Draft from a 2011 computer folder

[. . . slightly edited and excerpted. What got me going then? vs. now as it would be more obviously justified.]

 In street and alley what strange tongues are these,/ Accents of menace in our ear.
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Unguarded Gates, 1882

I refer here not to different languages but to language distorted, seemingly intentional and decidedly intentional. These voices have gained greater and greater prominence. The slants this way and that on who and what and when and where and why have directly threatened and struck the alarms of coming terror and pending totalitarianism, although the speakers are not the ones we fear but the energies and machinations behind these messengers.

Are the messengers themselves part of the conspiracy? To be sure in that they speak the distortions, contrary to facts and accurate memory. So those to blame, if blame it is, are these mediums as well as the nameless making up the hoards who would move us off center and towards an agenda of uncertain rationality and often insanity. Can we speak of particulars? of people and events in detail to support this claim? Surely, but my beef is not with these things but with the accents of menace who would fill our ears with rotting offal and outright garbage.

[Long quotation about socialism here from Wikipedia, including this, "Created . . . with the purpose of building a classless society."]

Those people and forces at play to move us in a direction counter to fact, to reason, to the most accurate understandings of things past, they wish to build a one-class society in the image of imagined or contrived truths and skewed values. Danger. Therein lies our peril, while at the same time the mediums abhor the notions of socialism, including efforts at reforms that look at what is and pose what could be. Reform to these is less and regress, but less means more and regress means what it was, which is to say how it is, some imagined status quo as they would have it. Such entrenchment under the guise of adjustment and change merely keeps them on their podia.

Would they stop talking were their pictures of what is or what should be become manifest? Once a distorter, always a distorter. Or, in normal parlance, probably not. The power felt by creating discord seduces; they will ride a new horse warning that the red coats are coming without ever having seen one, or substantiate-able evidence that that (new) menace lies in wait. They will do so because of that power, or the felt power that the attention, money or other "gain" has brought them.

Goofballs we can dismiss. Clever twisters and those who reinforce common misunderstandings and half truths--they are evil and we should also dismiss.

Where are the champions, that is to say, experts in knowledge, who tell it as it is and was and can correct the accents, the distortions? Without making the same performative error by killing off the opposition, literally or figuratively, how can we interrupt the most influential flows of misinformation?

I have long said that if you want to change the relationship with the other, you have to change the pattern of communicating with them. The usual approach is to try to directly affect them; doesn't work. People convinced they are right do not change. Talk till the proverbial come home merely consoles you and makes you the opposite "right", and thus not open to understanding, and change--if that is what is warranted.

We change our understanding on any side not by direct frontal assaults but by undermining the strength of the floors upon which the other stands. That is to say, if what has been distorted is left to stand on a weak foundation without attack at what's below, history will eventually make error fall. However, in whole or in part the process can be accelerated.

The time has come for acceleration, and in the case of accents that menace--

Two conditions must prevail along with undermining. One, a greater than and opposite offensive needs to be mounted to change the direction of the onslaught as, two, the onslaught needs to be exposed for what it is. In the case of accents of menace, this means to tell the most accurate truth in the most convincing fashion and to explain the errant ways. Take the stage away from them.

[Long rant here, unintelligible.]

I suspect, on the other hand, that in the case of political impotence or inability, you find new things to direct your feelings toward. And thus you find yourself changing from reading the news and the leaks to reading other things. After all there is more to the panoply of phenomena than power influence and preoccupation of what the other should or should not be doing. It is then about me and my small circle. It is about what we do and experience outside this more public and fractious world. It is about different truths and realities, more personal and private ones. And if not about health or physical well being, it will be about culture and beauty.

So it is I find myself turning again to what I will call art and expression and the richness of what I see, hear, taste, smell, and can touch. Life and living become important again. I bottle up emotions in certain aspects of my life and my history and what I can see if I look outward and find disturbing. I let them, my emotions, have free reign in matters of beauty and love and appreciation and understanding. I do not have to understand a mendacious world, only a world that is immediately around and inside me.

I have this peace now. I wish it for you.

A different breed

From "a Black Bitch" to "The Black Bullet" (God, what a fast runner), Ash continues residing here in Petrovice I with her shell-shocked owners. She continues to test the line between expulsion from and embrace into her adopted home, her savior being currently a no-nonsense Czech dog trainer who tames the beast for an hour a week, replenishing the chalice of our grace for another three days before she has exhausted patience and fifty percent of our hope. Still somewhat clueless about the terrorist in our midst and trying like hell to get up to speed also with help from the Czech dog trainer, we say, "Well, she might become civilized, if we can survive the first two years of puppy-through-puberty hell!"

This German shepherd dog (GSD) is indeed seriously different from our beloved golden retriever. We say to those skeptics who try to assert all dogs are just dogs, "You have no idea till you have one!" Fortunately, we the mystified are connected to other GSD owners who report the same, similar, and worse experiences growing through and along with their wild ones. YouTube University and books and whoever might have a word of encouragement are keeping us engaged and committed for the devoted, gentle adult Ash will be.

Time was back in November that we thought we had a cute mixed breed from some gypsy ghetto in Slovakia, but local authorities to 100 percent consensus here confirm, she is a German shepherd, and by the way the Ferrari model. (You don't just get to get in for a leisurely Sunday spin. You have to learn how to control and drive it first.)

Aristos--DRAFT

1. Each is alone--we imagine we’re not because of connection, but connections are creations in mind: Contortions of real, and other rationalizations we are responsible for and rely upon. Not bad; contortions are useful and comforting, these illusions, images of those _with_ us. We even have beings we can't see and people we know and love not physically present that right now we deem (virtually) here, so we are not alone. But we are.

2. People are essentially good---No. Too many examples. Self interest first, especially taking the forms of survival and "the way we would have it always". If that is and continues, then I’m good, goodness being essential but conditional and--truth--often accidental. Some are inclined to show and enact more or less of  good, defined socially and culturally. And extreme or approximate extremes in goodness exist, such as those wholly compassionate saving someone other at the risk of losing their own life . . . rarer than we imagine.

3. Evil exists. What it is is not clear, but it exists probably because first, self interest. It can and does go to extremes. Perhaps it is some form of I-am-alone, and therefore must do whatever I must or can to ensure me, to make me important, real, of significance in a world where connection is not possible, but I don't know that.

4. Clarity about reality is never achieved, always in the making. Some give up or take easy ways to resolve what is real. Others never give up trying to realize even though this is futile. Still others, most? don’t bother much. Or get so muddled, they go off half- or fully-crazed in opposition to other perceived/believed realities. Those that think they have discovered clarity fight to prove to themselves that they have it. Different realities often fight to the detriment or death of others.

5. People can change and do for umpteen reasons: easy sometimes, hard others, which makes for a necessary flexibility in relations. Sometimes relations are impossible to have, the differences now--after change--versus then--before changing--are so great.

6. People hide who they are. No one can know the other, they are so trapped by their own self preserving imaginings, and those in the smoke others emit about themselves. And the other is always throughout alone and separate--and changeable.

7. Care versus futility: the former makes for society; the latter for evil or something less, such as belief in nothing, thus just getting along and through somehow. The span of care and its focus are variable as is intensity.

8. The individual combination of inclinations, etc., make for the personality and character of a person. Aside from what biology and heredity bestow, a person is who she is and presents that to the other in the world.

9. So you’re free to play in the playground, and I’m glad for your discoveries and happiness, as we all can be glad.

10. But leave me to my private garden with imaginary flowers. I need make-work to get through all of this. I am very busy. My life. No strife. (Back to aristo no. 1.)

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.)