John Swinburn

A grey area. An imprecise piece of intellectual real estate where contradictory answers to the same question may be absolutely correct. Like the shoreline defined differently, depending on the tide, morality’s grey area follows the ebb and flow of philosophical righteousness. But grey areas may hide clear lines of what is perceived as right and wrong. I will try to explain my thinking.

For more than a decade in the early twentieth century, the official morals of the United States prohibited the making, sale, and transportation of alcohol. At the time, alcohol was, to some, unequivocally immoral. Simultaneously, moonshiners and their lawbreaking brethren deemed it perfectly legitimate. Today, another grey area enmeshes the abortion debate. When Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the conservative Supreme Court, the decision legitimized for opponents of abortion their moral position on the practice. But Roe vs. Wade did precisely the same thing for believers in a woman’s right to control her own body. The abortion debate, a long-simmering argument supported by infallible arguments on both sides, is a grey area of moral righteousness because the sharp black and white lines of moral versus immoral invariably merge into a grey field when viewed from different perspectives. Alcohol remains awash in that grey field, too, despite its legality; some people still see it as fundamentally as a vice, while others think of it as an enjoyable recreational beverage.

Marijuana is another grey area. Access to guns is another. Regulations governing the use of guns is another. Prostitution is another, though debate about its legitimacy or morality is limited in scope. There are dozens more. The solutions to sorting out grey areas? None that will be guaranteed to stick. The problem with grey areas is that they will exist just as long as political and social and philosophical spectra exist. Left wing. Right wing. Libertarian. Communist. Capitalist. Religious. Atheist. And on and on and on.

Last night, when mi novia and I were visiting with friends, the topic of political environments in various locations arose. We talked about places where the governing institutions are largely Democratic; we agreed such places are “friendlier” to people like us than is Arkansas, for instance. As I think about where one might find a solidly liberal, progressive majority, it occurs to me that progressive ideas (something I generally find appealing) float on a grey area that could just as easily host conservative mindsets. Arkansas, in fact, was in the past a reliably Democratic-voting state. But Democratic concepts mixed with Republican concepts over time, adding more black than white to the grey area. Depending on one’s perspectives, the clear line beneath that grey area is either this or that, but not neither. Or both.

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I was told yesterday that I have moderately severe hearing loss in both ears. The loss of hearing, according to the audiologist, would be especially noticeable with regard to certain higher-pitched sounds, like women’s and children’s voices. The idea of being deaf to noisy children is not half bad; but I want to know what women are saying about me, at least those who are within earshot. I will test a hearing aid in a week or so. I am not sure I have lost enough hearing to warrant using  a hearing aid…or, more importantly, to warrant the expense of a hearing aid. They are obscenely expensive. If I have to have hearing aids at some point, I do not want the Lamborghini-priced model, nor do I want the Mitsubishi Mirage version. I think I’d be more inclined to go with a mid-range Lexis. Or a Studebaker.

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It’s late. When I woke at 4:30, I was not ready to get up. But when I woke again and saw that it was almost 7, I cursed at my lazy self for having gone back to sleep when I should have arisen. My thoughts are not clear when I get too much sleep. Or too little. And sometimes when I get just the right amount.

The post-sermon conversation yesterday was thought-provoking. I listened, mostly, but I asked a question as well: where does guilt fit into ideas about mercy? And what about forgiveness? Is forgiveness a necessary component of mercy, or can mercy be bestowed without it? The discussion of mercy followed a sermon in which the minister delivered Portia’s soliloquy, from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which includes the following:

The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Listening to the sermon and to the post-sermon discussion, my thoughts swirled around the idea of guilt and how—or whether—one can bestow mercy upon oneself in partial relief for the guilt one carries. Not only can one do it, but whether one should—and whether forgiveness is deserved when it comes from within for actions or omissions of oneself.

These issues are not strictly religious questions. They are questions concerning life in general and the difficulties one encounters or creates along the way. One interesting point made during the course of the sermon and/or the conversation was this: mercy is not conditional. It does not depend on any form of quid pro quo. If that is the case, then the person upon whom mercy is bestowed does not necessarily have to feel guilt to earn mercy. Nor does the person showing mercy have to forgive the act or omission. Yet Shakespeare’s assertion, through Portia, suggests something else. Later in Portia’s speech, she says;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

“When mercy seasons justice.” Mercy and justice are not born of the same mother. They come from different places and they serve different emotional masters.  Some of the lyrics of Michelle Shocked’s Quality of Mercy come to mind, too, alluding (I think) to justice:

Yes vengeance and revenge
Are just two words for pain
And the quality of mercy is not strained

Feelings of guilt for things said or unsaid or for actions taken or deeds not done seem distant from an intellectual appreciation for the concepts of mercy. But mercy hinges on wrongs, whether real or imagined, as does guilt. Forgiveness, too, is granted for wrongs. As I think about the two concepts, it seems to me they are one and the same, just given different names. But, then, mercy may be granted in lieu of punishment, whereas punishment may be meted out even in the face of forgiveness. In both cases, guilt is assumed. Or is it? I could think endlessly about those questions, arriving at different answers just as often.

One who feels guilt for his actions might hope for mercy or forgiveness from one who he has wronged, but in that person’s eternal absence, the only one who can grant either mercy or forgiveness is the guilty party. Showing oneself mercy or granting oneself forgiveness is self-serving. At what point—if ever—is that self-serving absolution justified? Another question whose answer could consume one’s entire lifetime of searching.

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I could shatter this morning if I bumped into a door casing. When I feel this brittle, I want either to crawl under the covers and sleep until I can sleep no more or drive for hours on a stretch of desolate highway until the highway sounds completely numb me. I want to do one of those things, but I will not. I never do. I just want to. Eventually, the brittleness subsides. I turn to taffy, instead, becoming malleable as I focus on keeping myself from wrapping around trees and lamp posts and sliding along the door casings as I look for ways out of the room. Odd, that…the way my mind pretends I become something I am not. Crazy is the word that comes to mind.

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I admire people who can sort things out for themselves—people whose analytical abilities are sufficiently well-developed that they do not need help overcoming emotional obstacles to their well-being. Those people seem to be equal in number to the rest of us, whose attempts to think things through lead only to tangled webs of impossibly complex confusion. The trick, I think, is to extract emotion from the process, leaving only dispassionate evaluation in its place. That trick is unavailable to me, and to many others like me, because our emotions are inextricably tied to every drop of blood flowing through our veins. We are the ones who cannot count from one to ten without feeling an emotional connection to each whole number and all the fractions carried within it. There are days I wish I could seal those goddamn numbers in a metal container and weld its lid tightly shut.

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Lacking the ability to sleep for hours and hours and hours or drive for a thousand miles on a restricted access highway, I will buck it up and have another cup of coffee. Then, I will try to confront the day as if it were a friend instead of an adversary. I will simply have faith the friend will not hit me over the head with a metal pipe and take everything. And off I go.

Cloudy, humid, still, and cool. Those adjectives describe the weather in Helen, Georgia this morning. The weather in this Bavarian-style mountain town is delightful this morning, if reports delivered from my desktop can be trusted. But the temperature where I am is a good seven degrees cooler at the moment. And the high for the day will not quite reach the high expected in Helen, but the peaks in both towns will be close. The biggest differences between the two places, though, will include their respective altitudes, their predominant architectural styles, and their personalities. The two towns, 650 miles apart, may as well be in different galaxies, though. They are in different time zones and they exist in different mind-sets. Good morning to the residents of and visitors to Helen, Georgia. One day I might visit Helen. Until then, I can only imagine an Alpine village, about 40 miles from Warne, North Carolina. That’s another place I have never visited. There are so many of them; places I have never seen or even thought about. Until recently. Given enough time, I might think of every place I could conceivably visit if I could travel for a thousand lifetimes. But who has that kind of time? As far as I know, I don’t. And neither do you. Nor does anyone else. But we can make the most of the time we have, can’t we? Not necessarily to travel—Thursday afternoon drinks and gummies can be just as relaxing or just as invigorating (or both). And daydreams, too, can take the place of actual experience. In fact, daydreams, reveries, fantasies, delusions, illusions and all their compadres can join together to provide joyous escapes from drudgery, reality, and other less-than-wonderful events. But I should reserve those things for another time. For this moment, I will contemplate where and who I am; and determine whether I want to be this person in this place. If not, I can escape into a new fantasy in the blink of an eye. And I can take you with me. And you. And you. And you and you. We can have the most spectacular time together! Privately, in some cases. Publicly in others. We shall see. At least I shall. The rest of you must make your own decisions. But we, in particular, must break out of our protective shells, casting off all the shards of the brittle case that surrounds us so we can plunge into new experiences. Or, if the mood strikes us, settle into older, more comfortable ones.

I am back in Hot Springs Village—though I have been here all morning—sitting in a chair lakeside. Not really. Only in my mind. I’m actually sitting at my desk, but in my mind’s eye I can see the mirror-like water, reflecting the sky and the houses along the shore and the birds skimming the water’s surface. And I can see the trees outside my window. And I can see the sky hidden behind the trees in the forest in front of me. How can I see the sky hidden behind the trees? I rely—heavily—on my imagination. When I write poetry, I rely on my imagination, too. And when I write my blog. And when I dredge through my memories and my dreams and my hopes and my desires. They’re all bound together at the intersection between what I think and what I experience. What I long for and what I remember. What I crave and what I need. We could have some fascinating conversations, you and I. Just letting our minds go. Giving free rein to our imaginations. Freeing our inhibitions from their constricting cages. Allowing ourselves to think the unthinkable. Permitting dangerous thoughts to explode into the atmosphere like compressed air released from a balloon at the instance its taut skin is punctured by a sharp needle.

When I am neither in Helen, Georgia or Hot Springs Village, Arkansas or a thousand other places, I may be in Corpus Christi, Texas or Madison, Wisconsin or Schenectady, New York or sitting inside an adobe cottage on the fringes of a limitless New Mexican desert. I ricochet between Neptune and San Francisco and I take the well-traveled road between Saturn’s rings and celestial clouds visible only through the Hubble telescope. I converse with Zeus and Mohammed and Hercules during my journeys, absorbing what I can of their wisdom and sharing what little I can of what little I know.

No one knows what caused the Big Bang, nor what happened before that unfathomable explosion. Some might suggest the Big Bang was eternity’s orgasm, but that kind of thinking leaves me blushing, embarrassed and afraid to show my face for fear of my private thoughts being made public for generations of stars to come. I think conversations about the Big Bang are simply admissions of a limitless lack of understanding of what, if anything, came “before.” For one thing, “before” is an impossibility in a reality in which “time” does not exist. The same is true of “after.” The only reality is “now.” And “now” is an impossibility, too, because by the time the word escapes one’s mouth, the moment is gone. That fact must make us wonder whether everything is an illusion. How can “now” exist if it cannot be captured and examined and probed for the secrets hidden beneath it? We must be figments of the imagination of something that exists only in our dreams—but our dreams and our very imaginations cannot exist if they are figments of something that cannot be until something else occurs…and that something else relies on the future, which cannot exist without a past. And, of course, the past cannot exist because…oh, my God, the conundrum gets deeper and more distant with every imaginary breath I take!

Kisses are the only reasonable answers. Only kisses can make the unknowable tolerable. Only kisses provide the salve we need to sooth the pain of not knowing. A tender embrace, followed by an eternal kiss, covers all the unanswerable questions with an impenetrable black cover that hides everything brittle and broken and troublesome. And when that black cover is pulled back, like a blanket, brilliant, bright, pristine space is all that remains. And that space invites us to plunge into it and explore all the realities and all the dimensions we never knew could be available to us. I suspect psilocybin in its purest form might offer a glimpse of those experiences, but only a sideways glance…nothing can mimic raw reality, with all its artificial ideas amassed at its beginnings and its ends.

Well, the morning continues to scratch at me, insisting that I emerge from my hallucinatory state (caused not by hallucinogens but entirely by free thought) and return to this sometimes dull reality. And here I am. Back to the place I never left. Here, where my invisibility was always clearly visible. At this place that could not have existed in its present form even a fraction of a second before…because nothing “is” as it “was” in an environment of constant, inescapable, absolutely radical change. The “same” is a concept without basis in reality. Change is the only constant, isn’t it? We should spend time in a tiny room, full of soft pillows and couches that conform to our shapes, sipping intoxicants and inhaling molecules that alter our minds. Reality, if there is such a thing, is so damn boring. Illusion may be far more appealing. But we’re all afraid of stepping outside the boundaries of what we consider proper. We’re not afraid of what we might think; we’re afraid of what others might think. We allow ourselves to be restrained, constrained, harnessed, tied down, lashed with thick wire rope to an anchor that cannot be moved the distance of the thickness of a hair. What, I wonder, might breaking free really be like? I doubt I’ll find out this morning.

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And now I will take a pair of clean socks out of the dryer. That act, following by sliding my feet into them, will permit me to put on a pair of shoes. And that will terminate this…this…this…thing.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

~ Plato ~

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“La lutta continua. The struggle continues.”

So spoke Salman Rushdie Thursday evening when he accepted the PEN Centenary Courage Award. His presence marked Rushdie’s first public appearance since being stabbed last August—and blinded in one eye—during a talk at a literary festival at the Chautauqua Institution.

Other memorable words were spoken during the event when a letter from the imprisoned Iranian journalist and activist, Narges Mohammadi, was read aloud. Mohammadi, who was given the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, wrote this:

“Dear writers, thinkers, and sympathizers, I implore you to help the Iranian people free themselves from the grip of the Islamic Republic, or morally speaking, please help end the suffering of the Iranian people. Let us prove the magic of global unity against authorities besotted with power and greed.”

Writers with expansive audiences have the ability to communicate to vast numbers of people. Those who put their skills to progressive, constructive political or humanitarian use are not only impactful, they are brave. Their potential influence on the course of global events cannot be dismissed or over-sold. If their words and thoughts cause just a few people think, and then act, their talents can change the world.

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Always do what you are afraid to do.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

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Thunder. Lightning. Rain. Wind. Just another “weather event” common to central Arkansas and much of the rest of the southwest, south central, and southern United States. That was last night. And, to some extent, yesterday afternoon. Overnight, though, the weather seems to have become more tranquil. Here, at least. To the east of us, it is entirely possible that the heavens are assaulting everything on and above Earth’s surface. If I had looked at the current weather reports, I might know. But I haven’t. So I don’t.

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We had painters paint two very small hallways yesterday. One of the two will return today, we hope, to try again to perform the second part of yesterday’s engagement: staining some bare wood trim in several places throughout the house. He applied a small sample yesterday, but mi novia and I both agreed it was unacceptably different in color from the color we had asked for (and far darker). So, the guy will come back with samples today. We hope. Assuming he does, we hope the color will be acceptable. I am not sure I have the patience to have him try a third time.

Finally, after many, many, many years, the unreliability of hearty recommendations is sinking in. The fact that someone is a friend of a contractor, or a business associate of a contractor, does not offer any assurance that the someone’s recommendations can be trusted. Oh, the person might think his friend is the real deal, but confidence in a friend’s abilities sometimes is based on wishes or assumptions, rather than observations. Let that be a lesson…

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I have always liked the word, besotted. Its use tells me to user is at least moderately intelligent. A measure of acerbity, a bit of a caustic wit, and perhaps a tinge of arrogance accompany her intelligence. When she uses the word, I become curious about her. She is attractive. Until I discover she is deeply and irrationally conservative in every facet of her life and her thinking. Then, I label her a potential enemy.

What is an enemy, though? One of many online dictionaries offers as the definition of the word:

“Aa person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent.”

As I consider what the word means, it seems a bit harsh to label a person “enemy” simply because she leans far right. Yet I tend to do just that. I do not trust her. Her motives are, to my way of thinking, selfish and cold-blooded. She is hard and callous and unfeeling; at least she has no compassion for anyone but herself.

But, then, if I am in a rational mood, I catch myself. I privately express to myself how embarrassed I should be to cling to such narrow-minded and judgmental thoughts. We have enemies only to the extent to which we allow ourselves to have them.  This sort of thinking reminds me that adoration of the Bible and its extraordinary popularity probably can be attributed to the lessons contained in its collection of parables. Jesus probably was exalted as much for his human wisdom as for belief that he was holy. Ah, there’s that word.

As I wrote the preceding sentence, my thoughts immediately pivoted to Peter Mayer’s song, Holy Now. And, as I think of the lyrics of the song, I consider the meaning of the word, holy. I have come to embrace a semi-secular definition: “having a spiritually pure quality; entitled to worship or veneration as, or as if, sacred, like a holy relic.” Somehow, I veered away from besotted. And enemy. I feel pretty damn confident I have a mild to mildly severe case of ADHD or something similar to it. “Look, a butterfly! See its wings? I wonder what it would like to fly? What does a butterfly see when it flies around? I wish I could see through the eyes of a butterfly. How long does a butterfly fly? Does it fly until it dies in mid-flight? I wonder whether a butterfly’s relatives mourn its death? Or do butterflies not have emotions? If they don’t, would they be said to be without empathy? Or is there a butterfly version of alexithymics (that’s the big word describing a “neuropsychological phenomenon expressing important difficulties in identifying and describing the experienced emotions by oneself or others“)? Language is so complex! Without language, we would be unable to think. But people who cannot speak can think; yes, they can think because they have a language of some kind…maybe not the same language I use, but a symbolic language of some kind that enables them to communicate in some fashion. Enough of that!

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One of the pieces of advice often given to people who are nervous about public speaking is to imagine that the audience is nude. That, apparently, is intended to reduce one’s anxiety about speaking a the group. I think that might not work for me, because I am fairly certain my eyes would be drawn to specific people—or a specific person—sitting naked in front of me. My attention would be far too focused on her for me to think coherently about what I want to say to the group. Instead, I probably would stumble badly over my words and say something thoroughly inappropriate for the situation. Actually, it is not so much speaking to a large group that gets me nervous, it is speaking to certain individuals. I wonder whether I should imagine those people nude? My mind wanders with this idea; what if the person with whom I am nervous  (and so, imagine her nude) is just as nervous in my presence? What if she imagines me naked? Ach! I should have been working out! I should have focused more of my energies on losing weight and toning my muscles! How could I have let myself get so fleshy and flabby?! See? ADHD.

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Having just written the preceding paragraph, and assuming you read it, I know what you are thinking. You can deny it all you want, but I know. And, now, you know what’s on my mind when I seem reticent or reserved or otherwise unengaged during conversation with one person or a small group. 😉

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It’s Saturday morning, people. Your part of the world is awakening. Rise and shine. Take a deep breath and launch yourself into the day.

I may begin setting an alarm. I lost almost two precious hours of pre-dawn brooding reflection to shallow—but dream-laden—sleep. Again. This has happened too often of late. I may have to eschew medicinal gummies; while I cannot attribute all of my over-sleeping to that particular indulgence, there’s almost certainly a significant correlation. Now, at this late hour, all I can do is wonder what breakthrough idea did I fail to conceive, thanks to sleeping in? It’s impossible to know…such a shame.

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Very, very early this morning—perhaps 2 or 3—I woke to thoughts of a friend from church. It was more of a daydream or fantasy, I think. In my hazy thoughts, she and I were sitting at a table in a very dimly-lit jazz club. A pianist played softly in the background, but as low as he played, I still had trouble hearing my friend’s words. She told me she had bought into a co-housing community. I thought I heard her invite me to come see it, but I wasn’t sure that is what she said. For some reason, I was reticent to ask her to repeat or clarify her words. And during this fuzzy dream—if that is what it was—it occurred to my conscious self that I had intended to call her several days ago to arrange a get together between mi novia, my friend, her husband, and myself. So, there, as a result of thoughts in a state of semi-sleep, was my reminder: call her today.

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Parts of New Mexico and Arizona and other southwestern and western states have already begun to experience the effects of drought. Not the sort of drought that simply stresses agriculture, business, and residential communities.  The kind of drought that promises to make places uninhabitable. And, in some cases, not because water is unavailable but, instead, unsafe to drink. Several months ago, I read about a town in midst of west Texas oil fields where water was unsafe to drink. And I remember hearing about another town facing an uncertain future because of the lack of water. Twelve years ago, Spicewood Beach, Texas became the first Texas town to run out of water. Robert Lee, Texas followed not long thereafter. When water disappears from a community, so does the ability for humans to survive there without finding ways to replace that precious local resource with importing water…at great effort and expense.

I live in a place where annual rainfall totals are significant. But even here, changing climate threatens to transform lush, green forests to tinderboxes…when rainfall patterns shrink as a result of atmospheric changes. This possibility—this reality—is not a secret. It is not a fact hidden from the masses. It is and in-your-face truth. Yet the vast majority of us use water as if the supply of the clean, clear, life-giving liquid were limitless. In my growing periods of pessimism about the future of our planet—as a home to humans—I sometimes succumb to a frightful mind-set:

The environmental destruction of our planet is inevitable, so we are kidding ourselves if we think our feeble attempts at “conservation” matter. We might as well indulge ourselves as much as we like. Because…

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

When I realize I have acquiesced to such skepticism, I try to bring myself up sharply. But more and more frequently, I cannot shake the pessimism or the self-indulgence. We may as well engage in orgies of drunken debauchery, I say to myself. And then I feel ashamed about my attitude. But that feeling of shame diminishes with each occurrence. I have no grandchildren to think about, though I should think about others’ grandchildren. And I do. But I also think humankind should simply stop reproducing, thereby preventing the sacrifice of future generations to the failures of their ancestors.

Either way, conserving water is just the polite thing to do.

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I am more than hungry. I am ravenous. I would chew the bark off trees…eat light bulbs and spark plugs…consider the possibility of engaging in cannibalism. The latter only with the previous consent of the specified entrée. The probable reason for my hunger is the fact that we did not have dinner last night. Instead, we each had an Atkins bar and some pecan halves. This morning, I am not in a state of mind suitable for making breakfast. Ideally, I could be teleported to an Asian fusion restaurant, where I could enjoy a bowl of pork congee, a bowl of miso soup, a piece of flash-grilled salmon (rare, please), and an unlimited supply of scallions, radishes, and grilled mushrooms. Oh, well. Teleportation has not yet become as common as I would like. It seems to happen only in science fiction and in my head.

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Mi novia and I may make a trip to my childhood stomping grounds before long—Corpus Christi. And/or San Marco, where my parents are buried. I learned that their graves are located in the Old Original section of the San Marcos City Cemetery, gravesites L-20-7 and L-20-8. I may have been there once after their headstones were placed, but that has been many, many, many years ago. I am not one to be sentimental about gravesites and headstones, but for some reason I would like to have a look at them. Back in Corpus, I would like to see my old house and my old schools. Based on some information I read just a few days ago, my old elementary and junior high schools are being replaced soon. I suspect the city of Corpus Christi is quite different from the last time I saw it, only a few years ago. As much as I am not a fan of the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes on the Texas coast, something about the area…at least the way it used to be…is deeply appealing to me. I would like to return to the area when the beaches were sparsely visited, there were no buildings on Padre Island, there were draw bridges from the mainland to the island…but I know, assuming Thomas Wolfe’s book title, You Can’t Go Home Again, is correct, that…you can’t.

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Enough, again. My mind is racing with a million thoughts. My fingers simply cannot keep up.

When the nighttime conspires with insomnia to erase comfort, the only refuge is an occasional, fitful moment of stolen sleep. During those brief periods of unconsciousness, dreams tend to interrupt relief, relentlessly pounding tranquility until it finally surrenders. Then, in place of the serenity that tries to accompany sleep, fear, anxiety, guilt, and regret take hold. When morning comes, with its unwelcome light, the fleeting moments of dream-infused sleep remain etched in the mind. The chaotic dreams—involving blurred images of sinister threats, gunfire, train rides, buildings ablaze, stolen cars, bloody rags, and painful memories—cling to the psyche. Those nightmarish recollections stifle all attempts to find a peaceful mental retreat. They insist on ruining efforts to achieve calmness. Even meditation fails in the face of what is only the imagination. Imagination can be as powerful as a sledgehammer and as sharp as a knife…as constricting as thick wire rope wrapped tightly around the soul.

Last night’s game of trivia (an event held to generate funds for the Friends of the Coronado Center Library) clarified, for me, the way my mind works. Or doesn’t. While I had no idea about the answers to some of the questions, I “almost knew” the answers to many others. On reflection, this morning, that “almost knew” sensation revealed the way my mind works. My memory is comparable to an out-of-focus camera. The impaired camera captures the same image that a precisely-focused camera does, but does not do the photographed subject justice. Another comparison may better describe my memory. My brain sometimes records facts like a tenth-generation photocopy; it retains only sufficient information to represent enough of the original to be recognizable, but not enough to be readable.

But that explanation may ignore the real reasons I could not answer so many questions; I just did know the answers. I should have paid closer attention to Greek and Roman mythology. I should have been more widely read. I should have listened more closely, read more thoroughly, thought more deeply. It was not that I did not want to know—it was that I was unwilling to invest the time or energy necessary to learn. Last night, my abysmal performance could be traced back to one of my attributes about which I have written more than once: I know very little about very much. I skim the surface of facts and ideas, rarely absorbing the knowledge hidden beneath the façade. I take in just enough to be familiar, but not enough to actually “know.” That habit allows me to present myself as if I were knowledgeable. But in reality, I am an imposter. A poseur. A pretender. A charlatan. It is not as if I am incapable of knowing. I clearly am intelligent enough to learn; I am just lazy—unwilling to invest the necessary effort to absorb and record facts and figures.

So, which is it? Does my mind simply make poor photocopies, record out-of-focus images—or am I supremely lazy? Or could it be both? Maybe neither. Perhaps I am just not adept at retaining trivial information. Why should I expect to know how many presidents died in office? Is it important for a well-rounded, educated person to recall the names and provinces of mythological gods? I do not know. I could go on for hours, justifying my ignorance, but it would be a pointless exercise. Something like these paragraphs I have written.

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Phaedra spent the night in our closet. We keep the door closed and do our best to keep her out of the closet when we open it, but we—I—did not succeed last night. It seemed odd that she did not jump up on the bed during the night, but we assumed she simply had a change of mood, not an uncommon occurrence. This morning, though, at 5:30, I heard her yowls in the distance. And when I opened the closet to retrieve my morning clothes, the volume of her plaintive cries increased several-fold. And she bounded out of the closet like an inmate freed from a lengthy stay in prison. I hope…fervently, deeply, earnestly…she did not pee during the night. On those rare occasions when she manages to get in the closet despite our efforts to keep her out, she tends to crawl into the far reaches of shelves and corners, hiding behind boxes or beneath folded clothes. Oh, I so enthusiastically hope she did not relieve herself during the night.

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This morning, I will conduct a meeting of church committee chairs. The experience, which I have had several times during the church year nearing its end, has taught me how little I enjoy church administration. I do not know what I was thinking when I accepted the role of vice president, which leads automatically to president. The request that I take on the responsibility no doubt stoked my ego; my egotism was the deciding factor, I suspect. My appreciation of and respect for the church and its congregation contributed significantly to my decision, but the tipping point probably was my own personal self-absorption. A lackadaisical, bureaucracy-loathing atheist leading a bureaucracy-dependent church is incongruous. It is entirely possible I will be invited to leave my post in short order, after my installation. On the one hand, that could be a welcome turn of events. On the other, it would be a severe and entirely unwelcome jolt to a congregation that has evolved quite nicely over the years, thanks to committed volunteers who have given freely of their time, talents, and energy. When I retired from a long and strange career in managing not-for-profit trade and professional associations, I told myself I would henceforth and forevermore avoid roles involving volunteers. Apparently, I lied to myself. So, my personal misgivings notwithstanding, I will attempt to overcome my natural inclinations and, instead, be at least an acceptable director for the year. And so it goes.

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The planned application of sealant to our just-power-washed deck probably will not go forward as expected today, thanks to the rain falling outside my windows. Though I have not heard from the guy who is doing it, my intuition tells me he will determine it is not a good idea to apply sealants to wet wood. If I had considerably more power over Nature, I would have scheduled sunshine all day today. My control over the weather, though, has never been particularly reliable.

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I did not feel like writing this morning. I still don’t. But I did it anyway. It’s an addiction. A sickness. An injurious habit that sometimes forces me to engage in revelatory behaviors that are not always in my best interest. With that as my guide, I shall stop writing this post. Right now.

As I skimmed the Associated Press website this morning, I encountered a page with a section devoted to “shootings.”  For just a moment, I was stunned that an entire section of a website would be dedicated to a summary of the latest mass killings perpetrated by people exercising their Second Amendment rights. But my surprise did not last; it’s just the way things are these days. Our society has hardened into a dystopian hellscape in which random killings are tolerated—we seem to acknowledge that mass murder is simply the price we pay for freedom; for the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms.”

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Another news item that caught my attention was Berkshire Hathaway’s divestiture of its remaining shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM). Warren Buffet, the force behind Berkshire Hathaway, explained that the sale was precipitated by Taiwan’s precarious position in geopolitical gamesmanship. TSM, Buffet says, is an extraordinarily well-managed company, but the fact that China increasingly is claiming “ownership” of the territory is concerning. Capitalism often takes its cues from political realities, just as politics frequently responds to the demands of capitalism. It is impossible to predict which force will be more powerful or more sinister at any given moment.

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Yesterday, mi novia and I took a drive up Fox Pass Cutoff, turning north on Peaceful Valley, finally making our way up to and along Stihl Road.  Evidence that the roadway recently had been expanded, along with other clues, suggested the somewhat remote area was being prepped for a new development. Mi novia asked some workmen we encountered whether the area was, indeed, a new development. Their responses suggested the area was, in fact, being readied for an estate-sized tract development. Additional follow-up with a Realtor whose signs we saw in places revealed more details. Five- to seven-acre lots are being offered for sale at prices ranging from must under $50K to just under $70K. I asked for and received the covenants governing the tracts. And I imagined building a modestly-sized but thoroughly modern house on one of those tracts, hidden among a thick forest of hardwoods and pine. This morning, as I consider how much time it would take to buy some of the acreage, prepare it for building, build a new house, and sell the one we are in, reality set in. I am almost seventy years old. I wonder whether I really want to devote an entire year—or more—to a fantasy that might never evolve into the reality I would wish it to be? Time will tell. Time. What little may remain. But, God, I do have the ability to fantasize! I can dream big and bold and expansive! If only I had acted on some of my more grandiose dreams twenty or thirty or forty years ago… But I still have fantasies. Will I put them aside, too, for some future time when the moment is right? When is the time right to act on a dream?

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Weather forecasts change quickly. Yesterday morning, clear, dry skies were predicted for the next several day. Last night, the forecast changed: rain was expected today. This morning, the forecasts say today will be generally clear and dry, but tomorrow rain is in the forecast. Life mimics the weather. Or vice versa. Expectations are dashed. And then resurrected. And then crushed again. It’s all part of life in a universe fueled by chaos. Without chaos, the universe might be an endless void. As it is, the universe seems an outgrowth of endless chaos. What is beyond the edge of the universe? Does the universe have an edge…and end? If so, what lies beyond? It is impossible to comprehend either vision of this expansive…something…of which we are infinitesimally small component pieces. We can predict weather. But our predictions can be wrong. And we can predict the future. But we base our predictions on our knowledge of what has gone before—assuming the future will follow in some logical fashion, as if cause and effect will continue in the same way as “always.” We do not know. It is that simple. We do not know, because “it” is not knowable. Yet how can we “know” that?

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My dreams last night tease me with memories that lie just beneath the surface of accessible memory. I know I dreamed something exhilarating or emotional or otherwise quite powerful, but I have no idea what it was. Only that I awoke a little on edge, as if I had experienced something frightening or fascinating or enormously magnetic. I doubt I will remember anything of the dream(s). Their content will remain buried beneath my consciousness forever. Or until reality expresses the certainty that “forever” is an absurd impossibility in the dimension in which we exist.

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We are nearing the end of The Good Fight. I think we have only an episode or two left. With the exception of almost an entire season that deviated so far from reality that it seemed more like science fantasy than solid fiction, the series has been extraordinarily entertaining and intriguing. Christine Baranski and the rest of the cast has been fantastic. And the opening music and its accompanying wildly exciting extreme slow-motion explosions is almost enough to make me want to watch the series just to see and hear the opening credits.  What’s next? Time will tell.

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I desperately want privacy, isolation, seclusion. But I need human contact. The two desires always are at war with one another. I suspect the wish to be away from people is based on both my longing for serenity and my distaste for exposure to all the flaws of humanity and my loathing of the scabs that form on top of the wounds we inflict on one another. “If only we all could just get along…” Such an attitude…such a Pollyanna approach to life in general. If only, indeed. Before I try to control the rest of humanity, I should continue working to perfect controlling myself. I am only a tiny fraction of the way “there.”

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There’s conflict between wanting to be in a position to make every decision without interference and wanting to reach collective decisions that incorporate the wishes of those around me. That conflict has existed since the beginning of time. Assuming, of course, time had a beginning. Which seems both absurd and certain. Madness prevails…because without madness, there would be nothing.

Bonjour! Welcome to Tuesday…at least this specific Tuesday.

Experiencing different cultures expands the mind and opens the heart. Whether the cultures are as starkly different as rural South Texas and urban Beijing or as similar as Dallas and Little Rock, the cultural distinctions educate, inform, and change a person—if she is open to change. The shifts in mindset brought about by exposure to different ways of thinking or ways of looking at the world can lead to transformational insights. But unless one intentionally keeps chauvinistic attitudes in check—and unless he reins in in his parochialism—absorbing the lifestyles and ideas of unfamiliar places in the world can simply amplify a person’s ethnocentric zealotry.

I often wonder whether the difference between people who revel, versus those who recoil, at experiencing difference cultures are intrinsic to their nature. Or is insularity the result of subtle—or not so subtle—guidance during their development? In my case, I think the magnetic appeal of cultural differences was innate, but somewhat stifled, as a child. My interest was awakened during my youth, seeing and hearing and tasting the differences between the Anglo culture then prevalent in South Texas and the growing Mexican and Hispanic cultures that have since become predominant there. But my curiosity about and appreciation of cultural differences mushrooming during my years in Austin as a student at the University of Texas. The diversity of the student population was an important component of my growing interest in different cultures. The deeper exploration of culture to which I was exposed through sociology classes and the associated reading was even more crucial, I think. Sociology completed the initial phases of my transformation. Moving to semi-rural, small-town East Texas furthered the metamorphosis. The change in me continued when I moved to Houston, where I lived for eight years at the fringes of a cultural melting pot. Then, four years in Chicago and almost a year in and around White Plains, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut, helped solidify my appreciation for both subtle and in-your-face cultural differences.

While I think my eyes have been opened by exposure to different cultures, I suspect my oldest brother’s expansive world-view must be dramatically more advanced than mine. He has lived in India, Algeria, French-speaking Quebec, Ohio, the Bay area of California, Texas, Mexico…and on and on. And he is far more well-traveled than I. My world travels, mostly on business, exposed me to brief snippets of cultural surprises. His more extended experiences in various places around the world must have given him far greater insights than my short visits. Though living in different cultures is probably the most impactful way of enhancing one’s understanding and appreciation of different cultures, I think reading and watching non-fiction explorations of different cultures can be nearly as effective—providing, of course, one is open to challenges to one’s unsophisticated, small-minded mindset.

Despite my appreciation of different cultures, I am not blind to the faults and ugly flaws inherent in some of them. Often, I think, small-minded people judge as gullible (or easily misled) those who are more broad-minded. Moreover, they assume more open-minded are entirely uncritical of other cultures and are “taken-in” by them. That assumption, and more like it, tends to supplant insights about the positive aspects of different cultures. That’s my opinion. Almost everything I’ve written here is opinion; it should be taken with a grain of salt—which can either enhance the flavor or hide it entirely. 😉

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Today is Monday. The beginning of the “work week” for some. The continuation of a predictable set of rotating moments for others. And the commencement of an opportunity to begin life anew for still others. I choose—just for this moment—to look at this day as that incredible opportunity. A new life! A new way of thinking about the world! A new chance to correct mistakes or rethink my definition of what is “correct” and what is “wrong.” I hope this attitude lasts. The part of my life I’ve lived thus far is much longer than what is left to live; I suddenly feel an urgency to more acutely experience every second available to me. Time to light another cone of incense; lately, I have replaced patchouli with sangre de dragon, dragon’s blood. They both are quite nice; they help hone my appreciation for life in general, and my olfactory capabilities, in particular.

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Smile at someone who looks like they need it. Even if that someone is looking at you in the mirror.

I have written many times, over the years, about Ray Oldenburg’s concept of the Third Place., informal public gathering areas that offer comfort, camaraderie, and emotional safety.

The Brookings Institute says this about third Places:

Urban planners seeking to stabilize neighborhoods are focusing on the critical role that “third places” can play in strengthening our sense of community. Third places is a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg and refers to places where people spend time between home (‘first’ place) and work (‘second’ place). They are locations where we exchange ideas, have a good time, and build relationships.

Once again, the idea of a third place is on my mind. An example of a welcoming, comfortable, and comforting third place is the fictional bar room in the old television comedy series, Cheers. In years past, my wannabe third places have ranged from libraries to a local Flying Saucer “beer emporium” to a former neighbor’s professionally-equipped wood shop. More recently, my Unitarian Universalist church has served, on and off, as a wannabe third place of sorts, but only on the rare occasions when it is open and alive with people and genuinely welcoming . I have never felt that any place has fully met my desires and expectations of a third place. It occurs to me, as I mull this over in my mind, that no one is assured of access to a third place—not that a person might be excluded from one, but that he might not find all the attributes of what would constitute a third place in any one location.

For me, a third place would be a place where I would feel absolutely comfortable to be myself, without worry that I might be judged as too serious or too silly or not sufficiently intelligent or intellectually arrogant or…on and on. And it would be available to me, if not around the clock, at least from morning until night. And the people there would be genuinely friendly and caring. And I would not have to pay for the privilege of being there. The bar room in Cheers is, I suppose, is the model for my imaginary third place. I have, over the years, thought about and talked about creating such a place, but I haven’t taken any action to bring it about. Except in my fiction, in my mind. My Fourth Estate Tavern, situated in a fictional financially depressed town in Arkansas, has all the trappings of a third place. I would love to replicate, in the real world, the Fourth Estate Tavern. It’s not just the place, by the way. It’s the people in the place, too, in symbiotic relationships with one another and with the place itself. The place has to be right, but without the right people, it cannot be a functioning third place. Similarly, all the right people might mingle in one place, but if it’s not the right place, it cannot be a functioning third place. Hmm.

Yesterday afternoon, my third place came into sharp focus for me. Mi novia and a close friend and I spend part of the afternoon in conversation, sitting in a comfortable setting, having a drink, and exploring whatever happened to be on our minds. The fact that we were in my house, not a public place, detracted from the concept of third place. And the fact that our gathering required intention (it did not organically flow from…just showing up) did not mirror my vision of a third place. But, still…it felt like a third place. It felt a little like my imaginary time, engaging in wide-ranging conversations with a diverse group of people, at the Fourth Estate Tavern.

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Today is Mother’s Day. Like several other holidays, I am not especially enamored of Mother’s Day. I am extremely grateful for the love and influence of mothers, but the expected formal appreciation emerging from the holiday strikes me as artificial and unnecessary. I suppose some people need to be reminded of the importance of mothers; I do not. And I suppose some children need to be reminded to express their appreciation to their (and all) mothers. I am forever grateful to my mother; no reminder needed. Like Valentine’s Day, I tend to steer clear of “celebrating” the day, in part because it has become so clearly commercial and so intrinsically hollow. Yet I always made it a point to send my mother cards or flowers or otherwise express my formal appreciation for her. Whether she expected it or not, I wanted to be sure my disdain for the practice of celebrating it did not conflict with my mother’s experience of the day. Maybe I simply did not have the courage of my convictions. I hope it wasn’t that. I may never know, without intense, long-term therapy and counseling. 🙂

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Certain painful emotions seem to linger forever. Maybe they can be overcome, though, with the help of a professional. Someone who can assist the sufferer by guiding a psychological scalpel to excise the mental malignancy that is bound to the person’s mind. That could be incredibly freeing. But a “psychiatric surgeon” sounds dangerous; if she cuts the wrong emotional tissue, everything could go horribly awry. More hmmm.

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I am staying home from church today, though I want to see and hear a friend read poetry…but the theme for the day echoes the day itself: Mother’s Day. Whether I watch the event online remains to be seen. I wonder whether I sometimes take myself too seriously. There is no question about it; no need to wonder.

While I skip church, I will relax and allow the day to unfold around me. And I will consider where, if anywhere, I belong. It’s those deep, mind-altering questions, that can make or break a third place.

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EDIT: I just listened to and watched part of the UUVC service. My friend Patty’s reading was extraordinary. I may look again at my attitudes about Mother’s Day.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already in widespread use. In multiple automotive applications. In HVAC system thermostats. Virtual assistants, like the Amazon Echo. Global positioning system technologies. Computerized language translation systems. Email spam filters. Automated house floor maintenance devices. Facial recognition technology. Autocorrect computer applications. Real estate search engines (like those Zillow.com and Trulia.com and Realtor.com) and Chatbots. The list could go on and on. The value of AI is evident, despite the warnings about the existential dangers posed to humankind by the technology. Though I do not doubt the potential for AI to exercise far more control over human activities than humans intend, I am relatively confident humans will establish safety nets around its applications, limiting the potential for devastating harm. That confidence is what allows me to desire AI applications that will meet my needs/desires without undue fear. And one of the applications I would like to see would be a dramatically enhanced method of identifying and selecting places I might like to live.

Zillow.com and Trulia.com and Realtor.com once seemed, to me, almost magical in their abilities to quickly sort through available housing options. But as technologies have continued to become more and more sophisticated, those search capabilities no longer seem so spectacular. I want to be able to establish parameters that are not limited to searching for housing in specific locations. Rather than simply allowing me to set search criteria for number of bedrooms and bathrooms and various other attributes of housing options, I want AI to enable me to input an almost limitless set of search parameters across an enormously wide search area. So, for example, I want AI to help me find communities with specific attributes that appeal to me: like political leanings of residents, weather patterns, low levels of insect pests (like chiggers and ticks and mosquitoes), affordability (in the context of my personal financial wherewithal), geographical characteristics, etc., etc., etc.  Once I establish criteria, I want AI to return a list of places that match my needs, desires, and financial capabilities; then, I want to be able to continue to compare those places by incorporating additional search parameters.

AI might determine for me that my “ideal” place(s) are in areas I might never have considered on my own. Perhaps I might learn that communities in Nebraska or Michigan or the Lake District of England or English-speaking enclaves in the south of France are my “ideal” places. Or maybe I would learn that my desires are, in fact, simply fantasies and that there is nowhere I can find all my desired attributes and conditions. Either way, though, I would have an answer. The time I waste “wondering” about places and trying, without success, to learn deep, deep details about a potential home community, would be replaced by productive, valuable time I could devote to deciding for myself what AI cannot do for me.
It is entirely possible that such capabilities already exist, or will exist in the very near future. But I will not count on it. Instead, I will keep seeking answers the old fashioned way; using the drudgery of investigative analyses.

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The suicide arrives at the conclusion that what he is seeking does not exist; the seeker concludes that he has not yet looked in the right place.

~ Paul Watzlawick ~

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Seeking one’s own “ideal” circumstances tends to mute compassion in favor of selfishness. If I devote my time and energies to searching for something that will yield personal satisfaction, I am apt to let my compassion for others take on a lesser role in my identity. But if I sacrifice my search, opting instead to let my compassion guide my actions, I might at some point resent my failure to act in my own self-interests. That is the conundrum of looking for the perfect environment or the perfect set of circumstances. Sacrifice is built into the process because people sometimes have competing desires that, if attained, are mutually exclusive to one another. Sometimes, questions have no “right” answer; only multiple answers that are “less wrong” than some others.

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Guilt never disappears. It lingers for eternity. It sours successes and thwarts happiness. And when happiness succeeds in overcoming guilt, that very happiness later exacerbates the guilt, causing the happy, guilty person to be consumed with even more guilt for allowing himself the happiness he was after. Then, he realizes it was not the happiness he thought he wanted; it was simply the erasure of the excruciating feelings of guilt. Guilt feeds on itself, growing into a monster that devours happiness. Seeking comfort from gnawing feelings of guilt, a person discovers that consolation provides only a brief respite; the “cure” is akin to responding to a stovetop grease fire by dousing it with gasoline.

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This weather is a prelude to summer. Today is a gentle warning of things to come. Heat. Humidity. Chiggers aplenty. Gah!

Supposedly open-minded progressives who deride conservatives about their “conservative hypocrisy” sometimes seem blind to their own bigotry. For example, it is not hard to find staunch liberals—blue through and through—who label Texas and Texans right-wing hypocrites. Or they may call Arkansans and Arkansas “hillbillies” and “heaven to hicks.” That only slightly-more-politically-correct than blatant racism or open misogyny. When I chastise liberals and conservatives for their ignorance and idiocy, I have to include myself among the fools receiving my dressing-down. I think I would be a better person if I would just pause to examine myself before judging other people. So too would the people I judge. And the people who judge me and the people I judge. I hope I am not attempting to minimize the seriousness of my own flaws when I say we’re all guilty of hypocrisy from time to time. We are guilty, but we rarely cop a plea; instead, we protest that we practice truth, sarcasm, and irony.

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I hear Zeus slamming his staff against the solid stone floor of his cavernous castle. His anger is palpable. The tears of his subjects, who dread and adore him, rain from the dark, pre-dawn sky. Suddenly, the sounds and the tears cease, leaving in their wake a dark, dry, empty silence. When he is on a rampage, Zeus is easy to predict. But when he draws into himself, it is impossible to know what he might do next. It could be more blinding fury or an even deeper. guttural growl rising from deep beneath us, down near the core of planet Earth. Or something else entirely. Dreaming up possibilities helps calm my frayed nerves. Their rough edges are my own fault. Of course, my passion and longing for the inaccessible may have something to do with it. But they, too, are part of my rough edges. Even if I learned I had a limitless supply of money, for example, the flaws would remain—hidden beneath skin and bone and sinew and protective shell.

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To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.

~ Federico Garcia Lorca ~

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The clasp on a loop earring—one that had long been companion to my left ear lobe—finally gave in to the stresses associated with clinging to my ear. It steadfastly refused to stay “shut,” so I risked losing it if I wore it. So…I discarded it and replaced it with a diamond stud. I have no idea where it came from; if it was part of a pair, its companion is long gone. After a few days, though, the stud was irritating my delicate lobe. I replaced the diamond stud with a small black, sparkling, double-sided disk that has a screw-post; the two sides of the pair are held together by screw threads. The black disk, though small, was too big for me taste. So, I am going naked for the moment, until I get to Dillard’s or somewhere similar; someplace that sells small, $12 silver-plated hoop earrings. I may return to the diamond stud, though, when my earlobe heals. “Heal, earlobe, heal!”

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How trustworthy—or not—is the police officer who patrols your neighborhood? And what about your family doctor? Does she maintain the confidence of the doctor-patient relationship, or does she share details of your maladies with her friends and family? Are you certain the anesthesiologist who put you under for your recent surgery did not fondle you while you were unconscious? Can the neighbor boy, the quiet one who avoids eye contact with you, be trusted? Are you sure he will not “snap” and spray the neighborhood or the nearest Safeway with deadly bullets? Can you depend on your friend, who is no stranger to alcohol, to drive you home safely—and sober—after an especially raucous New Year’s Eve party? Life is unpredictable. Death, too. And injury. And windfalls. And losses. A person could look at unpredictability as equivalent to a guillotine blade hanging precariously over one’s head. Or one might look at it as an opportunity for challenge and adventure. Every experience, until the very end, is part and parcel of life. Perhaps looking at life as an inevitable companion to experience would clarify everything. But not necessarily.

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I am, again, ravenously hungry. I would like to eat a papaya, its flesh drizzled with fresh lime juice. A slice of cantaloupe might go well with it. And a strip or two of coconut meat, fresh out of the shell. Before I wrote about the papaya, I was about to express my desire to have a patty of spicy-hot sausage; but I realized I tend to associate the “main course” of almost every meal with meat of some kind. Not coconut meat; bacon or pork or lamb or beef. Or fish, though some might call seafood-based diets “pescatarian.”  I would like to polish the habit of eating more vegetarian meals. Lately, I have returned to my old, meat-friendly, standbys. I need to create a grocery list with ingredients for briam. And spaghetti squash to replace pasta (though I realize, of course, pasta is not a meat). And stuff and such…that supports and reinforces a sometimes-vegetarian lifestyle. But, back to breakfast. I may opt for toast again. Or some cheese. And/or a “toaster-oven-baked tomato.” Time will tell.

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Come close and I will whisper in your ear a deep, deep secret.

First, you have to promise to keep the secret close, just between us.

If I require you to promise first, does that mean I don’t trust you? Or,
when I rely on your stated promise, is that better evidence of trust? Or,
does trust mean I assume you will keep our conversation in confidence,
without extracting a promise from you?

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I rarely enjoy loud places. My brain resists the chaos of labyrinthine noise. But, occasionally, a cacophony has the other effect, overwhelming troubling thoughts with sound. Or maybe it’s not overwhelming; maybe it’s just a distraction. Whatever it is, it’s better than the chaos, but not as good as silence. Silent places can be remarkably soothing. But I have learned they can be even more troubling than can be a cacophony. Silence allows the mind to either enter a state of deep relaxation or a universe of regret and worry. In a nutshell, everything and everywhere has the potential to be home or hell. Silent places…they respond, either way, to your heartbeat.

Exceptionally heavy rain pounds the roof, its sound dominating the roar of thunder. Occasional flashes of dim, distant lightning periodically illuminate the room. Twice, the background noise of wind and rain and water flowing through gutters and downspouts, though loud, is punctuated by the jarring screech of the NOAA weather radio. Flash flood watches and warnings alert people, awakened by the din, to take appropriate precautions. Whatever appropriate precautions are, as I lie awake in the wee hours, situated in an area not prone to flooding. The heavy rain subsides, as the few hours remaining until dawn grow comparatively quiet. No more lightning flashes. No more screaming radio warnings. The pause in the hours-long deluge is temporary, though, new bouts of heavy rain causing more noise. No more sleep. At least not right away. And probably not until quite a while after nightfall, many hours away.

Once the Sandman’s spell is broken, sleep is no longer a refuge from the previous day’s worries. Viewing online news reports, almost identical from source to source in the general media, consumes most of the residual time until daylight. The news is not good. Trump’s lies during his CNN town hall capture most of the headlines. Naturally, the adoring studio audience for his undeserved and unwarranted opportunity to continue spreading his infectious venom laps up his psychopathic world view. I am unwilling to give his fans even a shred of benefit of the doubt: they are just as deluded and just as dangerous as he. I want to be compassionate and understanding, but there is a point beyond which I simply cannot go.

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The outgoing Prime Minister of Finland has announced her divorce from her husband of 19 years. Why that merits international news coverage is beyond me. Perhaps legitimate allegations of bad behaviors leading up to the divorce might warrant media interest, but as far as I can tell she has provided evidence that allegations of “bad behavior” have been false or, at least, unproven. Maybe, though, I am being too forgiving. And hypocritical. If Trump had been alleged to have engaged in despicable behaviors (which he has), I would dismiss out of hand any “evidence” of his “decency.” But, still. Is the marital relationship of national leaders really a concern to their ability to lead? I doubt it. But I am not certain. Nothing is cut and dried. Nothing is black and white. Except matters that are clearly black and white. Which is always subject to disagreement. And there we go.

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Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

~ William Shakespeare ~

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The poetry contained within excellent prose is evidence of the inherent beauty of language. When we say a prose passage is “poetic,” we acknowledge the ability of poetry—and therefore language in general—to move us. Poetry hidden behind the façade of engaging language reveals emotion and emotional clarity. Stiff language, language that sounds and feels arrogant or artificial, may pretend to be poetry, but it is not. Malleable language that can either conform to emotional extremes or produce them is poetic language. But, despite experts’ protestations to the contrary, no one can define poetry with enough precision to differentiate between poetry and simple text. At least that’s my position on the matter this morning at 5:41.

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Driving through Dayton and some of its suburbs in recent days helped me understand what I desire about a place to live. I want distance, but not too much, from neighbors. I want solitude, but not total seclusion. I want isolation, but not loneliness. I want the look of quiet, expansive estates mixed with the feel of a string of bustling villages separated by greenspace. Many of the residential and commercial environments around Dayton—at least several of them I saw—exude a very casual but quite sophisticated ambiance. Not far from some of the most appealing suburbs, like Yellow Springs, urbanity gives way to peaceful, bucolic scenery. Rural and urban environments coexist, as if their symbiotic relationships were meticulously planned. I like what I saw of Dayton and the surrounding area. Wandering around the eastern and southern suburbs of Dayton, I experienced déjà vu, a return to the four years—when I lived in Chicago—I spent weekends driving around Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and north-central Illinois. That part of the country combines urban and rural in ways I have not seen in Texas and Arkansas. In those two states, urban and rural settings seem fractured, separated into two distinct and highly competitive (and combative) environments. In an ideal world, I want to live in a place with synergies between diverse, but highly supportive, populations. I would like a place in which politics and religion generally are private, but when they cross into the public sphere, they do so in cordial ways—ways in which civil debates take place, rather than bad-mannered arguments. I want neither large extreme right-wing nor large extreme left-wing populations; both extremes are bigoted, close-minded, and unpleasant. And, if the world were ideal, the ideal place would have four seasons; but not extreme seasons. My fantasy location would be free of chiggers and mosquitoes. Poverty would be offset by opportunity and philanthropy. Healthcare would be of excellent quality and available to everyone. Cancer and its dozens of cousins—diseases and injuries—would be cured or controlled.

Somewhere between the fantastic and the attainable, a place exists that satisfies sufficient “wishes” and avoids enough of the disliked and the loathed. Might it be Ohio? Might it be population centers in Oklahoma or New Mexico? Might it be in Missouri or Kansas? Might it be in Wisconsin? New York? Is Arkansas as close as I’ll ever get? And what would be the trigger that would prompt me to change my life from what it is to what it could be? I am restless. But I am a realist, as well. Every place has its pros and cons. Ultimately, its suitability amounts to a comparative analysis of the extent to which it checks the boxes that support or oppose collective likes and dislikes.

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During our ongoing wanderings, mi novia and I have successfully avoided most “big” cities. We skirted Cincinnati and Memphis and Indianapolis, though we drove through Lexington. We avoided Nashville and St. Louis and Louisville all together. Our drive on the way to Dayton took us considerably longer than it would have done, had we taken interstate highways the entire trip. Avoiding interstate highways enabled us—especially me—to avoid the stress and tension of high-speed, crowded thoroughfares. Two-lane back roads with comparatively little traffic and more pleasant scenery made the trip northeast relaxing and energizing. Seeing my brother, his son, and his daughter-in-law (as well as his son’s mother—my brother’s ex-wife) was a gratifying, enjoyable experience. That’s the kind of travel I like more and more as I ripen. Relatively slow, simple, and dedicated in part to comfort and ease. Still, we had timelines to keep. That is the only part I found stressful. I would have enjoyed it even more if we had neither obligations nor constraints; I would like to feel comfortable driving just a few miles per day if it suited me. I would like to be comfortable stopping at every historic marker and exploring every small town, if I wanted to. I suppose that opportunity is available only to retirees…but, wait…I retired 12 years ago and have yet to accommodate that desire. Hmm.

+++

Today’s weather is apt to be wet, overcast, very warm, and humid. That presents the ideal set of circumstances for a gathering of friends for conversation and whatever mode of relaxation each one might prefer. There is nothing wrong with seeking comfort and enjoyment of people in one’s company. In fact, it provides a break from a person’s less enjoyable obligations. We should look out for one another that way; helping others (and oneself) to relieve the stresses and strains and routine challenges of day-to-day life. Yes, that is the key to happiness. At least one of them.

+++

My second cup of coffee is nearly gone. What’s left is cold and rather unappealing. I will not make another cup, though. Instead, I will sit back and play word games until the day begins unfolding for people who are sleeping later than I did this morning.

I did not feel compelled to write a post yesterday morning, though late in the day I almost gave in to my self-imposed guilt at my lapse.  That irrational idea was relatively short-lived, though. But it occurred to me that my occasional failure to perform my morning ritual could be cause for alarm to the few people who regularly read my posts. That thought—assuming concern about my well-being is top of mind—might be evidence of arrogance. So be it. But I choose to think a break in a regular ritual might warrant concern…like a neighbor not picking up his daily newspaper or a coffee-shop “regular” failing to show up one morning after a years-long unbroken daily stretch of being the first customer of the day. A few years ago, just days after I moved into my house in the Village, the postal carrier who regularly delivered mail to our neighborhood alerted a neighbor that a man’s mail had not been collected for several days. The neighbor asked police to perform a welfare check; the man had died in his home. My failure to post yesterday was not the result of my death, fortunately; it was just the outcome of wanting to hit the road early. There have been other lapses in my routine caused by various non-emergency matters. Hmm.

+++

Mi novia and I watched a bit of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show a couple of nights ago. Though I enjoyed seeing the dogs parading before judges, I have mixed feelings about dog shows, possibly based on my ignorance of what goes on in the competing dogs’ lives in the months before the show. In my imagination, I see the dogs trained to stand, walk, and hold themselves “just so,” in an effort to present the animals in the best light. I imagine the dogs spending their days in unending training exercises at the direction of their often paid handlers. And I imagine very expensive dogs being given over to the direction of very expensive handlers, with the sole objective of winning the “best of breed” or “best in show” awards. I do not care whether a dog is a purebred or not. And I do not care whether the animal’s musculature and coloring and demeanor represent “perfection” for the breed. But, still, I get some pleasure out of watching the show. I suppose I put my imagination and my concerns on hold for just long enough to enjoy the parade of dogs. I laugh at the formal attire of the owners and handlers, though. The formality seems incongruous with the event. But the grooming of some of the dogs is even more bizarre; some of the dogs appear to require combing of their long coats around the clock to maintain their pristine appearance. Another hmm.

+++

I am hungry again. That happens all too often. During the several days I have been “on the road,” I abandoned my disciplined eating habits. The result is that I have gained more than four pounds. It takes much longer to lose weight than to gain it. I am convinced that eating a biscuit and gravy, weighing four ounces, has the capacity to add a pound of weight to the person consuming the food. Losing that pound requires a week and a half of starvation, consuming only water and an occasional radish.

+++

Some friends have put their beautiful house on the market, making all too real their impending departure from the Village. I understand, though, that the time comes when people know it is time to move on. Getting to that point sometimes takes both time and serious soul-searching. I know this to be true. The earth continues to spin.

+++

Enough of this. Good day to you.

I left yesterday’s church service (at Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship)—during which Peter Mayer delivered both his music and an inspirational “sermon”—feeling hopeful and optimistic. The subsequent barrage of horrifying news since then has squelched that emotional high. Another mass shooting, this one in Allen, Texas, that left 8 or 9 dead and more injured. Several other shootings involving multiple victims. A car crash in Brownsville, Texas that killed many Venezuelan immigrants. The Oklahoma governor’s veto of funding of the state’s PBS funding, potentially eliminating a resource that helps counter an increasingly visible bigotry that threatens to utterly decimate our nation’s social contract.

As I think back on the message of hope carried in yesterday’s church service, I wonder whether hope in today’s society equates with gullibility. Was I extremely naive to leave the service with my upbeat mood and my feeling that UUs have the ability to change the world by modeling human decency? I am afraid the “models” are badly outnumbered. Every instance of benevolence seems to be countered by dozens or hundreds of examples of malevolence. The mythology of David and Goliath is fiction; I think we hold onto the parable because reality—the recognition that hope is an impossible illusion—is too hard to bear.

What is the point of trying to hold onto hope when almost all the signs point to despondency as the appropriate response to one’s inability to have any measurable impact on the degradation of the ties that bind us together? That sense, the feeling that one is powerless even to slow the descent into chaos, makes our little efforts—such as recycling, promoting rational limits on guns, trying to eliminate racism and homophobia and sexism—pointless.

This morning, I lean toward selfishness in one’s personal sphere as the most rational response to a world sliding into self-destructive rage. Protect oneself and those one holds close. When necessary, do so at the expense of others. Embrace desire and avarice.

No. Even in my morose state of mind, I cannot bring myself to lose all hope. I cannot mimic the deranged and greedy politicians and their supporters. But I can avoid them to the extent possible. I can steer clear of the masses. I can write fantasy and convince myself to live it. But it is hard to compare yesterday’s messages with today’s reality. Perhaps listening to Peter Mayer’s performance of Holy Now will make the process easier.

Last night, we attended a musical performance by Peter Mayer, well-known in Unitarian Universalist (UU) circles for both his songwriting and his voice. We learned of the event, organized and offered by the Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, by accident when mi novia checked to learn about UU churches in and around Dayton, Ohio, where we are visiting my brother and his son and daughter-in-law. The performance was exceptional. At the audience’s insistence, he performed Holy Now and Blue Boat Home, two of his best-known pieces. Another song I had never heard was a delight, too, though I do not know the title…it was about greyhound dogs learning the rabbit they had been chasing around the track wasn’t real…hilarious and thought-provoking.

We are going back this morning to listen to his sermon and hear more of his music. What an outstanding, but unplanned, opportunity.

The main purpose of our trip is to visit my brother, et al and to see his new digs. I was surprised at the roominess of  his apartment. It is a very nice place, with two bedrooms (one of which is his office), a full-size laundry room, and a nice sized kitchen. All in all, I’d say his move from Texas to Ohio was a very good move.

+++

We will head back to HSV tomorrow morning. On the trip up this way, we avoided major highways to the extent possible and took our time. Had we driven the most direct, fastest route, it would have taken about 11 hours. We took the better part of three days to get here…I really enjoyed the leisurely pace. We may take a different route back, but I expect we will again avoid interstates as much as possible.

+++

The news is awash in reports of mass shootings and other gun violence. The horrors will not stop until our society undergoes a radical and traumatic transformation. Until Second Amendment fanatics/psychopaths have their weapons confiscated and/or  their psychoses successfully treated, the bloodshed will continue. Ach!

+++

I cannot think when I do not have a full-size keyboard available to me. If for no other reason, I look forward to being home, where my adults sized computer awaits. Next major purchase: a lightweight notebook computer and a wireless full-size keyboard.

Unbroken restlessness. An urgent sense that, because time is unforgiving, immediate action is the only reasonable choice. Delays set fire to options. Act now, I hear myself say, or regret your failure to take advantage of diminishing opportunities. But I also hear pleas to give myself time to consider the ramifications of acting too quickly or without sufficient thought to the potential consequences.

Consequences. Both action and inaction carry the potential for consequences. No. Not potential; certainty. What is the best route to the least dangerous decision? Impossible to say.

+++

Make a list of your friends. Your true friends are the people who would visit you in prison, two states away. Now, revise the list accordingly.

+++

Everyone breaks rules occasionally. Most of the infractions are minor. Speeding. Running a red light. Slight inaccuracies on tax forms. Removing money, that does not belong to you, from a bank. Getting in bar fights. Stabbing a neighbor. Bludgeoning a supervisor at work. Launching nuclear missiles without a permit.

At what point does deviating from the norm become intolerable? Is there a single point, a universal measure, of unacceptable wrongdoing? Every behavior has its own unique tsingleld. Accidentally running into a pedestrian while driving is frowned on but excusable in certain circumstances. Intentionally murdering a city councillor with one’s car is intolerable.

Life would be simpler if a single go-no go point existed. A point at which coveting some else’s wife would be permissible but trimming a neighbor’s hedges without permission would be punishable by public flogging. But that would not work, would it? Of course not.

+++

The day has begun. Late, though.

Fresh ideas are rare. Brilliant ideas are rarer still. Yet the search for that one spectacular idea never slows; never pauses. Belief in the brain’s ability to perform magic never stalls. That same irrational confidence gives us horoscopes and reliance on diet pills. Will we never come to grips with immutable reality? I think not. But what would life be like if we were unable to place our faith in the impossible? We are not as smart as we think we are. At least I am not. That depressing truth is how days start dull and lose even more of their minuscule sharpness with each passing minute.

+++

If I had a loaded shotgun. I would dispatch a maddeningly noisy refrigerator with a single well-placed shot. But then something equally annoying…or worse…would tahe its place. Better to meditate into serenity. Or medicate into obliviousness; the point at which noisy refrigerators do not intrude upon one’s quietude.

Chill. That is my admonition to myself. Look in the mirror. See me watching you. I see you across time and distance. Feel my embrace. Reach out and touch my arm. Look upward, toward the invisible planets and stars. You cannot see them, but you know they are there. It’s the same with me. I am here, but unless you look into that magical mirror, you cannot see me. Life is strange. It is stranger, still, when you realize it is not real; just an idea that seems real, thanks to that mirror’s magical image.

+++

I am hungry. How does a hologram experience hunger? The same way he might experience starvation, if I let the sensation go on for a week or a month. But I refuse to do without water. That would be madness, multiplied by an exponent of itself. And so, now. I will go dancing through the day, my image in your mirror and your image in mine. We are two children, one hundred years shy of adulthood. I have seen too many adults. They look sour and twisted, as if they had eaten lemons and lye. Keep your mind focused on apple fritters and cantaloupe; the lye will transform into Splenda, leaving lemon-flavored melons and apple fritters with a slight edge.

+++

Completion. I am enamored with Yellow Springs, Ohio. Perhaps I should find a house there…to buy or to lease. A place to which I could retreat from brutal southern summers. But the mosquitoes could ruin the nirvana. Is there no place that is absolutely perfect? I am afraid not. Perpetual joy is an illusion of immense proportions. But getting it in little sips may be enough.

Isolated. Insulated. Protected against the light of day. Hidden from the sun, the sky, clouds, raindrops…whatever is “out there,” waiting to pounce. The world outside my partitioned cell is invisible. Time has been paused…but for how long? How can I measure the passage of Time if Time, itself, is on “hold?” Without Time, I am stuck in infinity…yet infinity implies the immeasurable passage of time, doesn’t it? Indeed.

Civilizations, even great ones, have disappeared. Ours is at risk, just as were those once great ones whose rubble is all that remains. Time will reveal whether ours follows the same path. In the meantime, we can either cower in wait for the Grand Dissolution or we can ignore the rules that govern propriety and “good behavior,” opting instead to engage in an orgy of wild indulgence.

Of course, the inevitable decay may never come. What of our banality, then? Or our fears? The terror we feel as impending doom stalks us? Perhaps we should maintain a modicum of civilized behavior, “just in case.”

Maybe I should lift the blinds and peek out the window. The end times might not be on the horizon, after all.

Ah, the title of the song is “Morning Has Broken,” not “Morning IS Broken.” And off I go, into the morning, exploring what the day offers.

Every place has its downsides: Hurricanes. Crime. Floods. Droughts. Chiggers. Humidity. Ice. Snow. Heat. Expense. Ticks. Tornadoes. Mosquitoes. Earthquakes. Homelessness. Poverty. Sinkholes. Architectural sameness. Design diversity. Neighbors. Neighborhood. Cultural dullness. Etc.

What is the point of looking for the ideal place to live? It depends. There’s always a point. But it differs from person to person and period to period. Period to period? Yes, period to period. A person’s younger years may be a period in which he is seeking novelty…he may give priority during that time to design diversity. Later in life, the “perfect” place may be “weather-safe” or be a spot that is demographically similar. No matter a person’s age or position, the place she lives contributes as much to her happiness as almost any other factor. Whatever her priorities, the choice of home…neighborhood, region, neighborhood, etc…can be critically. important. Even country of residency can be crucial. Some say relationships matter more than anything else. Others say relationships survive distance and absence more successfully than a person’s happiness survives misery in place.

So? It’s on my mind. I am still wrestling with the issue, twenty years on. Trying to decide what matters most. And what follows. In what order.

Maybe I will never know. Or perhaps I have the answer already.

If I were considerably younger and more energetic, I might put my evolving political beliefs to work by challenging the societal and cultural decay taking place in North America and, indeed, worldwide. I might endeavor to create a new form of political insurrection that replaces partisanship with morality. But, first, I would have to uproot the evangelical forms of morality with philosophies based on humanity: compassion, freedom of thought, and reasonable personal choice.

But I am getting older by the minute. So I may attempt to memorialize my beliefs and the work that would naturally follow by documenting them here. That process will take time. So I will wait to publish the ideas until I have given them ample time to evolve and solidify. Then, I will take the risk of posting them publicly. Until then…time will tell.

Human culture in 2023 is drowning in violence and anger and arrogance. I sometimes wallow in a parochial viewpoint of the situation, asserting that the problem is especially keen in the USA—that we are world leaders, but that our leadership is entirely negative. Looking around the globe, though, the problem is mostly local. But, like a spark in a field of dry, unharvested corn, it can erupt in flames, spreading with breathtaking speed. Local issues, though, can become global problems. Mass shootings in the USA, for example, can trigger “copycat” behavior in other places—it probably has and almost certainly will.

If only the resentment and fear that fuel the cycle of violence were replaced by gratitude and hope…  If only we would insist on learning compassion instead of hate…  If only we would act on our feelings of appreciation, rather than on dread and loathing, we might spread a completely different kind of attitude, one that leads to behaviors we want the entire world to model.

This morning, I read a short piece from NPR’s My Unsung Hero series. It related the story of a woman who, when in high school, was given a gift of self-confidence by a teacher who told her he liked her voice. The girl was so terrified of speaking in public, because she stuttered, that she asked her mother to write her teacher a note, asking her to be excused from an assignment to read a poem in front of her class. She was excused from the assignment, but had to read the poem to her teacher, one-on-one. It was then he expressed appreciation for her voice. That moment led her to develop confidence in herself; so much so that she became a trainer.

If only we would, collectively, focus our attention on acts of kindness and understanding, the world in which we live would be a better place. Mi novia makes a point of complimenting people, even strangers, on little things—the clothes they wear, their hair styles…simple stuff. Her motive is this: she believes people who feel appreciated will have a better day than might have occurred had they not experienced healthy esteem. And they might develop the habit of  appreciating others. If only I could develop that habit. If only the rest of the world could—would—replace hostility with kindness and good will.

We can do it. If only we commit ourselves to being the kind of people we want to encounter in our day-to-day lives, we might witness a change in the world. The sharp edges of life might smooth into gentle curves. Disdain might transform into humility; maybe even affection. Sympathy might replace cruelty. Tenderness might replace animosity. If only…

+++

I feel melancholy at the moment. Thinking about what might be “if only…” has made me feel hopeless. I will snap out of it, though. Just thinking about the teacher whose appreciation helped give his student self-confidence is already having an effect.

I woke late, fed Phaedra, showered, shaved, got dressed, and made coffee. Now, the time is almost 7 and I am just now attempting to sort out what is on my mind. As usual, I am thinking about you. Yes, you. Writing in the first and second person (???) allows me to engage with you directly, without interference from whatever this day will bring. In my present state of mind, I could carry on a private conversation with Aesop or Khalil Gibran or Abraham Lincoln; no one would be the wiser. Magical thinkin—a term I first remember encountering in Joan Didion’s exceptional book, The Year of Magical Thinking—has a long and storied history. Sigmund Freud believed magical thinking arose from cognitive development factors. Bronisław Malinowski wrote about a form of magical thinking in which believers think words and sounds have the ability to directly affect the world (“step on a crack, break your mother’s back,” etc.). The literature is rife with theories about magical thinking (as if I have conducted an extensive review of the literature on the subject…yeah). It is entirely possible for a person to quickly and completely get wrapped up in a subject about which little previous thought had been given. Witness me, as I scamper down the rabbit hole, exploring magical thinking. Okay, though. That’s enough.

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Today, the fifth Sunday of the month, brings Music on Barcelona back to our church. On those rare fifth Sundays, neither worship nor insight services are held, the time being given instead to musical celebration. From jazz to blues to popular tunes, musical guests and others enliven the sanctuary with sounds. I dress casually for church; I feel more casual when “church” is replaced by music untethered to religious messages.

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Moments ago, I glanced up through the windows in front of my desk to see a bird alight on a high branch. The bird, a deep and brilliant red, is not as rotund as a cardinal. Watching it move from branch to branch, I see that its flight does not resemble a cardinal, either. I suspect it may be a summer tanager or a scarlet tanager, but it is not close enough for me to be sure. Even with binoculars, I probably could not be certain; I am not as knowledgeable about birds as I would like to be. But I am as knowledgeable as I can be, given the amount of time I am willing to invest to learn about them. My willingness to learn about nature is cyclical; some days, I devour information with a passion but other days I barely give information time to register with my brain before I scoot off to something else. Discipline could “correct” that inconsistency, but fixing the problem might prevent me from stumbling upon fascinating ideas and information that could, conceivably, change my entire perspective for a day. Or a week. Or the remainder of a lifetime.

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From time to time, I go online to learn what “quotation collectors” have assembled about a specific subject. The diversity of thoughts on a given topic can be illuminating. Thinking about that diversity can lead to exceptional insights. One such “insight” occurred to me this morning while looking for quotes about curiosity. The insight had little to do with curiosity, but it fueled more curiosity about a different topic: why does the vast majority of quotations in a given collection represent male “thinkers?” Though I did not count, I estimate that more than 90 percent of the collection I examined were quotations attributed to men. Given the subject, curiosity, I was especially surprised to see the paucity of quotes attributed to women. I suppose the experience simply is more evidence of the patriarchal nature of our society. I wonder what replacement term would apply to a society in which males and females were equally influential? Pamatriarchal? Shall I attempt to coin and popularize such a term?

+++

More coffee, please. And this time, do not let it cool so much that it is no longer appealing. I keep looking out the window, my attention being drawn by birds flitting across my field of vision. The sky is awash in birds.

This morning, I watched a short video clip of an interview with Princess Märtha Louise of Norway. She, like some of her British counterparts, has chosen to disengage from the life of a royal, opting instead to be just another citizen, with a twist. She has given up her royal financial stipend and has forsaken the title, “Her Royal Highness,” but apparently she has retained some royal responsibilities. Based on the context of her comments, among other things, I suspect her royal responsibilities are largely ceremonial; purely for “show.” During the video clip, the princess mentions that she is spiritual, something she says is “taboo” in Norway.  In exchange for relinquishing her royal benefits, she has decided to earn a living by being a “spiritual leader.” I wrestled with whether to watch the entire BBC video or, instead, be satisfied with just a few snippets from the clip. My decision: I am satisfied, for the moment, to move on to absorb other information from other sources. However, if my contentment degrades by avoiding the full interview, I know where to go to find it.

+++

Several times last night I woke to hear rain pounding the roof. Accompanying the heavy “tapping” sounds of raindrops was the unmistakable gurgling of rainwater draining from the roof and through the downspout. The volume of the latter noise varied considerably and absolutely inconsistently. It might have been low and slow for a moment, after which the volume spiked…as if the velocity of the flowing water increased several-fold. No two iterations of the cycles of volume and flow were the same. The sounds’ inconsistency kept me away for several minutes at a time…and then allowed me to sleep for a few moments, only to be awakened again by a slightly different noise.

As I think about last night’s episodes of wakefulness, listening to the rain hitting and flowing off of the roof, it occurs to me that the experience was all-consuming at the time. The only thing on my mind at the time was a cluster of related thoughts: rain, sounds, flowing water, repeat… All my attention was directed toward the consequences of weather. Except I was conscious of the fact that I was awake and, most of the time, I did not want to be. My consciousness, though, a special kind of consciousness, not the consciousness I experience during most of my waking hours. It was, instead, an incomplete, fuzzy, hazy, translucent consciousness. It was an awareness that might be akin to the state of mind a person feels during the emergence from the sedation delivered during a medical procedure, like a colonoscopy. My thoughts about varying types or degrees of consciousness are new this morning; they did not occur last night, during the experiences of semi-wakefulness.

And my thoughts on the matter are, in all probability, completely useless. Remembering my sleeplessness and my state of mind accomplishes nothing. What possible value might there be in focusing one’s attention on how one felt—or thinks he felt—when awakened by the sounds of a late-night rainstorm?

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The deep, guttural sound of thunder echoes across the sky and rattles the ground this morning. Looking upward from my study window, I see small, dim grey clots of sky beyond the tree-cover. When morning climbs out of the depths of night to find grey skies, rain, and growling claps of thunder, the rest of the day takes on an unusual appeal. Rather than looking forward to walking out side to soak in the light of bright blue skies, I look forward to feeling safe and dry and warm, a membrane of glass between me and the the onslaught of…something. Weird, I think. As if I feel some form of communication between us—us being me and my assignment of anthropomorphic attributes to the weather. I “talk” to and “listen” to weather the way I might speak in and “understand” the language of a pet dog or cat. I am not the only person who speaks to animals and expects them to respond…am I?

+++

The topic of psilocybin came up during a conversation with a friend yesterday. Both of us are curious about psychedelic, hallucinogenic effects of the stuff. We agreed we would like to experience the effects; I would want to experiment under the supervision of someone very knowledgeable about what kind(s) of mushrooms to use and how much is safe. During the conversation about what constitutes hallucinogenic effects, we came across an interesting idea. That the effects hallucinogens have on one’s visual perceptions may differ. One person, for example, might see a wild assortment of colors flowing like bubbles; another person might see limited colors and rigid, angular shapes. I am curious about those differences and what might explain them.

Mi novia and I are in the midst of watching the television series, The Good Fight (her first time, my second). A main character in the series experiments with micro-dosing (of psilocybin), which leads her to hallucinate about bizarre political newscasts, among other things. I think that show, along with another recent conversation about the topic, is what spurred my interest. But I tend to be a somewhat cautious sort, so I doubt I will experiment anytime soon. When I do, though, I hope I have company (and a knowledgeable supervisor/companion).

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Many people, especially people who belong to an identifiable minority, are very conscious of their cultural roots.  Mexicans, for example, and indigenous people we in this country have labeled “Indians.” And Blacks. And Acadians/Cajuns. And Koreans. And Syrians. And on and on. But I have always felt that my cultural identity is being written, in perpetuity, on a blank page in disappearing ink. An Anglo with uncertain genealogical lineage and no other definitive characteristic that would establish me as part of an identifiable cluster of like people. If I were extremely arrogant and full of piss and vinegar, I might assert that only the weak would surrender part of their identity just so they can say they are part of a specific demographic. People like me, I might say, are self-reliant individualists who do not use cultural affiliation as a crutch to artificially elevate our worth. Yet I am only moderately arrogant. Piss and vinegar flow in different vessels. If I could choose to belong to a “minority” with strong cultural attributes, I think I might choose “Mexican.” But, then, I would probably need to clarify by narrowing my identity by saying “Chihuahuan” or “Oaxacan” or “Jaliscan” and so on. And then, maybe even “Guadalajaran” or “Chapalan.” I could say I am an “Arkansan,” but that would be true only if residence defines me. If I said “Texan,” I would be staking my cultural identity on my birthplace. And if I said “American,” I would be saying I belong to a large, diverse population containing what seems like growing numbers of mentally vacant nationalists. I am sorry. I slipped off the path of righteousness and into a whitewater rapids of scalding sarcasm.

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Saturday. I’ve waited all week for today. And here it is.

If I removed the filters that constrain my speech, people within earshot would be shocked. Awkwardness would wash over them—and me—putting a damper on casual conversations. Some people might blush. Others might be titillated. And still others might react with anger and offense. There could be other reactions, as well. Jealousy. Longing. Flattery. Fear, perhaps? Or disappointment? Embarrassment?  Of course, there might be no reaction at all; as if my words did not sufficiently disturb the molecules of air, failing to create the vibrations we associate with sound—as if I just mouthed the words. One day, when I am alone with someone—you, perhaps—I will speak my mind. Jointly and simultaneously, we will experience whatever shock my words could cause.

+++

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

~ Dante Alighieri ~

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As offensive as capitalism often is, the excitement and allure of the economic system can be intoxicating, as well. Years ago, I spent quite a bit of my free time “playing” with very small stock market investments. I relied heavily on Morningstar to learn how to assess a stock’s short-term and long-term potential. Because my investments were so small, even highly lucrative stock plays yielded little in absolute terms; a 100% increase in the value of a $100 investment does not constitute the accumulation of wealth. With such miniscule investments, the wrong buy and sell decisions could erase weeks or months of stock value. And that reality is what steered me away from investments in individual stocks. Over time, I lost too much of what I had won to convince me the allure was worth the risk. But I never completely lost my appetite for investment research. I still explore potential investments in stocks from time to time. Yesterday, for example, I spent a good hour or two reading financial analysts’ assessments of various company stocks, after which I employed my very rusty analytical skills, in an attempt to identify stocks with significant upside potential and only modest downside risk. But I did not invest in any stocks in response to my efforts. Not yet, anyway. Between yesterday’s foray into naked capitalism and this morning, I have almost decided to treat my interest in investing the same way some people (including me) treat gambling: give myself permission to establish an initial investment fund of up to a certain amount (for the sake of argument, I’ll say $10,000) and limit my losses to no more than that initial investment. So, the sky’s the limit in terms of investment returns, but if the investments do not pan out, the most I could lose would be that original amount. I’ve almost decided. But not quite yet. I want to remove more of the rust from my memories and my strategies. Only then will I be willing to give myself permission to invest and, in the worst case scenario, lose every penny of a limited investment pool. We shall see how it goes. In the interim, I will watch some stocks:

ASML, the predominant supplier of photolithography equipment for semiconductor manufacturers, has been identified by Morningstar analysts as one of 33 undervalued stocks that hold promise for the second quarter of this year. But it is not cheap; not by any stretch. It closed yesterday at $629.24. It’s 365-day price has ranged between $363.15 and $683.69. And the analysts give it a fair value estimate of $760. If a person were to buy 100 shares (a $6,292.40 investment at yesterday’s close) and if the stock reached its fair value estimate of $760 in one year’s time, the investment would reach $7,600, an increase in absolute value of $1,307.60. That’s a nice jump, but it is not enough of an increase to keep food on the table. Serious investors might need to buy 1000 shares of the stock at yesterday’s market price to make the investment’s payoff worth the risk. An investment of roughly $692,000 might yield a return, if the stock were to reach its fair value estimate, of $130,760.

Suddenly, the amount of money (and the risks associated with it) necessary to achieve a “significant” return seems out of reach. Even if it were within reach, I cannot imagine myself accepting such an enormous—in absolute numbers—risk.  Perhaps that is why it has been such a long time since I played the stock market. I am more risk-averse than I once was. And I am more risk-averse than I want to be. Yet I prefer safety and comfort to starvation and insolvency. For now, anyway.

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Silence is a true friend who never betrays.

~ Confucius ~

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Phaedra woke me this morning. When I did not get up immediately, she went into the bathroom and knocked an orchid off a table, littering the floor with potting soil and arrogance. Had I been in a different state of mind, I might have decapitated the cat and placed its severed head on a post in front of my office window. Fortunately, I was cool. I maintained my serenity. I stayed calm. Phaedra will live to yowl another day.

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I have a craving for something, but I can’t put my finger on it. Taste is difficult to explain; it is especially tough to explain taste to a person born without a tongue.