/or affiliations unacceptable; and if any deemed (small) transgression gray or black in all available records be found, there is no job secure, nor forgiveness. This is the new turn in discrimination--making legal distinctions of  difference in order to homogenize.

The old boys' club or one's career-path network has functioned in the same ways. Not long ago the letter of recommendation from reputable references carried some weight. One can now access more easily and quickly threads beyond the bother of the selected-for-special-purposes webs we weave and posted pieces of paper that we have to consume and verify.

Electronic information and communications technologies, as well as increasing public surveillance, prevent assessment of one's total worth as individual and productive socioeconomic asset. We now discriminate using personal/social flaws. Capitalism has brought us this: Business and the body politic have such unwavering and arbitrary standards, often not transparent, that the all-too-human individual has no chance to reach, some would say survive, without conformity to some something set by the lucky, entitled elite in charge.

So it seems the Mr. Thornton, objectionable enough as irresponsible master, must surrender today to investigations exceeding the limits of whether or not the most qualified and able to perform is chosen, and in spite of experience and relevant qualifications, advancement goes to the most acceptable candidate. Mr. Thornton's irresponsibility would trap today.

We must have the least objectionable in our employ to avoid incident where our benefactors and buyers can raise any qualm--relevant or not--to our goods/services proffered. "They'll make a fuss." Profitable (conformist) relationships with the market and society trump* all other factors.

And there are plenty of ways to make a fuss. Too many, God forbid. No, heaven forbid. No, Mammon forbid, or his duly, self-appointed representatives here in society, data-driven sentries at the gates of where individuals aspire to be.

No, no, that won't work. We are slaves to Mammon and the systems he devises to exact the most for the least from those who are paid to do a job in a way that analytics and the controls informed by them. . . . you get the picture.

Am I correct in the assessment? Of course not. We live also in a contentious age where the loudest opinion rules, and each is entitled to have an opinion (uninformed idea or belief deemed good, true, beautiful, applicable to everyone (else)). The human values and humanist tendencies of earlier times, as well as scientific sweat and tireless efforts by the more knowledgeable and skilled to establish what reality is in any given case, have been  suppressed or silenced and, sadly, not even inculcated in the young as a part of a set of civil society skills with which to guide the self and the collective forward. Sound bytes, in place of informed and thoughtful discourse, stand today for insight and ethics and depth of understanding.

Ah, age brings out the complainers, doesn't it? The more one experiences, the more one sees the ironies, inconsistencies, deceptions, hypocrisies, and of course other flaws, which like summer flies are impossible to chase away much less get rid of. Old guys always say they can't believe what the world has come to. And because this is an old saw, no one pays much attention to what the elders offer. And other fogies nod in agreement and sit back and doze. There is no saving them; why bother?

All of which leaves me reading nineteenth century novels from gutenberg.org and wondering if the times today are at once the same and very different as for those who came before.

No, no. Our age holds the greatest challenges at which it appears we are failing miserably to meet and manage for the betterment of man-, er, humankind.

(Old men. Grumblers yesterday. Same today.)

I ask in sincerity, though, is it such this time for the first time, because in profit-driven societies have we created something quite peculiar in history? Have we complexified ourselves  . . . or maybe simplified, that is reduced, our notion of human nature to a degree that we are lost beyond repair, beyond individual agency, beyond the respect for each other's independence albeit with flaws, a standard I myself still insist for me?

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* Except it seems in the case of the individual with the same name as the one who holds the "the suit declared to rank above all other suits for the duration of the hand"--CONFORMITY writ large, thankfully or hopefully just for a limited time.

Socialism redux, DRAFT

The secular doctrine I have and advocate is to elevate beliefs and opinions with refereed, evidence-based information and knowledge in a process of civic dialogue. (The only religious doctrine is to live and let live.) Thus two with different opinions can then develop together a shared reality on which to base action and policy, the participants, of course, remaining open to further refereed, evidence-based information and knowledge--research--and the willingness to not compromise relationship in the process.

Writing and reading is an app for change.

Otherwise, one tries to convince the other with biased garbage and rhetorical diversions. This is a waste of time and hot air. "Well, in my experience, etc." Hogwash. Your experience (reading or otherwise) cannot be replicated for an-other to a degree that it will bring them to agreement with you--a strategy proven it does not work.

To take some point of possible disagreement (a button someone else pushed for you ) and follow it through the rabbit hole to get at refereed, evidence-based information and knowledge resulting in a shared reality takes effort and bracketing what one already "knows" and believes. Difficult stuff, but sometimes worth trying if the issue is important to the parties.

So for the moment, subsequent to the prior post, the only one I think important for a brief introduction is socialism. (The Green New Deal is akin to this, but must remain separate so that we don't get too confused.) Further to my own experience, which I have related previously here with regard to socialized healthcare, let's take the bailout of US farmers, or most recently big business such as the airlines. Isn't subsidizing banks and airlines socialism? a form of state participation in ownership? The guy who holds the promissory note is the real owner. (You don't own your house, for example, if you have a loan against it.) And if the subsidy is not a loan, well that is the owner putting more capital into the business. (More capital by the way that does not come from the beneficiaries of the business, but that is another story the short version of which is big brother issues to a selected business for our collective benefit. Sounds like a more extreme form of socialism when considered in this way.)

Social Security: socialism in that the government pays me more than I put in for my retirement. I live on that, on the beneficence of the state, and if taken away, I am homeless and in this day/age unemployable. What to do? Keep Social Security. Don't mess with it. I like this socialism as do all those on the benefits side of the program.

Americans if covered by health insurance are subject to the whims of those who hold the purse open or closed for payment in time of needed care. The big brother insurance company holds your very  life hostage to their ways of protecting and increasing profits to their owners/shareholders, not to mention their top executives.

The profit motive in the matter of health and medical care is inappropriate, 'cause health is the primary duty of life, and sometimes we all need some help. From where if not from big brothers? The Affordable Health Care Act is socialist measure that still protects the other big brother, insurance companies, as it asks those who can pay must. We have our cake and eat it too, but the taste for some causes some wince because of a label misapplied, socialism.

No, no. It is not the individual's choice to get sick and his or her responsibility to have acquired the resources necessary today to get well. Is there any one person you can think of who is justifiably "disabled" such that acquiring the resources to get well accident/illness strikes is just not in the cards, never was, and not in any way realistic? Deny reality to any degree and it might come back and bite you, and you'll have to go to the hospital for wincing or whatever sometime in your life. This is just a conjecture I admit, but in my experience true more often than not.

I believe America lives on bits and pieces of socialism and its cruel adversary, bad capitalism. Bad capitalism is the current state of our i-culture. Capitalism is bad when no money is left on the table for the next owner, and there is no room any longer for being a good corporate citizen, and, worse, not knowing the health and environmental effects of your new product or service before release to the consumer, or the world.

I invite refutation in whole or in part. Remember to bring refereed, evidence-based information and knowledge so that we can discuss in civil fashion with a view toward shared reality and the responsibilities we together will have to take with any of our future actions or policies. Decisive action and policies stick till consequence trickle down and are felt for good or bad, although money doesn't seem to down. Why is that?

I am a socialist, DRAFT

In the 1980s I lived in Vail, Colorado. I was a property manager. I worked hard, led a healthy outdoor lifestyle, plus had each of my children live with me and attend high school, graduate and then go on to college. Those were happy, lucky and treasured years.

During that time I  dreamed about how to return eventually--if not before--to living abroad as I did briefly in my 20s. Europe and foreign cultures and languages fascinated me, although I have never proved much of a foreign language speaker. I subscribed to newspapers from New Mexico, a state I perceived like no other in the US, more foreign than any other in the union; I read The Economist magazine weekly; I pored through issues of the International Herald Tribune--a daily that overwhelmed me sometimes . . . I could not keep up. Even took French and German lessons. Basically I couldn't get enough of what it must be like living in a foreign land but residing in place in my own.

During those Vail years, I observed the tea leaves, or crap shoot, of the American healthcare system, a system for profit, not so much about health. I clearly saw that other countries, even Eastern Bloc countries, had a more humane outlook about healthcare services, and living life, than such was obvious in my own country, something I was somewhat aware of in my 20s when residing and working in West Germany (Munich).

Then at the end of that decade, the 80s, I saw how to return to Europe and do good work, something more meaningful than serving wealthy people who didn't really need me, my skills, my interests. Others elsewhere needed expertise I had. I decided to make the leap into the known unknown, live in a former communist country and exist as others did while at the same time contributing what I could, if what I had was wanted and useful. If I didn't have the advantage of the advanced technical medical expertise at hand, for a healthy price, in America, and was in danger of pain and death without the latest, most advanced care, why, all those living there lived and died as they did, or would. I could do the same. Why did I need what my own country had available if most of the world, I thought, lived without whatever that was?

Because of necessary ongoing care after my first heart attack in 1992, today I have health records in six languages, the first/oldest of which is in French. Under care abroad I got first hand knowledge how the French approached serious problems like mine. Two and two makes four, then and now--reading about something and experiencing it delivers more certain knowledge.

To cut to the point. I would not be able to take the six medications required daily for my health maintenance in the US because of cost. Socialized medicine gives and has given me a lease on life with almost no lease payments. My meds cost me about a dollar a month. And three hospitalizations? I paid nothing for excellent care. None of the dreaded nightmares of socialized medicine have I encountered in all these years (going on 25), except perhaps in Italy, a westernized country, and according to WHO, with almost the best healthcare system in the world, a claim I (still!) strongly question. (Again, Italy is different kind of country and another story.)

While on leave in the US during the last twenty-five years and  just before I left to live as we do here, our touted system cost me half my life's savings, in the tens of thousands of dollars. Part of that money lost was for the same procedure I had had at the same hospital two or three years before by the same doctor. Not elective but absolutely necessary heart surgery. The insurance company had no mercy because I didn't call ahead for approval.

I am a socialist, at least as far as healthcare is concerned. I am a socialist in that the state pays my required fair share (about $100 per month) toward health insurance because I am a poor pensioner by local standards. I am a socialist because I get to ride free as a senior on public transportation in Prague. And what else? I accept the authoritarian approach to the current health crisis in today's world (2020). And I do what they tell me. They have approached the problem by anticipation and preparation and a populace that every day helps to solve problems by volunteerism, and humor. I am not afraid of socialism if by what we mean is that the state takes care of some necessary stuff to live and get along in a civil society--e.g., education, healthcare, generous vacations for regeneration, etc.

Believe this propaganda at your own risk.

Those in the US can continue to fight over a socialism they don't understand much less know the definition of . . . because "The Constitution says it’s okay to shoot socialists, a GOP state legislator contends" in Montana (Washington Post, Monday, February 3, 2020).

What a country! Shoot 'em if they have a different view than you do. Solves the problem quick and easy . . . open gun stores during a pandemic because it is an essential service/business? Give me a break.

Living Estate Sale by Owner*

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* Intended reader is a close relation, seemingly consummate hoarder.