I did not feel the need to write a blog post yesterday. So I did not. I may opt to skip a day or two or three or…whatever…more frequently in the coming weeks and months. The satisfaction I get out of writing seems to be receding. The occasional comment on a post adds a little interest, but comments are so rare that they are insufficient to sustain me. Besides, I am getting tired of forcing myself to think about what to write. Lately, I sometimes have had to force myself; in the past, words spilled from the tips of my fingers like water from an open spigot. I will not commit, either way. “Obligations” I impose on myself are not necessary to my happiness. In fact, unnecessary obligations tend to cause stress or anxiety or other mental distresses. Removing them might relax my tightly-wound mind. Tranquilo. Tranquilo.
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Sacredness lies somewhere between mindless faith—which gives irrational credence to the absurd—and steadfast skepticism—which refuses to acknowledge the impossibility of understanding the mysteries of existence. Sacredness mistakenly is linked to religious belief when, in fact, it is more closely aligned with secular awe. Dictionary definitions to the contrary be damned; the concept of sacredness is reverential appreciation for the intersection between the unknowable and the profoundly understood. Viewed from another perspective, sacredness exists at the point where light and darkness meet; where understanding and immutable ignorance share the same space and time and meaning. Sacredness and profanity are one and the same, yet they conflict with one another at their confluence; the same place their merger rebels with itself.
I can do without church. In any form. But I need a place to feel safely sacred and profane. That place may be a “room” in my brain, where I keep mysteries safely tucked away. Or it may be in the dialogue I have with a “mind-mate,” someone who shares a willingness to explore with curiosity certain unanswerable questions. Questions that may seem mystical to the casual observer but, to us, are simply unknowable. That safe place can change from moment to moment. Therefore, any “safe” refuge is temporary. Undependable. Unreliable. So, safety cannot be guaranteed. But sacredness, no matter what form it takes, is permanent. Yet it can be transitory, too. Like light and darkness. Like understanding and ignorance. Like conflict and harmony. Logic tells us these opposites cannot exist in the same place at the same time. Sacredness, then, is like Schrödinger’s cat. And so are we all. We experience profound changes in ourselves, yet we eternally remain who we are and who always we have been.
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Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~
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Monday, mi novia and I drove to Bentonville, Arkansas, where we visited Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Our visit had two objectives: to experience the current special exhibition entitled, Diego Rivera’s America, and to see Cheech Marin in conversation with Max Durón about Marin’s collection of Chicano art and his museum—The Cheech, also known as the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum. Both experiences were interesting, enlightening, and very satisfying. We stayed overnight in Bentonville and drove back home yesterday morning. I am glad to have been to Crystal Bridges several times in its relatively early life, before the current building boom turns Bentonville and Rogers and the towns and villages around them into a large, crowded collection of “too much.” Urban growth, even when managed well, leads to congestion. Developers change the character of places they develop, a fact exhibited clearly in and around Bentonville. As attractive as the area is today, I suspect I would find it unappealing in the extreme in short order, were I to live there. Its growth is too rapid and too endless; developers and ambitious municipal leaders and managers never incorporate ways to brake growth. They watch helplessly as the attractiveness of “new” becomes the choking, clogging suffocation of “too late.” In spite of the loneliness and isolation that might accompany life on a 2000-acre retreat, I would fine it far more appealing and much more satisfying than drowning in urban sprawl. Yet I was enamored of Chicago when I lived there. And I enjoyed the boundless opportunities afforded me when I lived in Dallas. But over time, I have become far more interested in space and emptiness. If I could surround myself with a handful of carefully-selected people, and live a remote life with easy (yet distant) access to urban amenities but absent urban unpleasantness, I would do just that.
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The bank where I do most of my banking business seems to be doing its best to cause me to take my business elsewhere. The bank’s efforts in that arena are focused, for the moment, on making transfers to other financial institutions as difficult and time-consuming and error-laden as possible. Today, I will call the local bank manager to express my displeasure. I do not hold out much hope for satisfactory resolution, though, because “bank policy” seems far more important to the bank than does “satisfying customers.” Pulling out of the bank, if I should opt to go that route, will be more than a little hassle. It would involve changing all of my automatic deposits (Social Security, tax refunds, etc.) and my automatic payments (credit card bills, homeowners’ association dues, etc., etc.), which in my experience is something of a hit-and-miss proposition. But the hassle may be worth the effort and its attendant pain. Yet what is my assurance that another bank would be better? Every institution has its unique foibles; might my bank’s foibles be easier to deal with than those of another institution? Hard to say. But I just may find out. We shall see.
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Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.
~ Bill Gates ~
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I should remember Gates’ words whenever I find myself concerned that someone might “steal” an idea from me. Nothing belongs to me. Not even my own thoughts. Everything is simply recycled. Even if I were to conjure a unique thought, its newness would wear off before the thought found an audience of one. We simply rearrange atoms to form “new” molecules. But the molecules are not really new. They simply represent different ways to understand reality.
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Yesterday was not a good day for my retirement assets. Their collective drop in value was significant to me, yet I try not fret about it. Wealth and poverty are cyclical. At least wealth is. I would like to think poverty is cyclical, too; just a temporary low point on a sphere that moves like a frenetic gyroscope, changing the orientation of its rotation a degree at a time. I am curious to know whether an absolutely equal distribution of the planet’s total wealth would lead to universal financial security. There’s only one way to find out: a global revolution pitting the ultra-rich against the rest of us. I have been toying with the idea of taking $10K out of my retirement assets to use as the foundation for moderately high-risk, high-return investments. Knowing I might lose every penny of it must not dissuade me from the experience. Using $5K to invest is unlikely to lead to an investment fortune. But buying $5K worth of an inexpensive stock has some modest potential for satisfying the financial glutton and risk-taker in me. So, I may do something like that. I suspect I could enjoy being a day trader, behaving as if my full-time job was to trade stocks with the objective of maximizing my net worth and minimizing untoward risk. Hmmm. Time to mull this over…over another cup of coffee.
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To anyone reading this post, I wish you a wonderful day. And that goes for those who do not see these words, as well.
