I prefer curiosity that I am not in a condition to satisfy
I prefer markers of time lowered into deeper pockets
Buried and ignored
I prefer deviations peculiar to dreams --but still
I prefer to be found in my wrapper by my nightmare
If I cannot sleep, I prefer to cry myself better in a pillow,
(when I haven’t any tissue, And I haven’t any sleeves)
I prefer to give testy dialogue a grand poke in the middle
I prefer to name ‘Monday’ and leave the rest anonymous
I prefer the oblique separation of rain falling in slanted lines
I prefer a world dimensionally narrow
I prefer oblivion to the fact that I am out of place
Most of all I prefer the particularities and generalities of a gloomy life with bright glories of fancy.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Burrowing Deep - Part II
A Holistic Conclusion
Now just in case you’re thinking, after reading Part One of this rant, that this is going to be another of Roberta’s sermons, advocating religion and God belief, let me assure you that is not the case.
You may leave ‘The Good Book’ on the dusty shelf, because there are other books that build conscience, (dare I say way more effectively than even that one?). But, like so many other things I have mentioned, these books too are collecting dust – no longer in vogue.
Foremost in my mind are Charles Dickens’ books. Charles Dickens is the strongest advocate I have ever read that makes me fully aware of the pain of hopelessness, poverty, bullying, and cruelty in all its aspects. I truly believe if his books were required reading in elementary schools, there would be no bullying, violence, or cruel taunting of other children. In surprising ways, Dickens’ books mold the best of an ethical conscience without Biblical reference.
Now I wonder if you will allow me for just one brief moment to deviate from the topic at hand. I have wondered and tossed around in my mind for most of a lifetime, whether it is fair to a critically ill or injured individual to let them know for a certainty that their transition is near at hand or if one should slide around the issue.
After reading about the devastating hopelessness of young boys in Dickens’ book “Nickolas Nickleby”, I finally have an answer to the question. No matter what the situation, no one has the right to take away, (or falsely add to) an individual’s hope, regardless of how fleeting or short-lived that hope may be. In that, I’m sure many would disagree, but I’m just saying that is the conclusion I have come to. Each and every separate individual must be allowed to keep whatever primeval and fundamental hope they have within themselves – without outside tampering. There is a kindness in allowing the primeval and fundamental hope within oneself to be left alone.
One of the biggest reasons it just isn’t fair to tamper with a person’s ‘hope’, is because ‘hope’ authors courage and wee moments of joy in the direst of circumstances.
Now with that discussion now concluded, let us return to the original topic. So while others seek ethical guidance in The Good Book, Dickens gives his readers a fuzzy soft heart without them wanting it, seeking it, or expecting it.
And so, now you may argue, “Is this so different from ethics taught through prepared flow charts, manuals, self-help books, and workshops?”
Indeed it is different. Because at no time does Dickens provide instruction. He simply provides for the reader an organic diet of the personal experiences of children, adults, families, and society as a whole, without ethical processing, refinement, or preaching.
If you are only aware of Dickens “A Christmas Story”, you probably wonder what I am yapping about. Well, to be quite honest with you, although the story touches on ethics of generosity and caring, it is the story I least like of all Dickens’ work. Just way too much fiction and fantasy in that story for me particularly because I was born so drenched and saturated in fantasies of my own.
But Dickens’ books are not the only books capable of doing what his books do – but his and other such books are no longer in vogue. The libraries have been pretty well cleansed of the books that tell raw and holistic stories of the hopelessness of the starving beggar, the orphaned child, the forgotten waif, or the betrayed love one. Discarded to make way for synthetic wizards and relationships of caricatures with generic souls and superficial conscience whose greatest trial is loss of flight or a spell convoluted by the unexpected interference of a purple haze.
And so my brain aches for some tiny miraculous sign from heaven or earth that we might find out way back to nobler hearts for the sake of ourselves, and the successors of the present generation. But I see nothing to give me ‘hope’ as I meander about soberly with head downcast to protect the magic wizard-like lens in one eye from the sun. And so I have decided to take off my glasses and look upward and allow the sun to magnify the heat in my brain the same way that the organics of the human mind have been artificially magnified by the application of technical and chemical interference.
And, as earlier stated, if what ‘they say’ is true, the magnified burn applied to my eye will reduce to ashes the anxieties in my brain. After all, the road I walk, is not so long that I need these dismal thoughts laboring there.
Now just in case you’re thinking, after reading Part One of this rant, that this is going to be another of Roberta’s sermons, advocating religion and God belief, let me assure you that is not the case.
You may leave ‘The Good Book’ on the dusty shelf, because there are other books that build conscience, (dare I say way more effectively than even that one?). But, like so many other things I have mentioned, these books too are collecting dust – no longer in vogue.
Foremost in my mind are Charles Dickens’ books. Charles Dickens is the strongest advocate I have ever read that makes me fully aware of the pain of hopelessness, poverty, bullying, and cruelty in all its aspects. I truly believe if his books were required reading in elementary schools, there would be no bullying, violence, or cruel taunting of other children. In surprising ways, Dickens’ books mold the best of an ethical conscience without Biblical reference.
Now I wonder if you will allow me for just one brief moment to deviate from the topic at hand. I have wondered and tossed around in my mind for most of a lifetime, whether it is fair to a critically ill or injured individual to let them know for a certainty that their transition is near at hand or if one should slide around the issue.
After reading about the devastating hopelessness of young boys in Dickens’ book “Nickolas Nickleby”, I finally have an answer to the question. No matter what the situation, no one has the right to take away, (or falsely add to) an individual’s hope, regardless of how fleeting or short-lived that hope may be. In that, I’m sure many would disagree, but I’m just saying that is the conclusion I have come to. Each and every separate individual must be allowed to keep whatever primeval and fundamental hope they have within themselves – without outside tampering. There is a kindness in allowing the primeval and fundamental hope within oneself to be left alone.
One of the biggest reasons it just isn’t fair to tamper with a person’s ‘hope’, is because ‘hope’ authors courage and wee moments of joy in the direst of circumstances.
Now with that discussion now concluded, let us return to the original topic. So while others seek ethical guidance in The Good Book, Dickens gives his readers a fuzzy soft heart without them wanting it, seeking it, or expecting it.
And so, now you may argue, “Is this so different from ethics taught through prepared flow charts, manuals, self-help books, and workshops?”
Indeed it is different. Because at no time does Dickens provide instruction. He simply provides for the reader an organic diet of the personal experiences of children, adults, families, and society as a whole, without ethical processing, refinement, or preaching.
If you are only aware of Dickens “A Christmas Story”, you probably wonder what I am yapping about. Well, to be quite honest with you, although the story touches on ethics of generosity and caring, it is the story I least like of all Dickens’ work. Just way too much fiction and fantasy in that story for me particularly because I was born so drenched and saturated in fantasies of my own.
But Dickens’ books are not the only books capable of doing what his books do – but his and other such books are no longer in vogue. The libraries have been pretty well cleansed of the books that tell raw and holistic stories of the hopelessness of the starving beggar, the orphaned child, the forgotten waif, or the betrayed love one. Discarded to make way for synthetic wizards and relationships of caricatures with generic souls and superficial conscience whose greatest trial is loss of flight or a spell convoluted by the unexpected interference of a purple haze.
And so my brain aches for some tiny miraculous sign from heaven or earth that we might find out way back to nobler hearts for the sake of ourselves, and the successors of the present generation. But I see nothing to give me ‘hope’ as I meander about soberly with head downcast to protect the magic wizard-like lens in one eye from the sun. And so I have decided to take off my glasses and look upward and allow the sun to magnify the heat in my brain the same way that the organics of the human mind have been artificially magnified by the application of technical and chemical interference.
And, as earlier stated, if what ‘they say’ is true, the magnified burn applied to my eye will reduce to ashes the anxieties in my brain. After all, the road I walk, is not so long that I need these dismal thoughts laboring there.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Burrowing Deep - Pt. 1
Behavior Patterns 101
Oh, a blazing sun is a great rarity here, but today is as hot as a brimstone pit. I long to stare at the sky, knowing I should not. Knowing full well that the artificial lens transplanted in my right eye acts like a magnifying glass that could easily and quickly smolder a tunnel into my brain. But maybe, that is just what I need to do.
Since eye-repair surgery, I am no longer in the habit of staring at things overhead – sun, clouds, and sky. I don dark glasses with ritual faithfulness all days and walk about with bowed head looking at my feet. Staring only at ground cover, turf, leaf mold, and soil. But more so, each day, as an elderly with a rotting brain, fading memory, and a fuzzy mind, I want to look up. It’s beginning to seem that a hollowed-out brain, consumed by smoke and fire is of little consequence.
I want to look up because there are things in my gray matter that perhaps a bonfire could cure. Starting with that anxious deep-seated belief that the world is close to utter destruction. An odd sort of destruction – destruction of humanity, not by atomic or cosmic force, and not by flood or fire, or the hand of an impatient creator, but insidiously through the destruction of what we feel and how deeply we feel it.
I believe the days of Armageddon began when researchers began ripping apart the magic and mysteries of life. When they began burrowing into investigations of DNA, brain cells, pheromones, ascendants, descendants, etc. until in their polished wisdom they refined all human behavior and relationships as chemical interactions rather than raw and organic spiritual phenomena.
So now the manual for ‘crafting behavior patterns’ is a mixture of Science, Physics, and Math – minus – for all time – ‘fuzzy emotions’.
I don’t have to tell you or anyone that fuzzy emotions are no longer part of the mix. Fuzziness is out of vogue. So far out of vogue that our present generation knows nothing of fuzziness. They don’t know it, can’t feel it, and fail to understand it. It no longer even rates as a topic for jest.
And so no longer are marital intentions ruled by holistic fuzzy emotions. The new non-organic and highly refined process is ruled by what one’s intended eats, where they work, how often they exercise, what vehicle they drive, and the health of their teeth.
Marital intentions also have much to do with taught, practiced, and reviewed verbal expressions of sensitivity, and taught, practiced and reviewed rituals such as bouquets for anniversaries, and scheduled post-marital date nights. And through these lessons, fuzziness of the heart has been replaced in all its wondrous aspects by physical expectations and rituals, rather than the sweet tug of hearts and souls intertwined. But then, let’s face it, hearts and souls intertwined are no longer in vogue, or understood as well.
I guess this is what happens when behavior patterns are converted into hard learning through charts and data, rather than through internal, and oh-so-vital connections and convictions. Weird how we clamor for organic food and alternative and holistic medicine for our physical bods, but for the soul we only want a highly processed (and somewhat toxic) mix minus the organics of raw conscience and warm, soft, and fuzzy flavor. But then as I have already mentioned, touchy-feely is out of vogue and so is soft and fuzzy.
_________
And so, the loss of a raw and organic conscience and conviction is what happens when the mysteries of life are converted into lab language and reactions.
Yet, prior to today’s sophisticated and over-refined interpretations, when ‘unrefined behavior’ was not fully understood or analyzed from a biological perspective, when it was raw and organic, when it was such a great mystery and enigma, the strength of that monitor of behavior was so much more than it might otherwise have been.
I am witness to that. I saw with my own eyes when the organic conscience, that once was, could crush and break the hearts of wicked individuals with more writhing and pain than an electric chair. And I saw with my own eyes that same conscience, that once was, bestow bountiful joy and peace on those individuals who allowed it to gently guide their way. But that kind of behavior patterning is also out of vogue.
And so, today’s disfavor of violence, bullying, and cruelty; and alternatively favor of positive family intermingling learned from lessons without organic connection, lessons in an academic vein, generic, book learned, superficially planted in mind only, fail to truly alter disposition, or character.
And so such lessons (or should I call them calculations?), rather than burrowing deep into the spirit of individuals, and planting deep seeds of conviction, that can never be compromised, or ignored, are instead superficially splashed on an individual’s exterior, like moisture sprinkled on water-repellent canvas. ‘Good behavior’, manufactured or generic, is accomplished for the moment, but it can be shed at will. There is no inner saturation and so in the end, no certain or everlasting rendering of a delightful disposition of charity and generosity.
NEXT POST: A Holistic Conclusion
Oh, a blazing sun is a great rarity here, but today is as hot as a brimstone pit. I long to stare at the sky, knowing I should not. Knowing full well that the artificial lens transplanted in my right eye acts like a magnifying glass that could easily and quickly smolder a tunnel into my brain. But maybe, that is just what I need to do.
Since eye-repair surgery, I am no longer in the habit of staring at things overhead – sun, clouds, and sky. I don dark glasses with ritual faithfulness all days and walk about with bowed head looking at my feet. Staring only at ground cover, turf, leaf mold, and soil. But more so, each day, as an elderly with a rotting brain, fading memory, and a fuzzy mind, I want to look up. It’s beginning to seem that a hollowed-out brain, consumed by smoke and fire is of little consequence.
I want to look up because there are things in my gray matter that perhaps a bonfire could cure. Starting with that anxious deep-seated belief that the world is close to utter destruction. An odd sort of destruction – destruction of humanity, not by atomic or cosmic force, and not by flood or fire, or the hand of an impatient creator, but insidiously through the destruction of what we feel and how deeply we feel it.
I believe the days of Armageddon began when researchers began ripping apart the magic and mysteries of life. When they began burrowing into investigations of DNA, brain cells, pheromones, ascendants, descendants, etc. until in their polished wisdom they refined all human behavior and relationships as chemical interactions rather than raw and organic spiritual phenomena.
So now the manual for ‘crafting behavior patterns’ is a mixture of Science, Physics, and Math – minus – for all time – ‘fuzzy emotions’.
I don’t have to tell you or anyone that fuzzy emotions are no longer part of the mix. Fuzziness is out of vogue. So far out of vogue that our present generation knows nothing of fuzziness. They don’t know it, can’t feel it, and fail to understand it. It no longer even rates as a topic for jest.
And so no longer are marital intentions ruled by holistic fuzzy emotions. The new non-organic and highly refined process is ruled by what one’s intended eats, where they work, how often they exercise, what vehicle they drive, and the health of their teeth.
Marital intentions also have much to do with taught, practiced, and reviewed verbal expressions of sensitivity, and taught, practiced and reviewed rituals such as bouquets for anniversaries, and scheduled post-marital date nights. And through these lessons, fuzziness of the heart has been replaced in all its wondrous aspects by physical expectations and rituals, rather than the sweet tug of hearts and souls intertwined. But then, let’s face it, hearts and souls intertwined are no longer in vogue, or understood as well.
I guess this is what happens when behavior patterns are converted into hard learning through charts and data, rather than through internal, and oh-so-vital connections and convictions. Weird how we clamor for organic food and alternative and holistic medicine for our physical bods, but for the soul we only want a highly processed (and somewhat toxic) mix minus the organics of raw conscience and warm, soft, and fuzzy flavor. But then as I have already mentioned, touchy-feely is out of vogue and so is soft and fuzzy.
_________
And so, the loss of a raw and organic conscience and conviction is what happens when the mysteries of life are converted into lab language and reactions.
Yet, prior to today’s sophisticated and over-refined interpretations, when ‘unrefined behavior’ was not fully understood or analyzed from a biological perspective, when it was raw and organic, when it was such a great mystery and enigma, the strength of that monitor of behavior was so much more than it might otherwise have been.
I am witness to that. I saw with my own eyes when the organic conscience, that once was, could crush and break the hearts of wicked individuals with more writhing and pain than an electric chair. And I saw with my own eyes that same conscience, that once was, bestow bountiful joy and peace on those individuals who allowed it to gently guide their way. But that kind of behavior patterning is also out of vogue.
And so, today’s disfavor of violence, bullying, and cruelty; and alternatively favor of positive family intermingling learned from lessons without organic connection, lessons in an academic vein, generic, book learned, superficially planted in mind only, fail to truly alter disposition, or character.
And so such lessons (or should I call them calculations?), rather than burrowing deep into the spirit of individuals, and planting deep seeds of conviction, that can never be compromised, or ignored, are instead superficially splashed on an individual’s exterior, like moisture sprinkled on water-repellent canvas. ‘Good behavior’, manufactured or generic, is accomplished for the moment, but it can be shed at will. There is no inner saturation and so in the end, no certain or everlasting rendering of a delightful disposition of charity and generosity.
NEXT POST: A Holistic Conclusion
Friday, October 2, 2009
Fly Poopies on My Toast
It’s quite okay that with aging my flesh has thinned and paled, my hair grayed, and that I have persistent and hardy curly black hairs descending from my chin, and the flesh on my neck is folding. I am not a vain person and I prepared myself to accept these changes with good grace…and I have.
But hey, there are other things going awry that I cannot so easily accept. And one of them, most annoying, most disconcerting is how something with a brain less big than an atom can drive me to such distraction. And how something can so rule my life. And so seriously challenge my sanity by squatting forever near me and casting its glossy eyes on me while rubbing its hands together with evil glee and sticking out its tongue at me with such obvious disdain.
And should I, for one moment, ignore his presence, he alights on my hair or flesh and walks about as if wearing hob-nail boots. He might be tiny, but you immediately know he is there – clomp, clomp, clomp.
So now this is what haunts every minute of my day and in the haunting has thoroughly crushed my confidence, courage, and control. For two long days he and I have been sparring. In my youth, I use to quickly take control of such a situation. But I am now an ‘elderly’ and I can only think it is because of that that I constantly and clumsily and fruitlessly misfire the fly swatter at that one annoying housefly.
No one ever told me that the ultimate curse of being an ‘elderly’ would be the sad day when I would have to give up in frustration on the killing of a housefly. And that someday I would become, in this combat, the weakest link, leaving me with only one ultimatum.
To cover my toast with a napkin and cup my hand over my mug while meekly and submissively horking down my food and drink as quickly as possible.
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