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?

_____
* 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.