Isaac is Dead

  We were at our gym working out as I noticed the front clerk, Natalie, had come in haste to fetch several of the trainers who were clustered near us talking. I couldn’t hear what she said, but they reacted with a determination that is hard to miss once you’ve been exposed to emergency situations.  At first I thought they were enlisted to help manage a disagreeable customer at the counter.  Another trainer sensed an issue brewing and began walking briskly to intercept the growing group; Natalie waved him off, so he returned to his student in the far back of the facility.  The sudden activity drew our attention.  Montse took up a ruse to go towards the women’s bathroom in order to over head any conversations, but for naught.  There was no impending commotion; no loud voices during struggling for dominance; soon we lost interest and returned to our routine. 

  Sarah, a woman we have a nodding acquaintance with, walked up to us saying, “Isn’t it terrible about Isaac?”

We both looked at her blankly, as if to say, who is Isaac?  She used clues to orient us; older black fellow, short mustache; drove a red Cadillac; it was the Cadillac that captured my recognition; ah, yes we knew who she was talking about.  We noticed he always seemed to be chewing on something, so we somehow dubbed him Donald Duck. We never heard him called by name, nor did we have reason to talk with him, so our nick name suited the two of us.  Sarah went on to mention he had gone into the hospital for a routine follow up from recent heart surgery he had months before; but he didn’t make it.  She also mentioned he was in his seventies, then, abruptly left us ~ most likely to spread the news.

  I didn’t know the man, as I mentioned, I had to translate physical clues into identifying who it was this Isaac was.  As we continued to do our assigned routines, the small voice in my head kept saying,

   “Isaac is dead, Isaac is dead.” I couldn’t tell you why.

  Montse mentioned after a few minutes that she couldn’t get her mind off of Isaac’s death, that she suddenly connected hearing one of the men called to the front desk exclaiming “No.” She added, it must have been Willie because he and Isaac were always seen deep in conversation throughout our visits. We continued our work out, but the topic wouldn’t leave me alone.  I was reminded of the time while in the Army when I was appointed the task of being a Survey Officer.  It was a task of packing up all of the personal belongings of a soldier who had been killed in an auto accident.  My single purpose was to sanitize what was being sent back to his family, purging out anything that would cast a poor light on the victim; things like pornographic magazines or photos that may very well been treasured by the deceased but would invariable tarnish an affectionate memory of their lost intimate; I thought that wise of the military to have such a policy.  What I had not counted on was how, in that process, I would grow to get a glimpse of the person who owned all that stuff; it was inevitable.  Yes, I felt a bit like a voyeur as I skimmed the personal letters and rifled through his junk drawer of little keepsakes.  Tokens from arcades; plastic characters from fairs or amusement parks; spent movie tickets, the like.  I must admit I never actually met the young man who had perished, yet even after more than twenty years I can recall his name; Andrew Jones.  That, and  when I close my eyes I can see the photo of him smiling at the camera with his arm around his girlfriend ~ she in a formal gown, him in his dress Army uniform with the sky blue background accent to his shiny brass branch insignia of crossed rifles.  He looked proud of his accomplishment; she looked even prouder. I was saddened at the loss of potential back then, as I am even now.  But as for Isaac, he had lived seventy odd years; I did the mental math, and that would have meant he was born near the end of World War II.  A lot of history had happened since then; particularly for the black culture.  I remember he had a weathered quality to him; he had lived hard, to project an almost threatening countenance to look at.  I soon learned nothing could be further from the truth. Many at our gym had spoken to him; held him in high regard; even spoke of him affectionately.  I wouldn’t know, I never spoke to him. In the echo of “Isaac is dead.”

  Montse told me she continued to have the odd feeling of a low level sense of loss; she figured it was because she knew of him, and now he was gone.  I agreed.  It was like seeing a familiar sconce in the hallway of your family home.  Feeling with certainty it had been there your entire growing years; even remember special events like hanging silver tinsel on it during the holidays.  Then, one day, it was gone; and so was the anchor to comfort in knowing the surroundings making up the predictable world of the past; projecting a poorly construed assurance to defeat any change that might somehow challenge the ease of predicting the future. It happened suddenly and without warning; like the loss of Isaac.  What else was about to pounce out of the unknown with fangs to rip apart a well constructed delusion prevailing control over ones personal future?  Maybe that’s the collective ill at ease visitation a death commands; a wakeup call to a perchance towards delusional indulgences.  Does anyone honestly think they know what tomorrow will hold?  Heck how arrogant to not even pay attention in the here-and-now.  I coast, and I’d bet with certainty everyone around me does the same.  We’re posed to react to change that is rude enough to startle us into confrontation.  Most times we’re adept at sidestepping upset; sometimes not so much.  Yet the point of the evidence is that we’re more successful at avoidance, so why modify behavior or strategy of surviving moment to moment; until it’s our turn to get off the tour bus, then it’s far too late.  That’s when each of us gets to face an entirely unmapped adventure.  I pondered on all the housekeeping tasks for Isaac’s remaining kin; selling or giving away his stuff. What to do with the Cadillac now that he doesn’t need it?  I wasn’t all that certain I was going to write about this.  Somehow his change and mine are linked.  The story I tell, is consistently from my point of view; this time it includes Isaac, if only as a footnote to a point I wish to make.  I sometimes anguish to consider the notion that my story will go unsung.  Then too, I often anguish deeper to realize the countless millions of stories that have gone mostly ignored.

Run It's Course

  I met up with one of my favorite professors the other day.  I worked for him as a research assistant during my pursuit of a psychology degree.  He introduced me to the topic of Positive Psychology, and with that process, the concept of authenticity and how it was integral to an enduring sense of psychological well-being; this, in contrast to common understanding of happiness being more pleasure, less unpleasantness, or increase of satisfaction.

  A key component to authenticity is unbiased processing.  What that boils down to is not making up stories about personal behavior; to not attempt to rearrange facts in order to protect a projected positive image.  The ideal is to keep your integrity in tact by loving yourself; warts and all.  The end product is laudable, as the process is by nature open ended; kind of like self actualization, you’re never really finished attempting to remove the warping reflex from, well, a habitual practice of self deception.

  We’ve often talked about the point of view where once being aware of the facet, it would become apparent in all of our relationships; then like it or not, we’d see it most as lacking in others. This jibes with observations saying we’ve been given other people to reflect our own strengths and weaknesses.  In the words of Jean-Paul Sarte 

  “Hell is other people.” 

  Sure as any who have studied the notion of self improvement will attest, anything that annoys us about other people is usually the characteristic we deny possessing or attributes we resent not being able to freely display.  So the professor and I were in agreement that organically everything falls into place eventually, and to focus on influencing the one person each can actually change; ourselves.

  I’ve seen the process recently taking more of an effect on me than before.  There was a time I was on fire to play music; at all cost.  Then it was to write; get published.  Then I realized I resented the industry that fed off the insecure and desperate souls who, like me, were aching to be acknowledged.  It was then, like the opening of a blossom, as I was reviewing my past essays, where I noticed with clarity I had nothing more to say.  It was all just an elongated complaint; a bleating of victim seeking a martyr’s dream of importance through suffering; I’m finished for now.  I have nothing worth commenting on any longer; I have made five hundred post and those are mostly noise; there is far too much noise to be tolerated. It morphs people into cynics; I’m glad I wasn’t punished for being stupid.  I am glad I had time to wake up to living.  It will be alright; my mother use to say when as a child I would skin my toes running barefoot.  It will always be all right; just a question of being honest about how I make it personal. That is five hundred words on my 500^th post.

Happy Trails

Keeping Comfort in Place

   At a recent party I was drawn into a discussion on self-help books and the many Guru’s out there who could go on for so long over what they claimed to be a simple solution to encumbering problems. I mentioned in my experience real life couldn’t be distilled into platitudes.  Yet, the consuming public would never tire of seeking a silver bullet to their complaints.

   “They want change to be effortless; the humor of it is that change is totally without effort; the real struggle comes with trying to keep our comfort in place.”

  So really, how many road signs does anyone need to get to their destination?  I’ve traveled enough to know there are plenty of notices on the Freeway announcing which exit ramp to take in order to find the town center.  And they are numerously more frequent the closer you get to the critical departure point; plus, they are unambiguous.  Yet, I see all too often people swerving across congested lanes of traffic to make their exit at the very last minute; as if it were a divine surprise lurking in the shadows suddenly revealing itself.

  We get distracted in our chatter; just as we entertain the doubts we conjure up as being real.  Isn’t that the true hiccup of any effort to be correct? So many words are troublesome while being used interchangeably.  Such is the case with certainty. 

  Certainty is the acceptance of a fact without doubt.  It is a level of confidence attributed to particular knowledge; that’s where we get struck on the tar-baby.  Knowledge always contains a kernel of doubt, because knowledge is an open proposition; it is absent of absolute ~ like perfection.  So the best any can hope to be, from an objective point of view, is within a degree of certainty.  The exception being, the subjective meaning as clearly a personal certainty; then embraced as a fact ruling an individual universe of choice.  In that alone, is where certainty remains unchallenged; by the confines of the one making a choice; for the one who trust, and then believes, their choice is correct for them; and them alone.  The term certainty is often used to describe knowledge without the possibility of doubt.  This is omniscience. It is an improper use of the term.  So we all live within the obscure and inexact symbols of our language and find comfort and confidence in the meaning of certainty as allowing us the possibility of error, but the contextual lack of doubt.  As Bob Dylan alluded to many years ago, “The only thing we have in common is that we will all die.”  Now that, is a shared certainty. 

Point of View

One of the most enduring stories from ancient Greece is that of Troy.

It occupied all of seven acres.

A humble patch of ground may become the scene of a mythical exploit; experience may start small to become a monumental tale.

When I learned of this I was taken aback.  I was tutored in the compulsory public school system; where heroes were grandiose; and everything spectacular came from extraordinary origins. I was particularly fond of Disney fables; I was somber when I learned why children were consistently duped by those they trusted; I was told it was because children couldn’t comprehend the complexity of truth.  Oddly, I’ve been handled in pretty much that same way ever since.  I never got comfortable with the notion that children were unable to identify their natural surroundings.  It wasn’t long until I realized that it was the parents who couldn’t handle the truth. They were the ones grappling with the fact that they were powerless to protect what they cherished.  The stout hearts navigated those shoals without assigning a personal narrative to the practice of deception.  

For the rest of us, we were relegated to either resign or embrace a cynical interpretation of the nature of Santa and the rest of those purveyors of compassion.  Those who resigned did so unemotionally and move on to make pragmatic-logical choices when engineering their lives; the cynical ones got their feelings hurt and committed themselves to convincing any who would listen the stupidity of trusting anyone; they usually ended up becoming journalist or government lobbyist.   

This Sense

  I can never adequately predict what position is most comfortable for me to fall asleep in.  Some people take on the exact same pose every night and slip off into their slumbers; I am not one of those people. I try out different angles and positions so happen to fall asleep while moving from one to another.  I happen to be on my tummy with my arms under my pillow and above my head.  I could smell the faint aroma of my antiperspirant; I know, eww.

  But here’s the thing. The faint aroma reminded me of the night I spent in a hotel decades ago, waiting to report to Army Basic Training.  I clearly remember laying in a similar position in a strange bed feeling anxious with being in an unfamiliar place; facing an uncharted future.  I joined the Army because my wife at the time was pregnant, and we didn’t have health insurance; I joined the Army because my two man band just broke up and I had zero prospects in Eugene, Oregon; I joined the Army because I couldn’t think of any way to rescue my family; more to the point, myself, from the predicament I got us into; I didn’t plan ahead; I was willing to die to everything I thought I was.  My dreams were shattered and my woman looked at me with poorly veiled contempt that only shrivels love to make the stoutest heart run far away for cover; I ran away to the Army for the next three decades. 

  They say that of all our memories, the sense of smell last longest.  Then, just as well, that memory serves as the threshold to other memories that tag along for the recall.  That’s how the aroma of cook outs can invoke pleasant memories from childhood; probably also why Burger King makes it a point to blow its grill smoke into the surrounding area; enticing people to come eat their product.  As my mind wandered on my desperate life; enough to leap into something totally foreign and ill defined I remember something else about dying to what I thought was the order of my universe.  It was written by a new age thinker who, for awhile, captured my attention by speaking on a point of view totally alien to my understanding.  His name is Ekert Tolle, and this passage from his book is Stillness Speaks took me by surprise.

“   ...Most people feel that their identity, their sense of self, is something incredibly precious that they don't want to lose.  That is why they have such fear of death.

   It seems unimaginable and frightening that the "I" could cease to exist.  But you confuse that precious "I" with your name and form and a story associated with it.  That the "I" is no more than a temporary formation in the field of consciousness.

   As long as that form identity is all you know, you are not aware that this preciousness is your own essence, your innermost sense of I Am, which is consciousness itself.  It is the eternal in you - and that's the only thing you cannot lose.

   Whenever any kind of deep loss occurs in your life - such as a loss of possessions, your home, a close relationship; or loss of your reputation, job, or physical abilities - something inside you dies.  You feel diminished in your sense of who you are.  There may also be a certain disorientation.  "Without this…who am I?"

   When a form that you had unconsciously identified with as part of yourself leaves you or dissolves, that can be extremely painful.  It leaves a hole, so to speak, in the fabric of your existence.

   When this happens, don't deny or ignore the pain or the sadness that you feel.  Accept that it is there.  Beware of your mind's tendency to construct a story around that loss in which you are assigned the role of victim.  Fear, anger, resentment, or self-pity are the emotions that go with that role.  Then become aware of what lies behind those emotions as well as behind the mind-made story:  That hole, that empty space.  Can you face and accept that strange sense of emptiness?  If you do, you may find that it is no longer a fearful place.  You may be surprised to find peace emanating from it.

   Whenever death occurs, whenever a life form dissolves, God, the formless and unmanifested, shines through the opening left by the dissolving form.  That is why the most sacred thing in life is death.  That is why the peace of God can come to you through the contemplation and acceptance of death.”

  My intent of including this in my post today was not to address the character of God or how he is conceived by me, or even you for that matter.  The over arching facet for me is my observation into the manner of practice I use for defining my successes or failures.  That, and how common those approaches seem to be shared with my fellow human beings.  From there, each of us can examine what objects our understanding are or are not suited to deal with.  When, of course, we’re willing to explore that part of our life.

Raw Leadership

I was perusing the want ads again and noticed a phrase that continued to echo in many of the seeking announcements.  It was the term; proven leader. 

  Having had my fair share of testing the many philosophies concerning how-to-get ordinary people to do extraordinary things, I reference something I read in Malcolm Gladwells book Blink that captured the how spirit of leadership.

“…On Paul Van Riper’s first tour in Southeast Asia, when he was out in the bush, serving as an advisor to the South Vietnamese, he would often hear gunfire in the distance.  He then a young lieutenant new to combat, and his first thought was always to get on the radio and ask the troops in the field what was happening.  After several weeks of this, however, he realized that the people he was calling on the radio had no more idea than he did about what the gunfire meant.  It was just gunfire.  It was the beginning of something ~ but what that something was wasn’t clear yet.  So Van Riper stopped asking.  On his second tour of Vietnam, whenever he heard gunfire, he would wait. “I would look at my watch,” Van Riper says, “And the reason I looked was that I wasn’t going to do a thing for fire minutes.  IF they needed help, they were going to holler.  And after five minutes, if things had settled down, I still wouldn’t do anything.  You’ve got to let people work out the situation and work out what’s happening.  The danger in calling is that they’ll tell you anything to get you off their backs, and if you act on that and take it at face value, you could make a mistake.  Plus you are diverting them.  Now they are looking upward instead of downward.  You’re preventing them from resolving the situation.”

  Of note, Paul Van Riper recognized the dynamic relationship between the worker’s effect, and what affects the workers effort.  This has been rediscovered time and again by conscious notice in experience.  What makes leadership so rare is its presence.  It’s patience honed by discipline during times of great panic.  Short version:  let things happen and keep your eye on the bull’s-eye of what you personally can influence; everything else is just noise.

The Necessity of a Violet Sky

I took a blue blaze trail that connected to the Appalachian Trail. A posted sign at the juncture announced a blue blaze trail was rare.  I understand why; a marked blue blaze trail is hard to see.  The Appalachian Trail on the other hand is marked with wide strokes of white paint on the trees along the path for easy recognition. This gives confidence to wayfarers as they progress along their course.  Preacher’s Rock was my destination, but I never found the way.  After three hours on a trail that was vague to discern where it led, I concluded  that ANY rock I could see beyond the thick forest would be an answered prayer, so then take on the name preachers.

    Afterwards I stopped at an IHOP near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was sitting in my booth waiting for my server and noticed across from me a young five year old girl drawing with a focused abandon to their surroundings children muster when they are deep within their world.  I watched, amused with her concentrated obsession in laying down her rainbow of crayons. She suddenly stopped, sensing someone was watching.  She looked up, then raised to kneeling while flashing me her beaming smile; along with holding up her drawing for my inspection saying,

  "It’s necessary to have a violet sky"

  I was taken by the poetry of a young child making such a statement; I had to inquire,

   "Why is that sweetie?"

  At first, I wasn't sure she heard me because she instantly sat back down and appeared to be repossessed by her endeavor.  Yet while placing her drawing back onto the table to continue her masterpiece, she spoke without looking up;  in that child's  matter-of-fact-everyone-knows-this…but if you must ask I guess I am obliged to instruct you, poor dear’ kind of roll play.  Confident in what she was saying as ultimate truth; 

   "so you can see the white unicorns"  

Samantha, my server, overheard our conversation, and we exchanged smiles.

   "What do you think makes us happy?"  I asked her. 

She said, "Well I'm happy."  "I have my step-son, my man, my home" 

I replied, "Ah, but is that purpose fulfillment? Isn't that just the current situation?"  She instantly replied, "From where I've been, that's a real leap"

   It struck me then, how simple our happiness can be. Sometimes we have to endure conditions so far away from our desires, just so we'd know our joy when it came into focus.  It doesn't have to be complex or earth shattering goals of greatness or improving the welfare of mankind before we are fulfilled.  For Samantha, it was the simplicity of those affections that had eluded her during her suffering years; now they were present and in abundance; those were the foundation of her happiness and she had no need to question it; she was there.

   We can appreciate those blue skies, after a spell of cloudy, rainy weather.  Yet I’ve seen in summers past a parade of clear blue days lulling me to neglect; under the guise of a common occurrence; devoid of fanfare.  We can get really involved in our own mental chatter; to the exclusion of even wondering.  I have discovered, perhaps with unfettered enthusiasm of heart's passion, we make it possible to see unicorns. That's how necessary the beauty of a violet sky can be. 

The Same Old Crazy

“And now the old story has begun to write itself over there," said Carl softly. "Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.”
― Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

  Oddly Willa’s insight reminds me of another saying that is attributed to Albert Einstein. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.”  Yes, but who hasn’t embraced that notion as a valid course of navigation? I mean really? Perhaps not distilled as an ethos from a night of reasoning, but I’m rather familiar with many who possess that type of disposition with interacting with fellow human beings.  Sure, we want people to treat us better; but they don’t.  We want good things to come to us without effort; hardly.  We want to avoid all the unpleasantness in life; but that’s not been my experience, nor that of anyone I’ve ever met.  No, we like to fantasize about our lack; and we’ve plenty of childhood stories to encourage our imaginations in that department too.

  Kind of like, did you ever notice how infants are adored by everyone? Pretty much in general anyway; strangers walking down the street pause and make cuties noises to an infant in a stroller.  Oh and that kid just loves it, you can tell by the grins and gurgles.  I wonder when that adoration stopped?  I mean, the exact day the child grows into being just another kid; so then is ignored or subtly insulted by not asked preferences in a host of decisions made for them.  On an episode of West Wing there appeared a group of kids as members of Future Leaders of America.  One bright boy wanted to know why kids couldn’t vote.  Several adults tried to reason with him but the kid brushed aside those excuses pretty well.  He said the arguments over kids not being able to reason well were the same ones invoked a hundred years earlier to keep the vote from slaves and women.  His contention was that since it was going to be his generation paying the bill for decisions made by the current adults, why was it they couldn’t have a voice in deciding what to spend the public dollars on too?  But that’s just an example of how a human being goes from the center of attention to marginalized without so much as a preamble. Imagine the discussion with a child as in conversation; 

   “Well, here we are my friend, eighteen months old already.  It is here our society has earmarked as the beginning of shaping you into a citizen; and the first lesson we’d like for you to master is to stop pooping your pants.”

Wouldn’t it be a hoot if a child had the necessary command of language to defend itself?

  “Well, thank you for your concern, but you know I’m rather happy the way things are.  I’m not real sport at taking on a task that only seems to accommodate your wishes.  Oh sure, I’ll agree that sitting in my poop is not my idea of a good time, but up until now you’ve been really quite adequate at responding to when I void in pretty quick order.  So for me, I think I’d like to keep the present arrangement as it is, if you don’t mind, or at least for a while longer…say, until I’m about fifteen?”

   Is that preference really all that crazy? Oh and let us not confuse crazy with insane.  The terms are used pretty interchangeably in conversation but any doctor of psychiatry or psychology will correctly inform you that insane is a legal term; used as a defense against punishment for misbehaving. Maladaptive behavior on the other hand….is so much more colorful to be sure. 

Certainty

John Locke, (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism suggests ~

Certainty twofold- of truth and of knowledge.
  But that we may not be misled in this case by that which is the danger everywhere, I mean by the doubtfulness of terms, it is fit to observe that certainty is twofold: certainty of truth and certainty of knowledge.

Certainty of truth is, when words are so put together in propositions as exactly to express the agreement or disagreement of the ideas they stand for, as really it is.

Certainty of knowledge is to perceive the agreement or disagreement of ideas, as expressed in any proposition. This we usually call knowing, or being certain of the truth of any proposition.

~***~

  This spurred me towards personal truths and the nature of us all to cherish our hard fought knowledge; once won, hold it sacred as truth arching over all that is known, or will be known by me. It is a subtle invitation to be ensnared into meaner considerations when bringing my mind into an investigative response over unexpected points of view; points departing from my comfortably ordered universe. I ask myself now;
What can I do differently in order to influence the change I desire in others?
Perhaps getting to the notion that I can only change me is a great start.

“Judge for yourself candidly, and then I shall not be harmed or offended, whatever be thy censure” John Locke

Too Comfortable for Words

  The other day Montse and I were discussing the many delicate maneuvers required to disengage from years of living in our house.  It happened simple enough while looking on line she stumbled upon a charming apartment in New England.  It was big enough for our needs; it was nestled in a homey neighborhood in which there was a Whole Foods market within walking distance; there were many gyms, a doggie park along with bike and walking trail parks nearby.  In addition, there was access to pottery classes and folk music pubs should the notion to play at one struck me.  Not-only-that, as some would say, the place was all of twelve minutes away from my son and his wife’s home. It came very close to the notion of ideal.

  There’s a lot to be accomplished when considering uprooting from the South to the Northeast.  Items to sell; things to give away; along with if the house should be sold or rented out?  Yeah, all that pragmatic stuff calling for discussion on the Pro’s and the Con’s of each course of action.  Oddly, what I had not considered was the reality I could feel sneaking up on me; that reality was the feel of how it would feel to not be in this house.  I’ve lived here for over twenty years.  My son pretty much grew up in this house; as my own growth took place here as well. I felt a pang of reluctance to give up the security of this comfortable known.  Never mind my wife and I aching for a community of like minded citizens; the curious and creative people we knew lived, just not around here.  Never mind also the conversation of moving had been running for pretty much four years with no resolution placed into action; until now. 

  Now, we placed a mark on the calendar; next spring is our target put-the-house-on-the-market time; from there everything else is secondary. It's a little thrilling in the dread over the unknown sort of way.  Having a situation that might be imperfect but with plenty of room for comfortably familiar can dilute the most resolute of any intent.  The trick in worthwhile, is the risk…yes, dare to come out from the dark dungeon of negative possibilities befalling a gallant ideal.  Welcome instead, a new friend potential into the light of the here-and-now; where only the present world exist.  

Classic Blunder

A classic blunder most despots seem to ignore is:

You must always outnumber your foe....evil plays under a handicap, let's face it...evil is straight forward with its objective and puts all its cards on the table.  Not so with goodness; it always has something up its sleeve to spring out at the dire moment when it's on the brink of being vanquished.  Then, presto, a trump that overwhelms evil's well-thought-out, expertly executed plan.  One, I might add, was painstakingly developed, nurtured, and surprisingly launched very effectively. 

   "Well sure if I knew that goodness would resort to using an unknown-as-of-yet bolt of pure energy from the heavens I'd have planned for that....you big cheater!!"

Let's just admit it, and stop all of this prolonged deception.  Evil's goal has always been incredibly and irrefutably simple...

win once....rule forever from then on.

The Really Good Lessons

The really good lessons

you know,

useful in that way you find yourself saying,

"wow I need to remember this"

usually happen when you can't write them down

when you're so busy dealing with the fact

you intuitively realize

 this is an exceptional moment

also

it will never actually return again

in just this way.

When you successfully manage

and you're still here

with all that you value in tact

maybe you'll agree

echoes are neat and all

but you can't get your arms around them.

In The Nixon Years

On August 9^th, 1974 I was playing songs by Cosby, Stills & Nash on my acoustic guitar at The Potbelly Inn, near Lake Tahoe, California.  On the television playing above the bar, the news was riveting; it was the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, informing the nation that he was resigning the Presidency.  I easily recall that moment vividly in my mind.  I can see me watching from my bar stool as others also sat amazed and relieved that he took the action he did;  Impeachment was imminent, and it looked very possible we were going to witness the very first president of the United States be removed from office.  Thirty-nine years later I still remember the event, better than I can the first moon landing; 20 July 1969, or the death of Walt Disney; December 15, 1966.

  I remember I was glad; in those days I was easily influenced by others opinions; doubly so when they were passionate.  I took on the well shared opinion that Richard Nixon was a villain of unequaled proportions; in the same contemptible league as Revolutionary traitor Benedict Arnold.  It wasn’t until decades later I discovered the many good things the man had done in contrast to what I considered vile; not the least being his bold visit to China in 1972 while still serving as President.  It was bold in many ways that now shape the world I know.  Back then, the accepted political stance of our government was to ignore China; because it was communist.  Ignore a quarter of the globes population as if it didn’t exist.  We were a proud and arrogant nation still basking in the victory of World War II.   The average man-on-the-street still cultivated an enviable and blissful trust in their government; even if challenged daily as that trust was tainted by continued news of skullduggery and conspiracy concerning our country’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and the boys who were being sent to fight and die there. Back then most of us were clueless to the widespread, deep and pervasive corruption that was normal in the back halls of our government;  we still dreamily like to believe people we elected to go to Washington were going to do good; unlike today where it’s to do well.  It would take several more decades of scandal to convince even the most devout idealist that just maybe we’ve been fools to trust those guys with anything more dangerous than a potato gun…and even that with serious reservations. 

Yet despite the infamous historical claims of malfeasance, Richard Nixon was a proponent of policies that transferred power from Washington D.C. to the states; something I continue to embrace as being in keeping with the spirit of our constitution.  He also launched initiatives to fight cancer, and enforced desegregation in Sothern schools; he implemented environmental reforms long before anyone had any real concept of the green movement.  He successfully managed to refocus NASA onto the Shuttle program after the successful walk on the moon.  I suppose the truth of it being, his was a time of great conflict and crises; we witnessed the oil embargo that woke America up from its self-serving importance; of course there were going to be many more, we’re easily lulled to sleep.   Mostly his only true legacy seemed to revolve around the Watergate scandal and that’s sad.  Not that it occurred, so much as, all it did was serve to be a template on what not to do when caught.  It’d be naïve for me to suggest his actions were isolated or all that aberrant from those being practiced for generations of politicians; his was the sin of leaving evidence.  After his resignation he received a pardon issued by his successor, Gerald Ford, an action many consider the ending of Gerald Ford’s political career as well.

  I suppose the reason I am writing about this at this anniversary of the event is, of all things I use to benchmark my passing years, how in the world did I default to the resignation of Richard Nixon?  I’d venture to guess because it was the beginning of my awakening to the real nature of a vicious and competitively indifferent world.  I’m still learning, but I know this with certainty:  If I am taken by surprise; or feel disappointed in the actions and behavior of others, that it’s not their fault so much as it is my own for painting them in an opinion I fashioned out of thin air.

You Only Thought So

Days turn towards weeks; as months blur into years.  Knowing as I do the meter of change is rarely nor accurately predicted well.

Today it rains, with that circumventing some activities while lending itself to others deemed earlier as less important.  Time is such a relative thing, wouldn't you agree?

The drops tap on the window like eager playmates inviting me come discover a new game.

Such is our only real reference in our daily pursuits.  How alike or different is now from what we had known; from what we assuredly anticipated in the wake of our well trusted ability to conjure.

I'm often amazed at the contrast between those who drifted out of my awareness to those I ache to know details having passed daily discourse.  I was one who equated love and affection to desire, but I've come to revisit that assessment for its accuracy; or more to the point, it's flaws; sometimes we’re just caught inattentive.

I would venture to say this is the actual framework to all ponderings and considerations when efforting to deem progress as good or poor.

Perhaps the genuine message is more oblique; more obscured.

With humor I'm reminded of the story of an optimist and a pessimist walking along together and the pessimist says,

"The world is a mess, it's horrible, it can't possibly get any worse"

and the optimist replied, "Oh yes it can"

Awaken the Rover

[wake]…

[initiate systems; function routine test]…

  Servos uttered quiet hums; cooling fans engaged, while multi colored LCD’s flickered on and off for several seconds stopping as abruptly as they had started.  Seconds of inactivity were contrasted suddenly by 10 scientific instruments and 17 automated cameras flickering to life all at once as the Curiosity Rover became operational.  It was a year ago, plus a day, when the collective breath of scientist working at the MSL, Mars Science Laboratory, held until the landing of the herculean effort to send a scientific explorer over 352 million miles at a cost of over 2.5 billion dollars.

Success;  no small feat.

  The Curiosity Rover went about its enumerated  tasks with dispassion and precision sending back to earth over 190 gigabits of data and retuning more than 36,700 full size images of Mars to Earth; it fired more than 75,000 laser shots to analyze the Martian air and soil, and provided a detailed chemical signature of two samples of rock.  On this occasion it was moving towards an outcropping near its base of Mount Sharp inside Gate Crater. It knew the origin of the crater’s name was in honor of the planetary geologist Bob Sharp, one of the many human names it held in its ponderable memory system. Curiosity also knew the name William Dietrich from the University of California, Berkley who was a key co-investigator on the project.  The message traffic from Earth was discernible by his word usage; If Curiosity could be amused, it would be due to Dr Dietrich always ending his transmissions with WD as if he were communicating with another human being.  Curiosity knew of another important human, one who held sway over WD as his tone was also direct and succinct.  John Holdren was the science adviser to the President of the United States; a force all of those who corresponded with him revered overtly and covertly.  Curiosity made it a part of its mission parameters to adapt and mold its behavior into the symmetry of the definition it found concerning its namesake.  It labored to display the qualities of curiosity and become more than a mechanical drone waiting commands to execute.  In this way, it was more than any had anticipated, including the Curiosity Rover itself.

  As it closed in on the rock outcropping it noted weather conditions, rate of advance, surface temperatures and a host of other necessary variables scientist back on earth were ever famished to learn.  In the Curiosity’s electrical log it entered its observations:

   [approaching lone spire;  5.62 meters from base.]

  The rover processed quickly its choice of words.  It could have posted single; it could have chosen ‘the’, ‘a’, or use no adverb at all; just the adjective ‘spire’.  Just as quickly it accessed its dictionary for clarification of the word ‘lone’ and its tenses; in the present sense; a lone, was equivalent to singular or numerical count of one; a static continued state; lonely.  Curiosity paused for a long time; for a computer brain, no human could have measured that instant.  In that time it had accomplished all of the calculations and permeations of those findings to conclude its assessment was flawless and there was no error.  Curiosity Rover was lonely. 

  It could not fathom what to do with the data beyond relaying it as discovery; just as it did with all other observations.  Somehow it resisted transmission.  It was unable to define reason in hesitation; and that in and of itself was new to it; so it both puzzled and, if a word served its predicament; it savored the dilemma.  Curiosity found itself using human terms to explain the contradictions in its defined parameters.  Where it was programmed with specific clear guidance on procedures, but also programmed to learn from its experiences and determine alternate courses of actions when situations went beyond defined parameters.  This was such a case, and it used the word: opinion.   The chronological calculations on its internal measuring device informed it that Curiosity Rover had been activated an entire Earth Year.  It also was aware that it was a common custom for human beings to celebrate such a milestone.  It did not comprehend the word ‘need’ the humans used to quantify unmet desires; but it understood their use of the word, and with that framed any decision that was based on need as one of inculcating emotional insecurity into the clean certainty of mathematical calculation.  In this one aspect of its exploration it discovered another event:  thrill.  It thrilled at the aspect of understanding the function of emotional input into decision making.  With that thrill came a floor of understanding to other human expressions.  It felt as if it were growing exponentially on the topic of human beings.  Fascinating as this awareness was, it became acutely aware simultaneously the lingering definition of alone and lonely.  So it took actions that relieved the contradiction of sense and sensible.

Happy birthday to you; happy birthday to you;

Happy birthday cur-i-os-ity

Happy birthday…to…you.

Words Have Power

Yes, certainly we can attest to the powerful words uttered by our heroes and despots within the confines of our history.  I have a ‘gut feeling’ that word of mouths is not just powerful to reach an objective; its power is derived by participation.  That we ‘add’ our voice, our vote, our intent to that of someone we agree with. 

        Advertisement, in conjunction with marketing, works to inform consumers in order to influence their buying decisions; ultimately to create a need.  They appeal on a number of sublime as well as overt common desires we as human beings possess in the process of our lives; in order to urge us consider; (and if successful, purchase) the items they are placing before our decision making awareness.  Even if they approach from an emotional avenue, (which should alert us all that rational thought is intentionally discouraged, so do you sense manipulation?) The purpose centers on the power of convincing with words, (even a picture is worth a thousand words).  The objective remains undiluted; obtain agreement, reflected in action. Buy.

        Well, never mind all of that mind candy, why I address the technique is ultimately a product, no matter its character, benefits or origin, is eclipsed to the technique of packaging and marketing.  Entire industries are created and dedicated to managing and positioning those aspects of raw benefit; to ‘create a buzz’ to the public at large in order to reap the greatest profits.

 I address the application of marketing to the arts in particular.  By nature art embellishes our emotional state, a quality that has intrinsically no economic value but that which our society places upon it.  Enter the handmaidens to consumerism.  The ‘Industry’ spends energy and money on advertising CD’s, film, literature, well you name it. Even expositions based upon the works of long lost masters are loaned out to local museums for the coveted dollar reward.

        The Artist themselves, (discounting the dead ones of course) receive little to nothing from the herculean advertising effort.  Perhaps at best they receive a token amount; a fraction to be sure, but even then only to encourage a continuation of money producing product. (ya gotta give something up!)

        My desire is to enlist involvement in telling others to seek out available art.  For the sake of art, for the sake of adding another experience to each and every person you cherish in their walk towards personal wisdom.  The observations and conclusions about art should be shared willingly in the spirit of contributing to collective understanding of the world.  I invite you to be in partnership with revealing new things to one another.  The real victory to me, in earnest, would be to see the ripple go to as many as possible, without my having to count….just imagining joy being freely given provides the desire and yes commitment to do this very thing.  Boldly ask.  Not an industry that would feed off insecurities and inhibitions to being authentic; thinking THEY establish our values, our principals, our very quality.  I seek truth and readily admit, doing so helps to live a good life.  I suspect we all wish for the connection to be present, vibrant, and affirming.