But what does it mean? DRAFT

The question that in a particular way irritates me is when someone asks the meaning of something. I'm not referring to my language students, or my wife, who ask for the meaning of X; theirs is, I believe, honest inquiry. They do or did not understand the language used.

I'm not bothered when my reprimanders ask, "What is the meaning of this?" They were probably curious about what I said or did. That, if tedious for me to explain or give the history of or rationale for that something doesn't bother me in the sense I am referring to, although why wasn't it obvious, I ask myself.

What I am irritated by is the question of the meaning of something that assumes you can definitively expound on that something which is inherently open to multiple, valid interpretations. This places the question so encountered in different kinds of contexts I have experienced, the personal and the academic.

"Why did she refuse his advances? He's such a wonderful catch, not to mention--but I do--the highest quality of eligible human being?"

"What is the meaning of the French Revolution?"

Or for that matter the meaning of almost anything.

When people have posed such questions, I have the feeling they are acting rhetorically, that they already have their answer and await foolish notions to set you, er me, straight, which in the end is perhaps just as valid a response on their part, if not also foolish,. Alternatively, they ask, and by doing so show us self-importance(?) in stating such clever things without answering. Strongly suspecting the latter or former, I most often let them have the floor give them little to nothing of my mind--except perhaps their cue to begin expounding their shtick: "I don't know," followed by "Does anyone?" A cue sure to launch them onto whatever it is they are on about.

We don't know so very much that what we think we do not only pales, but also can be seriously interrogated if re-approached.

Is this my assessment of the states of our knowledge of things a product of my age and stage in life, because I can see the flaws and insufficiencies better now than earlier in life? In other words what is the meaning of my skepticism of what I, also we I believe, know?

I don't know, but before you give me your answer, er interpretation that you are sure is the meaning, ask, I suggest: "What is the meaning of knowing?"

One answer to this inquiry is yet another: Does it matter? 

Because it does matter, one meaning is I have not given up the fight at my age--I am still in the caring stage of things of this world, thanks kindly.

 

Heritage imperative, or could have been

Take care this and thy own.
Rely on little that you can.
May small seeds each we've sown
bear fruit yes for women, and man.

No savior but me do I see
in this our nest all-messed.
So to myself I must ever be*
help to me and deserved rest.

Model thus, do so I say,
with this belated sight in hind.
Hope's my son his lasting ray.
Best I deem we now are kind.

_____
* To myself I must ever be? I am named after the fellow on the right, my father's (Des's) cousin Jack. I have been John Kevin. Would that I had been called Jack. I would have preferred it, although the results would have probably been the same.

UPDATE, 16.06.23

A philosopher-correspondent wrote that my name change to Fatty Jack was not warranted, nor did John have anything to do with the name Jack. (Fatty comes from a recent diagnosis of a fatty liver--too much beer in my youth, I figure.) I wrote back:

Yes, name is John from which Jack is derived.

From _The Importance of Being Earnest_ by Oscar Wilde

GWENDOLEN. Jack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations . . . I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.

Reading philosophy might be greatly rewarding, but is there any wit and humor in all that heady stuff?

No, give me a good play to read or attend, for that can stimulate the brain and well as the diaphragm--for it's the source of laughter.

Brain stimulation you ask? Note the pun with the name John and the image of a woman's husband always occupying the room with the toilet every time she wants to have a moment's peace.

There's your philosophy byte for the day. Now get back to what you are supposed to be doing. This is all fluff and worthy of delete.

And so forth

Regardless of the debates about the existence of a self or the self versus a construct we ourselves create in order to explain ourselves, we function as if there is such a thing, or person. I am aware that I am me and not someone else. On these foundations--a self that is me--including  traits or dispositions or thoughts or values, etc., we distinguish ourselves by working with the constellation of all these things to come up with decisions and actions, a life. 

Regardless of whether a particular synapse-connection occurs before or after conscious, that is intentional, choice, or will, we function with the illusion, if that is what it is, that we are in charge and making our own way in the world. The self stands ready or becomes identifiable at the moment of attending and following through on this or that. Have it either way. For everyday business in the living life that consensus reality holds and upholds our ego/self/person/personality/persuasions/perversions, etc. In short we get along, more or less well, in a my-/me-world.

My writings then are or seem to be evidence of my center of narrative gravity which I have manifested and promoted as a/my way to live in the world that I make and know. Is it really fair to inflict that "stuff" on readers as well as my complex of intentions (values?) I deem preferred?

Therefore, if only for this reason, I find my writing output more personal and not close to sometimes-clever much less artistic creations. I don't recommend. . . . It turns out that my efforts are more on the order of self-therapy and less other-oriented, regardless of prefaces or epilogues, other apologies, and so forth. And yours?

My way of--DRAFT

"Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view."

Phenomenological Descriptive Analysis

To hold experience still in order to study it, it needs recording. For this discussion that would be a text. And to study that text, one also needs words to describe and analyze and comprehend selected, specific phenomena thought to be represented by and through the text. The result of study would thus be lost to the ether if not another text with (which to de-construct and understand). That secondary text, if produced with care, valid method, and sound foundations for description and analysis, we can call a phenomenological descriptive analysis.

Writing.

Writing is the act of one person recording streams of words on-/into a medium (e.g., paper, digital document, dictation recorder). Editing, proofreading, and formatting for greater ease of comprehension are also forms of writing.

All other albeit related activities are not, in this view, writing per se. Writing is not thinking about something without recording for a reader to access. It is not the spontaneous idea one must remember to be sure to include later. It is not following a writing process such as is taught in schools and colleges. It is not some aspect of the psychology of writing such as where or when one does it, associated rituals, choosing preferences for inscription method, promoting or marketing writing-as-product (e.g., article, book), and so forth.

Evidence of having written is a text someone can read.

Subjective view.

The standard points of view are three--the position of the speaker/narrator in relation to what is written. These reduce to "the subjective or first person point of view". A text in first person point of view is clearly within the boundary of conscious experience as experienced by _I_, the first person. A second person point of view is a first person speaking, thus their conscious experience captured as it were in process, verbatim, "I am speaking to you". Access to the second person is directly from and through the first person, the one that address an other. Third person is what a(ny) speaker/writer, a first person, holds in consciousness and represents as such to communicate to an audience such as a  reader.

Description.

Any text, simple or complex, answers the question of what is/was it like to experience something.

Text is a description of a phenomenon or phenomena. Phenomena as conscious-experience-as-experienced knows no bounds. However, a phenomenon contained in a larger text may be worth holding in consciousness and studying in order to comprehend, in the sense of completeness and understanding of what and how something is or was for the percipient-writer.

Text takes countless forms. Each can be seen as description. For example:

• A letter of complaint describes a correspondent's experience and how an altered  state of that reality really would be better.
• A poem presents images and sentiments and thoughts sharable among others through its construction and words--see what I see, feel what I feel, think what I think in this special way I have made it accessible for to you.
• A personal memoir tells us what life was like at that time with me.
• The company policy memorandum makes the case for or answers the question of how it would or should be in present and future experience.
• A work of historical fiction describes how it could realistically have been in people's experience.
• The peer reviewed scientific article describes what was done/experienced and how and what happened as a result, and what the meaning of the phenomenon might be--an invitation to experience along-with and consider for yourself (and perhaps a world however large or small).

A text can be in present tense, such as I am experiencing such and such about what I have in my focus now. It can be reflexive in that I am conscious that I am conscious of myself experiencing such and such. It can be reflective in the sense that this is how it was for me when I experienced that. Although there are refinements to this mirror-like reflecting self, in process versus at a point after having experienced, the nature of the text for all practical purposes is the basis for the description of the what and the how of experience.

A text taken as a whole is a description or an as-accurate-as-can-be image including feeling-tones and the like. Such may include other elements as narrative structure, chronology, attitude toward one or more parts of an experience, factual details, and so forth. And that whole is primary data to disclose or uncover an object or objects in consciousness--phenomena. The choices for which phenomena should be the subjects for analysis and description depends upon the need to fix more certain than in generalized fashion the understanding of same.

Meaning.

". . . [P]henomenology is the study of . . . appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience."*

Integral to understanding meaning has to do with the structure and content of primary data word streams constituting the phenomenon, and this can only be known by a methodical taking apart and putting together what and how of the experience including considerations of whether or not the given data is comprehensive enough to reveal in clarity and fullness and boundaries of the phenomenon we would know and understand better. Structure refers to parts and how they interrelate in order to comprise the whole. Content refers to themes and qualities that are deemed to be essential to the understanding of the experience of the phenomenon.

To be continued.

_____
Sources.

* Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. 2021. Plato.Stanford.Edu. https://plato.stanford.edu.

"Phenomenology Online » Writing". 2021. Phenomenologyonline.Com. http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/writing/.

** Illustration source. Husserl. (2021) Optionals IAS Mains Philosophy Phenomenology (Husserl)(History and Problems of Philosophy) Questions 1 to 1 - DoorstepTutor. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.doorsteptutor.com/Exams/IAS/Mains/Optional/Philosophy/Questions/Topic-History-and-Problems-of-Philosophy-0/Subtopic-Phenomenology-Husserl-6/Part-1.html

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.

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

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.

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.

Broken countries

[Written but not sent to a friend.]

Italians. No, they're not that bad, nor is anyone else, my idealist self insists. Only this. If you live in a foreign culture, you will step unintentionally into the smelly stuff you can't clean off your shoe, plus you will never change "them". The foreigners--to you--have their ways of doing things, as an old German friend of mine reminded me often: "They know what they do." The subtext was and is you are not one of them and will never be, so get used to their ways and adapt as best you can without grossly offending, or getting thrown out of the community or country.

Such has been life for me abroad for over twenty-five years. Stepping in it, "Oh, shit!" And do you really think I would settle a purchase in two meetings here at the lawyer's office? one private (without counsel) where a certain amount of cash changes hands, and another where the same thing happens but for the (adjusted) total to seal the contract--with legal witnesses--to be transmitted to the tax office? I did that. There was no other way to get the deal done to put a roof over my head and later get rid of it (did not take place in Italy by the way).

So discovering the ways these people do things is my daily classroom with, most of the time, no dire consequences, except perhaps some embarrassment and constant self-realizations about who I am and where I find myself. Never a dull moment. That's the juice of living outside one's own culture without native level language skills: Ever a classroom and self-guided psychological therapy tour. Oh, and education and therapy always come at a cost.

I do find Italians amusing, and I have written about both the ups and downs of residing in this country and my local area with fantastic panoramas and cultural lessons aplenty. But I walk softly. . . . And I have Italian friends, one or two. It is a friendly and inviting place. Lots of positive stuff, including the food which is more than pizza, pasta, and pane--and the daily obligatory religious ritual at 13.00 sharp, pranzo. I won't elaborate here. It is easier to complain or feebly explain. Just know, I love a lot about Italy including my friends and daily encounters, which are always interesting, often amusing. Celebrating Eataly? goes without saying.

You mentioned that someone you knew had a kind of systemic health problem from which s/he died. Could have been saved with the right intervention(s). So too I find Italy. The country is hobbled if not broken, not easy for ordinary people to cobble a living. A systemic problem. Fundamental changes needed in politics, government and culture--society--so that one can have a meaningful and productive life as well as get on well enough economically.

In the US, with regard to guns and violence, I think it also a systemic problem. Why do people have 'em? and use them, abuse them, and have unwanted accidents and tragedies? Many factors, many causes. Some with guns, perhaps you, collect them, care for them (weird?), trade them, go and practice on paper targets, hunt game, etc. But why do ordinary people feel the need to have a gun? Ordinary people where I have lived in Europe do not feel they need a gun. Of course there are intruders and bad people. But this is not a gun culture, nor a particularly dangerous or violent one--in part I would argue because guns are not a right (also weird!) to have and hold.

Here in the CZ just yesterday we had a shooter killing several. This is so rare in my experience here that to see that in the news is shocking. The same is not shocking in the US. Kind of business as usual I'd argue--because of the multiple things that need to change such that such incidents in the US become out of the ordinary, not common, rare, shocking again.

I am not qualified or smart enough to tell anyone what to do to solve guns/violence/threat to person and property in America. But it is more of a problem than it should be. Given who and what America is, make-my-day is every day and no one is or should be surprised. When you are a fish in the fishbowl, what else is there? You have to get out of the water and breathe different air differently from the tacit ways you have accepted as normal, that is experience life beyond familiar waters. America needs a new normal . . . but I fear that will not be anytime soon. We are so polarized, and I agree with some that we are not very bright as a nation (but if nudged--don't do it--could name a few names).

I find the article linked below interesting in regard to both of these subjects--living in a culture and making needed socio-cultural changes. Not optimistic but seems to sum up where we are. Read if you are interested, or we can just move on and set these more serious subjects aside. I for one am unable because of age, location, and other factors to make any difference. And there's the rub.

The article begins:

The United States is sick with income and other forms of social inequality. It suffers from cruelty, loneliness, greed, gangster capitalism, white supremacy, violence, sexism and a culture of ignorance and distraction. Our broken political system does not encourage critical thinking or nurture a capacity for responsible, engaged citizenship.

Here is the link.

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/09/author-chris-hedges-on-trump-the-democrats-and-the-dying-american-empire/

Shut this blog down

The two novels, A Puma in the Tree and A Penny Drops, written over a three year period, show remarkable similarities such that I should revisit several questions as to themes and origins, these now in some conflict with earlier assertions.

Each novel features a heterosexual male around thirty obsessed with reflecting on past and just-passed events or interchanges, thereby convincing himself he has become more aware, maybe enlightened--he thinks so because of "discovered," quasi-touchstone principles he articulates not as well as the first or famous who did so. The distant past does not figure in retrospections except to suggest each "hero" should take a more careful look to see what if anything is really there to deal with, or that figures in who he is now.

The protagonists encounter in the course of their days people, mostly women, who intrigue and interest them, finding in the end that the most human among the women is the logical choice for deeper involvement. They, our heroes, abandon, for the most part, contacts with friends and girlfriends. Each is both predator and predatee and can't decide what or who to blame for acts and impulses they feel. Each suspects hormones, or whatever other physiological chimera to point to as excuse for never-outrageous yet to each extraordinary moments.

Each protagonist is drawn to beauty in people and places but they reveal little of their own attractiveness that others seem to find in them. Each thinks his some measure of sweeter-than-thou kindness, un-realistic openness and restraint, and hyper-protestant earnestness will save him, and the world? but salvation from what they don't seem to know. Each is subject to emotional setbacks, but return to persist in moral-like behavior without religious affiliation or other anchor.

Both characters find themselves in featureless rural towns in the western U.S. as newcomers starting again. They are prone to make observations about people and places that over time must be revised. Although work or career figure into plot progression, the stories are more about working through relationships and discovering each's identity. The importance of friendship and older, more experienced characters figure in both accounts. Eating and drinking at bars and restaurants provide settings for forgetting, avoiding, and superficial connecting. Each describes what he sees in details corresponding to needs and wants, including limitations because of age and stage of life. There is little notice or judgment as to gender or race or other demographic characteristics. Also, there is no violence or unpleasant character that the protagonists need encounter.

The titles for each work are telling in the use of the indefinite pronoun. Thus the tentative nature of things, uncertainties, unknowns pervade life as each character lives it. People somehow struggle through, evidentially revealing their essential goodness, and that is a foundation for acceptance and love to be valued in the end.

Enough already--thus to say in effect the two books are more the same than different. The experiment to create a second novel different from the first has failed, although one story might be more literary than the other (meta-fictional), or more interesting to follow the short journey to its conclusion (testosterone drives choice among three or four mate-material candidates).

This blog has been to sort me out. At the outset, I left that to the reader, should there be one, thinking that if interested:

Here is a bunch of stuff. People are complex. Now, see if you can get a picture of who is talking here. I hope you find in the process something interesting or entertaining or both. Or, please agree or disagree with me.

As evidence for sorting myself out, given that I gave the time and focus to what I have posted thus far, this post could be along the lines of,

Hey, I figured something out, that the so-called novels I was playing with also during this process, artificial things that they are, are just stories from flow states, or the recorded up-wellings from somewhere inside me. End of story and stories. They are as reflections or propaganda, not what I would have had them be, things outside myself to hold up and contemplate. Works of an impersonal nature, not reflections of my deeper self. 

I was wrong.

Writing for no audience proves instructive again. I am okay having come this far, but there is yet something more to be learned, and harder work to be done . . . to create and discover a truth or two without artifice.

In view of this milestone, it will be soon time to shut this blog down and let the next project take me to, please, a different and less navel-gazing posture.

Yet, it's been fun and challenging.

Bayesian probability

It's [Bayesian probability] an engine for evidence. It is fed a probabilistic description of the domain and, when new evidence arrives, the system just shuffles things around and gives you your revised belief in all the propositions, revised to reflect the new evidence.* 

I have offered a Christmas poem or other short writing to family, friends, and close-ish others for many years. This year I think it is my last, for the reason given above. To wit, mostly I get no acknowledgement or other response. I have a few faithful readers. I take that back. I have one, and she is a treasure--my cousin in Carson City, Nevada, and this year her dear partner along life's circuitous byways. And then sometimes, more often than I care to count, I get, "Huh?!" Or worse, "Why did you ask me to read your incoherent missive?"

Which this year has led to these two of six New Year's resolutions that seem probable.

• Send no unsolicited writing anymore, ever, to anyone--to no one! except to my cousin and one or two other people.
• Respond to--don't initiate--conversations, but once invited, help the conversation go somewhere, especially by raising questions, not by sharing my knowledge, opinions, or observations.

Here is this year's unsolicited offer/offending piece, called Exhibit One.

I have had a relationship with the Czech Republic. It has been off and on since 1994, although one of my earliest memories of Czechoslovakia as someplace fascinating and far, far away--I would never visit--was a hockey game played in the early 50s that I watched on our first TV set, black and white.

The relationship is back on, and I have returned to where it began for real for me in 1994, Prague. On, by the way, means I am here and not there (elsewhere) and enjoying it this time, having put some unpleasant learning experiences associated with Czechs and the developing country in my past.

Two of my delights are Christmas postcards, especially those of Josef Lada and vánoční koleda (Christmas carols), especially as sung by children's choirs. Although the Czech Republic, I have maintained, is a godless place, especially here in Bohemia, there is saving grace when viewing these postcards and listening to Czech koleda at least once a year.

In the past I have shared with family and friends both the postcards and the carols, but I think it was more for my pleasure than theirs. For the last several years, I have again carried around a batch of these postcards promising myself I would send them out this year in time for Christmas. I failed, again.

However, here is my excuse and a fulfillment of my promise to myself, realized this time of course in my own way. I have turned 71, and although I deny that aging is setting in and have stories for why I don't get done in a day what I used to be able to accomplish, I, like an annoying and insistent child, send at least the Christmas cards plus bonus, a bit of background for them and the artist ( http://praguemylove.blogspot.cz/2010/12/happy-birthday-josef-lada.html ).

Perhaps you will have a look and a read and find something? a bit of your own childhood perhaps, a remembrance of simpler, more innocent times? Wouldn't that be nice gift to yourself. Are these times gone forever? Not if you click on each image and put yourself inside for a moment to see, reflect, and try to decode what these Czechs, and we, are about other than hubris and hedonism, and not just at this time of year.

Oh, as for the music. I have not fundamentally changed about that either. I have no love of music except for Czech Christmas songs and American folk music. Kind of figures, doesn't it? But I won't inflict any of that on you this year--there is always next, we trust.

Exhibit Two. One person wrote me back asking why should she read my holiday message? She really did not have me or my message on her list of priorities and in her busy schedule, which she outlined for me. She objected to my appreciation for a part of the country-culture Czech. I had not expressed the same for Italy and Italians.

I'm sorry. She didn't read my Benano Blog carefully enough, for one. And for the record, each country-culture has its delights and downers; and gosh, my own country of birth has a culture today I can hardly recognize or accept, although there are still things to love about it. Two, how can I be responsible for interfering with her choices of what to attend to and what not?

However, just like the downsides of Italy and Italians, or the Czech Republic, or anywhere else, there is a brighter one. My now former correspondent has a point. Why should anyone read unsolicited material? from a friend? during the holidays? or at anytime? trying to share something about another art and a small corner in the world of music? (Thus the above listed, no longer proposed, resolution.)

Salvation is always loving support for one's efforts, efforts born of good intentions and feelings of affection for the health and well being of others. If this indeed shows through what one does, receiving back in like kind gives one the strength to carry on, regardless of the fool one makes of oneself from time to time.

This year I got several returns like that from the holiday message, and although in all probability based on evidence counted and weighed over the years, I will cease and desist the annual, no doubt selfish, ritual, I take heart and would like to return service with a delight that will be easy to field and redemptive.

A bitter-sweet Czech/Moravian love song, "Teče, voda, Teče," sung by one of the Petits chanteurs a la Croix de Bois. Not exactly Christmas music, but you'll get the idea, er feeling, and will fall in love too, just as with a closer look, I believe, at the Czech Christmas cards I promoted in my holiday message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-7aoeozyE

Careful. The song and singer might just break your heart, as in part the message of the lyrics will, but you don't need to know what is being said. You don't need words with art or music. One- and two-way conversations don't always need words.

I dare you not to be touched regardless of other worldly priorities/schedule. Take three minutes. It is my last unsolicited message, which is now a challenge, in all probability.
___
* https://www.edge.org/conversation/judea_pearl-engines-of-evidence

Truth be told, aspect A

The best punishment for my naughty child is to be sent to my room.

In pre-school I ran down the grassy slope to inspect the chalky paint jars set on easel's ledge with large sheets of paper pinned and ready above. I touched the brush and moved it to see if it was real. I left no mark.

I registered myself for kindergarten, one child not holding his mom's hand. As I got out of the car, she said I knew where to go and what to do. I took my place in line and without fear stood independent in pride. I found I missed nothing in the act performed not as others had. I had no choice, nor did they, I suppose.

I took a test in elementary school. I had "analytical aptitude." I didn't know what that was good for, or what it was. My show-and-tell was confiscated by the teacher. After class I asked for it and got it back, her silence filled by my standing up before her in her habit.

Around eight, I wrote my first poem, something about happy alone. Be sure--not lonely.

In prep school, a visiting expert career counselor (former football great turned Jesuit) said I had better find a trade. I was not "college material," although I had been prepped. I surmised he had mixed the student folders. Who was in line before or behind me? I was the class president, wasn't I. But not been back since nor was I ever invited. They lost me or I lost them. Now they ask for money I don't have to spare. Mixed review on their teachings or what I learned.

For the life of me I could not master college survey courses as I blindly  aimed at a profession I never practiced full time and thus never  mastered. I'm now too ill and too old. Unseen connections put me with future college teachers at the time. I was stone silent and felt alone, intimidated by the loquacious ones. I told a professor of history in his office that there was no such thing as history, which I now realize is correct, the explanation too long for today's philosophy. He was too committed to listen to my mind.

 A big name in the subject of my dissertation refused to sit on my committee. I had "nothing to offer" him he said. He equated the physical with the metaphysical. Silly "prig" (his self-description for something he once did, and now my word for his arrogance and confusion). Faculty members dozed as they from lunch sated and sat to hear my master work's outline. Later one conducted my comprehensive examination by phone. He congratulated me without committee members gone missing, and without any questions. I am unsure I earned a Ph.D., but I no longer question, or much care.

I have circulated conundra like this to silent readers. I keep writing but now ignore the public(ation) of any sort. I will leave no mark. So consider this an exercise of a fearless child, happily playing in his room. He may or may not have been courageous or worthy in the face of odds and impediments. He has no money to spare, but he is a generous listener for those who need him. Matters metaphysical occupy his time as does history in the making. He works to know his self by talking to his Self, at times counter-productively in the third person.

You are welcome

Retirement or part-time status was immanent a few years ago, and so after a lifetime of writing and otherwise fiddling with words for others (students, customers, etc.), I began writing for me. I have placed the words I have wanted to preserve on five blogs and in a couple of e-books. The variety of interests and explorations seems to have dictated the different places to put stuff. Have I had many readers? The logs and occasional comments and email messages show that I have had less than ten people who have bothered. Which is quite all right. As Paul Auster has said, no one owes you anything if you choose to write. It is a thankless and sometimes lonely and dark undertaking. But if you must, that is if you have some passion about writing or a subject, go ahead.

I write to observe what I find interesting and to explore things so that I can be clearer about them. And I have made a lifetime study of writers and writing and close reading--interpretation of the valid variety. Not everyone knows about these activities and motives of mine except as they too might have thought about this way of embracing and trying to evolve the world, or they have surmised as such from others who evidence similar motives. Perhaps it is time to be more transparent, though, especially in light of current events in almost every country where speech is not free and agents work to end dialogue, example Russia. Also, in light of the great variety of experiences life offers up for us to deal with, these too deserve some space in consciousness, if only to come up for a breath of fresh air.

Here and elsewhere it is pretty clear that I write for no audience. It is about my education and evolution. If one wants to catch a short ride or contribute, they have that opportunity. If not, I don't much care. I write to identify and fix a thing as it appears in consciousness (noematics). I guess that means that writing is the writer's consciousness (noematics101), and I am still in the middle of investigating that. Local cultural color and amusement also have a space in my efforts (benanoblog). From time to time, I get bitten by something, often about language (see earlier posts), or I try to synthesize the disparate parts of my researches, and I post here using different ways to present or discuss. In every case, experimentation in the interest of matching the medium with the message is a criterion: How best to put the message. Of course, there are many failed attempts and dead ends, but that is as life is. I address no one in particular (see also About to the right).

However, there are almost insurmountable challenges with my project. I am sure with recent evidence added to the pile I already have from other sources, the following--always tentative, as in a quasi-scientific approach--cautions, or caveats, can be put forth after what amounts to an eight-year experiment.

1. People do not read what the writer intended and often what s/he wrote. There is no match of experience-to-be-had and what the writer crafts. People can't or don't read to understand. Words do not confine the fantasies they lay claim to.

Two people re-create an experience in mind from the same set of words, each from his own perspective. The resulting perceptions differ: Two spirals of interpretation drilling down and sedimenting into separate conclusions, that is as it is to understanding. Woe to the world.

2. People respond with their heart or emotion or self-interest first, and then--if convenient, needed, or appropriate--they might respond with their head, but only if it serves their heart or emotion or self interest. "It's about me."

3. Holding a subject at a distance and turning it round on the phenomenological axis to understand it better and then put it back down to earth, without feelings about who said what, is a myth. It is not possible. Never seen it happen. Ad hominem. "Kill the messenger."

4. On the other hand, it is very easy to present one's view or idea or whatever such that it affects the other's heart more than his or her head. Words can get you off the couch, or get you killed by one or a mob, but more to the point here: to kill or maim--revenge for perceived affront is said to be sublime.

Buncombe to all these things. But people do or show their limitations--they seem unable to restrain themselves (look at the comments written anywhere on the web where the comment entry box appears at the bottom of the web page).

5. Any statement is more about the speaker than the spoken to. Put another way, when one asks a question or makes a statement, that is about them and not the one they are talking to. Mostly and invariably. (Yes, it is a paradox.)

Enough apologetics. Read or not. You are welcome.

A student of philosophy

The love of knowledge is careful, clear, systematic, rational, reflective, and  critical thinking about big and small fundamental ideas on any subject with a view toward understanding and wisdom. Its highest expression is asking questions and proposing best considered answers for right action.

Unique-self description in 170 characters or less

Left-handed male Chinese-American phenomenologist in Italy with health records in six languages defying doctors' diets and six decades--yes, I eat  cheese and salami.