I see things no one else can see, but then so does everyone. No one can see through my eyes, nor can I see through the eyes of another person. That has always bothered me.
Wouldn’t it be odd to discover that the view through my eyes when I am looking at a rain forest—if that view were magically transmitted to another person—would look to that person the way my view of an abandoned train yard appears to me?
An old woman, her hands holding onto a walker, stands on the curb waiting for the light to change so she can cross Amsterdam Avenue.
When the light changes, she slowly inches her way out into the street as dozens of people swarm past her and around her, some even cutting in front of her.
Less than half way across the street, the pedestrian signal turns orange and begins to flash; “9 seconds,” it reads, then “6 seconds,” then “4 seconds.”
She is only two thirds of the way across the street when the “don’t walk” light stops blinking its countdown warning and illuminates steadily.
When the light for the cross traffic turns green, cars and trucks instantly stream toward the old woman. She doesn’t seem phased; she just continues on her way, seemingly oblivious to the onslaught of traffic in the same way they seem oblivious to her.
The traffic slows, but the drivers seem impatient with her, gunning their engines and zipping around her the moment it’s possible to do without hitting her.
Today, or maybe it was yesterday, I came to the realization that the only way to understand myself is to understand others. It seems so utterly contradictory, yet as I sit here typing this, I believe it to be factual in ways that facts seldom are. Solid. Hard. Unmovable. Concrete.
You see, I am nothing more than a reflection of others, modified slightly to fit my brain or my body, perhaps, but just a reflection, nevertheless. Were it not for others, I would have no models, no mirrors, no measurements against which to compare myself. I am, indeed, a mirror.
So, all of that being said, how do I understand others? The only way to do that, of course, is to come to a perfect understanding of myself, which cannot happen, of course, until I know others.
This sounds silly. Inane. Stupid, even. But it is true. We live in a world in which we cannot understand ourselves without first understanding the world, but the only way to make sense of the world is to first fully comprehend the way in which the world shapes oneself. It is madness and perfection, all wrapped around something hard and cold and unwilling to be known.
I will not fashion myself after other writers, or even after readers who know what they want. The only way to be honest, if I have any hope of ever being honest, is to be who I am. Even without knowing who I am.
Good coffee is only as good as its roaster and its transformer.
Wandering the streets of New York, one cannot help but be struck by the incredible diversity of the people of the city. The number of languages spoken and the number of cultures represented give life to the term “melting pot.” Experiencing the term in action, seeing such unique people and lifestyles come together without merging, is gratifying. It makes me proud of what was once uniquely American, but is now a much more global phenomenon. How anyone could fail to appreciate this chaotic mix of cultures is beyond me.
Granted, there is the potential for clashes and in today’s volatile international climate there is understandable apprehension about cultures unknown, but the good that can come from embracing diversity is so much greater than any that might come from isolation and intolerance.
The term, “spiraling out of control,” suggests there should be a corresponding term, “spiraling into control.” But I don’t think such a term is in common use. That leads, of course, to wondering about the etymology of the phrase.
Here are a few short ideas spilling from my head as I try to come to grips with fast-paced experiences and new ideas:
Once you cut the cord, it’s best not to try to splice it back together again. A severed connection may be salvaged, but rarely strengthened. But, then again, truisms are seldom entirely true, are they? If life were as simple as homilies pretend it to be, there would be no challenges to overcome, nor any recollections of pain that led to fulfillment.
It’s interesting to me how poetry can come to life while sitting around listening to poets and poetry aficionados speak excitedly about this poet or that poet, this poem or that poem. These conversations are not scholarly presentations, but simply friendly exchanges among people for whom poetry means something special.
I cannot imagine myself being sufficiently entrenched in wanting to understand, or to create, the meaning behind a poem ever to be a good poet. But I enjoy writing poetry from time to time, regardless.
This evening, as I listened to conversations (not necessarily involving poetry), I began contemplating a poem about the Dyson Airblade Hand Drying System (I probably didn’t get the name right). It’s real world stuff, though, and merits the thoughts that only poems can muster.
Some people, perhaps most, tend to assign attitudes and attributes to other people based on their experiences with still others with whom the targets of assignments might share some commonality. They might say “Democrats are bleeding hearts who simply do not understand the economics of handouts and who want to drag this country down into socialism,” or “Republicans are heartless bastards who care only for themselves and wrap themselves in the flag to disguise their greed and their thirst for power.”
If the world is black and white and two dimensional, they’re both right. But if we live in a three dimensional world, they’re using experiences with individuals to shape their assessments of groups. That’s not only short-sighted, it’s fundamentally stupid, in my view. But I may be biased.
While enjoying our long awaited trip to New York City, I may not spend much time on my blog. In fact, I may only post one message each day and I may get lazy and write several of my daily ruminations and schedule them to post automatically. Or I may not.
Whatever I do, I will write about our experiences and they will, in some form or fashion. Time and the Gluttonous Golden Unicorn from Guam will tell.
Something triggers happiness, the same way something triggers sadness or depression. At some point in the future, the electrochemical triggers will have been throughly researched and understood. Humans will have the capacity to use a remote control, much like the TV remote, in the place of those triggers. Our brains will be, literally, hard-wired for happiness, but that emotion will be launched by the next generations of bluetooth or wifi technology. Would you want to be there? Yes, of course you would.
The schlu are far more advanced than humans, which is not surprising since they have had far longer for evolution to work its magic. The first schlu traversed the river valleys of their planet ten million years before the first human walked on Earth. Their evolution occurred more rapidly than did humans’ adaptations to Earth, t00, so it might well be argued that they are far beyond ten million years ahead of humans on the evolutionary scale. But, then, comparing human to schlu evolution is akin to comparing apples to orangutans; their paths are so wildly divergent as to be utterly alien to one another.
When we first encountered the schlu, or rather when they first encountered us, we were both entranced and terrified. A deep space mission launched in late 2124 had traveled more than two billion miles by early 2135 when the flight crew observed what they described as “a thick membrane, appearing to be some type of waxy substance, forming around the craft.”
We know now the “membrane” was some sort of packaging material, preparing the spacecraft for interdimensional travel. Without it, the craft and all aboard would have been vaporized instantly as the schlu transferred the mission module twenty-eight billion miles deeper into the galaxy to their planet. Light would take forty-one hours to travel that distance, but interdimensional travel allowed the ship and its occupants to arrive at the destination, for all intents and purposes, at the same time they left.
Major Evester Holmantrout was the author of the “thick membrane” message to the earth base and the commander of the mission. He was the one who first attempted to communicate with the schlu, once the ship had been deposited on the surface of the planet. Though by schlu measures, his communications were crude and undeveloped, the schlu were able to understand him. Making him understand them was a more difficult task. Their communications consist not only of making sounds, but altering their body temperature in ways that are sensed by other schlu. A third component, with emitting light from translucent globes above their eyes, added to the complexity.
To give you some sense of the difficulty Homantrout had in understanding the schlu, consider this. A specific sound that we might hear as “bubble,” coupled with a lowering of body temperature and emitting dim blue light from the globes, might be a schlu concept for “friend.” But that same sound and same dim blue light, when combined with a slight elevation in temperature, might be a schlu communication meaning “nearest star.”
[THIS COULD GET COMPLEX, FAST. AND IT COULD GIVE ME A COMPLEX, FAST. WHICH IS A SUGGESTION THAT I MIGHT BE ABLE TO LOSE WEIGHT, IF I JUST FAST.]
The discovery of Kepler-452b is just one in a string of discoveries that support my contention that there is life on other planets. It’s not so much a belief as it is an assumption grounded in statistical probabilities. The sheer number of stars and planets, coupled with the fact that we know, with certainty, there is life of Earth, suggests we are not alone in the universe. I wonder how religions would respond if irrefutable evidence for life on other planets were to emerge?
Two men walked side by side, along a cold, windswept path, never saying a word to one another. Occasionally, when a dried Russian thistle tumbleweed rolled across the deserted highway in front of them, they exchanged glances, but no words were spoken. After ten miles, they came to sign on the path, a mile marker that read: “Pretoria: 160 KM.”
“What the hell! This is not good!”
The other man looked at his vocal friend, but said nothing for a long time. They continued walking. Finally, he spoke.
“Well, we’re surely in remote territory, but that’s what we were after, isn’t is? We have ample provisions. Our feet will hurt by the time we get there, but it could be worse. Just imagine how far we’d have to go if we were on our way to Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.”
“All right, I’ll bite. What and where is Edinburgh of the Seven Seas?”
“It’s the main settlement on the island of Tristan da Cunha, which is in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. It’s a British Overseas Territory and it’s the most remote human settlement in the world. It’s a bitch to get there. I went as a passenger on a cargo ship; took us six-days to get there from Capetown.
“Only 275 people live there and no new settlers are permitted. An interesting bit of trivia about the place is that there are only seven surnames on the island: Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Repetto, Rogers and Swain. I picked that up while I was having a pint at the Albatross Bar. And they have a newspaper, the Tristan Times.”
The other man’s eyes betrayed annoyance with the conversation.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Edinburgh of the Ocean and its newspaper, Charlie. How do you figure we have ample provisions to get to Pretoria? I’ve only two and a half bottles of water and maybe three packets crackers in my knapsack. Are you carrying a fifty-gallon drum of water I don’t know about?”
“Well, I have more water than you do! I told you to bring plenty of water and togo easy on drinking it, that we’d need it. But don’t sweat it. We can collect more when we camp this evening. If we make twenty miles a day, we’ll get there in five days.”
“Shit, Charlie, we should have taken the R511 from Thabazimbi! We could have hitched a ride and been there by now.”
“I thought you were an adventurer, Nick. C’mon, it’ll be fine! This trek is part of what makes it fun!”
[TRYING TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT WHICH I KNOW VIRTUALLY NOTHING. I THINK IT SHOWS; THE “FACTS” SHARED NEED TO BE DROPPED IN, BIT BY BIT, INSTEAD OF FLOODING IN AS I’VE DONE. THERE’S MORE, BUT I NEED TO REWORK WHERE THEY ARE, HOW LONG THEY’VE BEEN WALKING, ETC. CHARLIE WILL CONVINCE NICK TO GO WITH HIM TO EDINBURGH OF THE SEVEN SEAS, WHERE, WHILE THEY ARE THERE, THE FIRST RAPE AND THE FIRST MURDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE ISLAND WILL TAKE PLACE.]
Be alone with yourself and take an honest assessment of who you are. You need not share the assessment with anyone, but be prepared to use it to help you become the person you want to be tomorrow.
Last night, I reached a breaking point. I decided to redirect the energies I have heretofore devoted to my local writing club to something that might better satisfy my needs. I have wanted to talk about writing, to explore writing, to orchestrate writing retreats, and to do other things designed to improve my writing skills and the skills of those around me who share my interests. Instead, I have shuffled my feet while trying to push an all volunteer body to do things it wasn’t prepared to do. So, pardon my French, screw it. I will do on my own the things I could not get the “organization” to do.
I have appreciated the critique group, immensely; but beyond that, my efforts have felt like I’m wading through brown sugar awash in molasses. The interest is there, but the commitment is not. I don’t want to wait until next year or even next month; if we decide to act, let’s effing ACT!
There are few people I’d call serious writers among the group. That’s a problem. A bigger problem is that some of the serious writers act as if they have a thousand years to get things done. We’re a geezerhood; we have limited time! So, I’m on my own. I will announce my decision to sever most, if not all, ties very soon. I won’t be held back by people who are slogging through molasses, by god!
My mood, as I write this, is not as charitable as I’d like it to be. But that’s the real world, isn’t is? That’s what we write about, isn’t it? We acknowledge the bullshit in the paths we follow and we unceremoniously kick it out of the way.
Where does one draw the line between right and wrong? While it may be wrong to covet they neighbor’s wife (if one happens to be a devotee of the Ten Commandments), is that sin applicable when said “sin” occurs only in one’s dreams? And, then, can a dream (over which I assume one has little or no control) be wrong? Can one’s consciousness and the reality buried beneath layer upon layer of unconscious experience be considered to be one and the same? The concept of sin is outdated. But something must take its place or we will drown in our own freedoms.
In lieu of writing another post this morning, I am driving to Memphis with my wife. There, we will go to Costco and engage in other forms of entertainment. If I’m so possessed later in the day, after we return home, I will write more here. Otherwise, I will write more here tomorrow. But, in the interest of snarcofulating (a neologism that just seems to fit this fine Friday morning) the creative juices, let me just write this:
He looked at the picture, taken forty-three years earlier. The face of the man in the photo was earnest and angry, the furrows in his brows testament to youthful passion, his raised fist punctuated the devotion to his cause, whatever it was so very long ago.
Raising his eyes to the mirror, Camber saw a different man, a defeated man who had grown comfortable with his shame. He mulled it over in his mind. What was it that snuffed that flame? How did that rage die? How did the bravado and that steadfast commitment to justice turn to spilled soup, so easily wiped away with dirty rags?
Some occasions in my youth were moments I’d rather forget, but cannot. I was a miserable bastard at times, a guy whose empathy and sympathy were buried beneath a veneer of idiotic bravado. I don’t know that you can ever truly overcome the person you allowed yourself to be.
Why is it that we have a limited palette when it comes to breakfast? I mentioned something I’d find interesting for breakfast in today’s Ruminations, but I think I’m in the minority in finding “routine” breakfasts boring. Despite my distaste for routine breakfasts, I find myself partaking of them regularly because my wife is like most other people I know; she is satisfied with a limited menu for breakfast. Granted, she tolerates my interest in breakfast around the world, but only on a limited basis. While I could have something utterly different every day, she is satisfied with scrambled egg substitute, turkey bacon, and a glass of tomato juice, sometimes accompanied by a bit of fruit. That’s fine, but it has the makings of boredom in the extreme. Aside from my concern that turkey bacon may well be far worse for my health than the real deal, eggs that have been chemically and mechanically modified to remove the “cholesterol component” are deadly dull.
Yesterday, we had leftover frikadellers, a Danish dish that I find immensely appealing. But today, it’s back to the old standby. And that’s what most people seem to consume for breakfast. Whether it’s toast and bacon, a breakfast bar, bacon and eggs, or something else, most people (at least most with whom I’ve had the breakfast conversation) seem to have a very limited breakfast menu. Why do we do that to ourselves when we would not long tolerate, unless forced, having the same damn thing every day for lunch or dinner?
Is it that we don’t have, or won’t take, the time to prepare a more varied breakfast in the morning? Or are we, collectively, so deadly dull that eating the same thing for breakfast, day in and day out, actually satisfies our ‘hunger’ for variety?
If I could, I’d have something different for breakfast every day of the month. I guess I could, but that would mean I’d have to fix two breakfasts; I would be willing to do that for awhile, but I suspect my tolerance for doubling the work would not last. So, I will just put up with the boring crap that is, most days, on the regular menu.
Goat cheese, fresh figs cut in half, and a couple of slices of ripe pear. That would make a good breakfast, but it would be great as an hors d’ouevre later in the day, accompanied by a bit of dry sherry, perhaps Tio Pepe brand. So, there you have it.
Last night, I watched a program on PBS that made me rethink some of my progressive ideologies. Not change, mind you , but rethink. Change may be in the offing, but not yet; not until I assess what I saw and, perhaps, watch it again. The program, Humanity from Space, gave me reason to think about my demands that we “fix” what we’ve been ruining for all these hundreds, no, thousands of years.
Humanity has made remarkable advances. Stunning stuff. Things that have changed the lives on this planet in spectacular ways. Especially human lives. What amazing changes have taken place just in the last 125 years. Cars. Air travel. Widespread electricity. Oil. Internal combustion engines. Wind turbines. Unbelievable.
It occurred to me, while watching the program, that every “solution” we have created to the problems facing humankind has come with its own set of problems. It has arrived with promise, but with exceptional challenges. And that made me think: when we cry for new solutions to energy, we don’t long express support and appreciation for wind energy before we start complaining (perhaps legitimately) that wind turbines kill migratory birds. We want to eliminate coal power plants, but the nuclear solution is worse. We want progress and we want to give every living human access to water, power, education, etc., but the demand those benefits create cause more pollution, waste, etc. Humanity is too much. But it’s not enough.
We don’t give ourselves enough credit for our own solutions. Granted, some of them are horrible, but they are solutions. Rather than attack them, every one of them, I suggest we should express appreciation and then look for alternatives, not condemn the solutions and the people who created them.
I have grown to hate politics for the same reason. Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
I feel a swarm of intellectual indignation welling up in my throat. I may have to write it all out in the next day or two. Or maybe not.
We humans have accomplished things I find almost impossible to comprehend. The degree of intelligence, creativity, and drive required to get us where we are is beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I wonder, though, whether our creative intellectual drive will be capable of solving the problems our successes have hatched. I am a pessimist in that regard.But I do hope I’m wrong.
A few years ago, I asked the doctor who was then my cardiologist to comment on peri-peri sauce. The cardiologist, you see, was from South Africa. I had just had my first taste of peri-peri sauce, purchased from a British specialty shop in Grapevine, Texas, and wondered whether it was “the real thing.” He suggested I visit a Nando’s Peri-Peri outlet in the Washington, DC area at the next opportunity to taste what he considered the real deal. He had no idea whether what I bought was the real deal or not. Later, I bought Nando’s brand peri-peri sauce; my original purchase was the real deal, as well.
I have yet to visit Nando’s, but I learned today the chain, which has a significant presence in Wsahington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, has launched in Illinois, with two restaurants in the Chicago area. I have, though, tasted Nando’s peri-peri sauce and have compared it to the stuff I bought at the British market. The differences are inconsequential. The real differences are within the two brands; one can buy mild, hot, or extra hot. Neither brand’s extra hot is particularly hot, not painfully so. Thus, I would recommend the extra hot.
Somewhere along the line I stumbled across peri-peri powder, a ground version of the pepper used to make the sauce. It’s hot, but not nuclear. Yet I don’t know quite how to use it. Peri-peri chicken is the South African favorite (or, depending on where you look, it might be a Portuguese favorite that’s made with South African peppers); I haven’t tried the ground peri-peri with chicken, but I shall. I’m just waiting for the perfect opportunity.
As I was exploring Nando’s, I discovered the chain has locations in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, and the aforementioned USA sites. Actually, I discovered that quite some time ago. The correct term is, I suppose, is rediscovered. I wonder when Nando’s will find its way to Hot Springs or Little Rock or Dallas or Memphis?
By the way, I want to buy an electric smoker. And when I do, I will use some of my ground peri-peri on the chicken I smoke. And you will be jealous. Do not feel bad, though. You are invited to come try my first batch. When can I expect you? I need to get the guest room ready.
