It has to be said, again and again, if for no other reason than how fucking true it is, that there is nothing in life that I can think of which could compare to waking up on a weekend morning to find oneself wrapped round in the arms of a lover. The warmth, the closeness, the drowsiness, all the kindly characteristics of a morning's bed, plus all the cuddling potential and earthy delight of another body and smiling face to see in the beginnings of your day.
How much more so if the day in question be Christmas, and Christmas be a day you don't despise. As for me, I do despise Christmas, normally, but for one reason or another this Christmas left me feeling minorly . . . Christmasy.
On Christmas eve I and Oyku went out to dinner with a small gathering of work friends of mine, and we had a lovely dinner-and-drinks time of it. The atmosphere was great, the people were awesome, the food was fantastic . . . the only thing that could have been improved upon might be the prices, and I am only recently mature enough to realize that if all the other factors are fine, 'twould be idiocy to ruin such a rare time with worry concerning pecuniary particulars.
We even had a bit of salacious gossip to talk about, given that the night before last had been a workplace holiday party which resulted in a largish number of tipsy people corralled on a bus home at midnight, during which trip someone in the front, (thank heavens not from our department,) vomited all over himself, and then passed out (classy!!) after covering his vomit-covered self with his suit jacket, (true class = sparing others the sight of your vomit, by sacrificing your suit jacket to it,) and a simultaneously-conducted minor dispute over the degree to which it is socially acceptable for drunken middle-aged gay men who suffer from Aspergers to repeatedly make sexualized comments (and noises) to straight Turkish men 20 years their junior in front of their wives, (and a bus-load of their colleagues.)
As it happened, I was the one who asked the man in question if perhaps he was being obnoxious. He acknowledged that he was indeed being obnoxious, but then, as drunk people often do, decided to double-down on the situation, and loudly enquired why it was that straight men liked to see lesbians when watching porn, but not gays, as two vaginas together was ok, but seeing two cocks together was not. I expressed the view that our personal-porn preferences didn't really require discussion in front of a busload of our colleagues. This did not, however, serve to dissuade him, as he continued to rail against the injustice of it, and how intolerant people "need to realize this is the 21st century!"
He then told me I was known as a Don Juan, and asked why it was that if I saw a girl, I might tell her she had nice breasts, but he couldn't tell a boy he found him attractive. I was briefly at a loss for how to respond to any of this, belatedly realizing that I was apparently ill-informed of work-place mores in the 21st century, and had been displaying far too much restraint in neglecting to comment freely on the breasts of the young ladies around me. Feeling some shame at how out-of-touch I seem to have become, I could only muster the pathetic answer that He would have to excuse me, as I for one simply didn't feel comfortable commenting on a woman's breasts until at least the fourth email. This brought some snickers from the assembled gallery, and I overheard a comment from one colleague that they were glad to finally learn the accepted time to bring that up.
I was then queried pugnaciously on how I would react if a gay man came up and flirted with me, at which point a gay colleague from the back spoke up to say that he flirted with me nearly daily, and would recommend it. I said I thought everyone had the right to flirt, but that perhaps flirting ought to begin with some nice comments about John Hurt's performance in "Krapp's Last Tape," or something about Andrew Lloyd Webber, or have you read any of so-and-so. I mean - must we jump immediately to making small moaning noises and commenting on the skin-tone of our intended fun-bun? I mean, a little bit of taste, subtlety, and class might let one play the flirt-fun game a lot longer and . . . more effectively . . . than overtly sexualized comments directed toward someone who you had met 3 times before, in the presence of his wife.
In any case - the bus having arrived at my neighborhood, I took my leave and with my friend and companion to the dinner, (a certain Finbar - a fine Irish-American lad,)wandered up the hill and home.
The next day, in a fit of uncertainty regarding how the previous evening had occurred, I apologized to a couple of the nearest spectators, if I had in any way caused them discomfort. They responded that A. it was fun, B. it was a bit weird, but maybe necessary, C. they didn't enjoy it, but I only said what everyone else was thinking. So I felt . . . relieved.
I found out two days later at the Christmas eve dinner that after I exited the bus he began more vigorously voicing negative viewpoints of my self and character, until one of those nearby told him that to say such things now was cowardly, and they didn't want to hear any more about it, and such things should be said to a person's face, not in their absence. I still don't know precisely what was said, as I only ascertained that nothing had been said that would possibly impact on me professionally - I was assured it was all of a personal and subjective nature, and so found myself quite happy to let it all go.
So, after catching up on gossip, and a smashing Christmas eve dinner, and good conversation, followed by a good sleep, I woke in Oyku's arms. After a good half-hour of drifting to the edge of sleep and back again, I wormed from under her arm and out of bed, and went to the kitchen and made coffee. Then I opened the trap door in the ceiling that leads through to the roof. Taking a red fleece blanket, I plucked some red fibers, and rubbed them into the wood grain along the edge of the trapdoor opening till they hung down like a small patch of fine red hairs. I then took a boot and wet the sole so that, pressing it down on the table beneath the trapdoor it left a distinct print. Then I took Oyku's present, and hid it under the leaves of the largest potted plant, which is the size of a small tree.
I woke her with urgency, telling her this had never happened before, and to come quickly. I showed her where someone had broken into the house, and left red fibers there - which must have meant they were wearing a red jacket, and there was even a bootprint! She opined in amazement that we must call the police, and I agreed, but then I gasped in surprise to discover that . . . the intruder had left a present for her. A look of uncomprehension possibly unmatched in modern times was soon followed by a smile of epic proportions and big hugs.
After unwrapping the present, we went back to bed and watched Baz Luhrman's "Romeo and Juliet." It is a movie I am fond of - more for stylistic reasons than anything literary - though I do enjoy the turns of certain phrases.
That afternoon we went to a piano concert in the grand bazaar, and mocked the piano-player's grandiose gestures to the crowd, and had a lovely time amongst the mountains of free snacks they were handing out - it was a cold day, and a lovely one. I don't know of another Christmas I have enjoyed quite as much as this one.
This scrooge, this Christmas, says "Bah-Hah!" And may God bless us, each and every one.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The fraying of the soul
Frankly, for all my wahooting about how utterly fucking lovely my fucking life is, I must also say that on some winter days I find myself followed by a vague sense of dread – a feeling that something is pending im and I won’t know what until it whomps me. Like maybe my job is about to be pulled out from under me due to my own fantastically audacious ineptitude, or my bank account is going to run dry, or the police . . . fuck, I don’t know. I just feel some days as though something is waiting in the wings for me and will descend on my head and all I’ll be able to say is . . . “I really should have seen that coming.”
Perhaps it is winter. Perhaps it is the antidepressants fucking with me. Perhaps it is . . . the sense that something is slowly grinding on in my soul till one day I will find a hole that will fray from the inside till only tatters are left to go down to the grave with.
It’s like tooth decay, but less painful an ache – and on most days I don’t even know or care or am less aware of what it is that lies inside along the length of my soul’s spine.
I no longer wear a harness on my heart, and my mind aches for it at times, especially when the lather rises and foam gathers along the edge of the saddle for the endless running and running that my mind must do after all that it sees and the desires it needs and for that I don’t trust it because this horse will itself kill in running as it has no more sense than that.
Perhaps it is winter. Perhaps it is the antidepressants fucking with me. Perhaps it is . . . the sense that something is slowly grinding on in my soul till one day I will find a hole that will fray from the inside till only tatters are left to go down to the grave with.
It’s like tooth decay, but less painful an ache – and on most days I don’t even know or care or am less aware of what it is that lies inside along the length of my soul’s spine.
I no longer wear a harness on my heart, and my mind aches for it at times, especially when the lather rises and foam gathers along the edge of the saddle for the endless running and running that my mind must do after all that it sees and the desires it needs and for that I don’t trust it because this horse will itself kill in running as it has no more sense than that.
I am not my brother's keeper, as much as my society's servant.
My dreams these days come fast and thick, I know not why now or this. I see symbols in them at every turn. There are many keys and doors and windows and climbing and being trapped and fears of falling and narrow bridges and vertigo. Much of the characters and events which appear have direct correlations to events and personages in my real life, but so much of it is obviously symbolic that I have to conclude my mind is working on some issue about which it does not wish me to be fully informed.
Perhaps in time it will let me in on its little secrets.
These days I swing between knowing that my life is the finest of all possible outcomes, and I am most fortunate among men, and knowing that I am slowly failing myself, slowly losing a race with time, and slowly chronicling my own decline. I in no way exaggerate to say much of my day is occupied with contemplating what brings meaning to life, what despair actually indicates, and to what degree happiness or fulfilment are simply the off-spring of comforting, necessary delusion.
I come back to what I said before: Pain and all its precursors on the spectrum are the only true indicators of evil. Happiness or pleasure or fulfilment and all their cousins are the only measure for good. Pain or discomfort accepted as one’s allotted portion in service of reducing the pain or discomfort of larger society is duty. Pain undertaken in service of later greater happiness is virtue.
I would never disagree with Tolstoy – but while every happy family may be the same, what makes every individual happy certainly varies, and while every unhappy family may be unique in its pain, on the individual level, I think pain is very much the same. As such, our society could never hope to offer happiness to its members – but pain, it seems to me, being universal in nature, can be minimized. Thus, the society that seeks to limit the pain of its members is a society that actively attempts to minimize and neutralize the evil that afflicts its members, and this is a good society.
Especially considering that society is a conglomeration of individuals who act to some degree in concert in order to meet one another’s needs, the foundational purpose of society is the accomplishment of shared ends. So I believe that society exists to accomplish goals held in common, and the good society has, as one of those goals, the reduction of pain and discomfort to its members. As such, the society that does not serve the purpose of assisting the widest possible range of its constituting members in accomplishing their goals is a society which has begun to lose its raison d’etre, and thus, its legitimacy. In other words, society owes assistance to its constituent members.
But if society owes a degree of benefaction to individuals, do individuals owe anything to either society, or each other? Assuming the value of reciprocity, individuals owe society in the degree that they have benefitted from it. The contributions of individuals toward shared ends being what creates society, the contributions of individuals is what makes society indebted to individuals in turn for its creation. As such, since it is because of the contributions of individuals that society owes assistance to individuals, and it is because of the benefaction bestowed on them by society that individuals in turn owe society their allegiance, their attention, their time and their wealth, (in short, their resources,) we can see that we have a relationship of a clear reciprocal nature: to the degree that society provides to minimize your pain, discomfort and inconvenience, you have incurred a debt to it. The less benefit society provides to you, the lesser you need support it with your care and goods.
But if society owes individuals, and individuals owe society in related degree, does any individual owe any degree of consideration to another individual? Again, assuming the inherent validity of reciprocity, on the same reasoning, individual A owes individual B personal consideration only to the degree that B’s actions as an individual benefit A.
Thus, it seems to me, that the bond between individual members of society fast approaches nil, except insofar as they make a conscious effort to counteract this process by actively currying favor with each other by means of gifts, or acts of kindness. Simultaneously, in a developed country, the bond between a given individual and society grows stronger, as it is largely via the means of the societally maintained network of relationships that our needs are met.
Let us take an example from the office water cooler, which appeared here mysteriously 3 weeks ago, and from which I draw water. What do I owe the man who labors to bring the water up the office steps, to make it easily available to me? The short answer is nothing, except that I do not unduly hinder him in his task, or make his life unnecessarily difficult. I owe him nothing precisely because he does not undertake this work in order to benefit me. He undertakes this task to the benefit of the bottled water company, who benefit from his labor, as he benefits from being paid by them. Therefore, since the benefit accrued to me did not result from labor undertaken with the aim of benefitting me I owe him nothing. More to the point, since the benefit accrued to me is incidental to my actual presence in this room, it incurs no debt on my part.
On the other hand, the water (the benefit accrued to me,) is present in this room due to the good offices of society, which is to say the arrangement via which roads are built, (along which water bottles may be transported,) hand-carts are manufactured, (the better for carrying multiple bottles,) contracts are upheld by the law, and people are duly paid or fired, depending on whether or not water is punctually delivered. Thus while my personal debt to the individual whose action benefits me is minimal, my debt to society grows ever larger, for it is via the good offices of society, not individuals, that my needs are met, and my discomfort is minimized.
This situation reverses itself in the undeveloped countries.
Perhaps in time it will let me in on its little secrets.
These days I swing between knowing that my life is the finest of all possible outcomes, and I am most fortunate among men, and knowing that I am slowly failing myself, slowly losing a race with time, and slowly chronicling my own decline. I in no way exaggerate to say much of my day is occupied with contemplating what brings meaning to life, what despair actually indicates, and to what degree happiness or fulfilment are simply the off-spring of comforting, necessary delusion.
I come back to what I said before: Pain and all its precursors on the spectrum are the only true indicators of evil. Happiness or pleasure or fulfilment and all their cousins are the only measure for good. Pain or discomfort accepted as one’s allotted portion in service of reducing the pain or discomfort of larger society is duty. Pain undertaken in service of later greater happiness is virtue.
I would never disagree with Tolstoy – but while every happy family may be the same, what makes every individual happy certainly varies, and while every unhappy family may be unique in its pain, on the individual level, I think pain is very much the same. As such, our society could never hope to offer happiness to its members – but pain, it seems to me, being universal in nature, can be minimized. Thus, the society that seeks to limit the pain of its members is a society that actively attempts to minimize and neutralize the evil that afflicts its members, and this is a good society.
Especially considering that society is a conglomeration of individuals who act to some degree in concert in order to meet one another’s needs, the foundational purpose of society is the accomplishment of shared ends. So I believe that society exists to accomplish goals held in common, and the good society has, as one of those goals, the reduction of pain and discomfort to its members. As such, the society that does not serve the purpose of assisting the widest possible range of its constituting members in accomplishing their goals is a society which has begun to lose its raison d’etre, and thus, its legitimacy. In other words, society owes assistance to its constituent members.
But if society owes a degree of benefaction to individuals, do individuals owe anything to either society, or each other? Assuming the value of reciprocity, individuals owe society in the degree that they have benefitted from it. The contributions of individuals toward shared ends being what creates society, the contributions of individuals is what makes society indebted to individuals in turn for its creation. As such, since it is because of the contributions of individuals that society owes assistance to individuals, and it is because of the benefaction bestowed on them by society that individuals in turn owe society their allegiance, their attention, their time and their wealth, (in short, their resources,) we can see that we have a relationship of a clear reciprocal nature: to the degree that society provides to minimize your pain, discomfort and inconvenience, you have incurred a debt to it. The less benefit society provides to you, the lesser you need support it with your care and goods.
But if society owes individuals, and individuals owe society in related degree, does any individual owe any degree of consideration to another individual? Again, assuming the inherent validity of reciprocity, on the same reasoning, individual A owes individual B personal consideration only to the degree that B’s actions as an individual benefit A.
Thus, it seems to me, that the bond between individual members of society fast approaches nil, except insofar as they make a conscious effort to counteract this process by actively currying favor with each other by means of gifts, or acts of kindness. Simultaneously, in a developed country, the bond between a given individual and society grows stronger, as it is largely via the means of the societally maintained network of relationships that our needs are met.
Let us take an example from the office water cooler, which appeared here mysteriously 3 weeks ago, and from which I draw water. What do I owe the man who labors to bring the water up the office steps, to make it easily available to me? The short answer is nothing, except that I do not unduly hinder him in his task, or make his life unnecessarily difficult. I owe him nothing precisely because he does not undertake this work in order to benefit me. He undertakes this task to the benefit of the bottled water company, who benefit from his labor, as he benefits from being paid by them. Therefore, since the benefit accrued to me did not result from labor undertaken with the aim of benefitting me I owe him nothing. More to the point, since the benefit accrued to me is incidental to my actual presence in this room, it incurs no debt on my part.
On the other hand, the water (the benefit accrued to me,) is present in this room due to the good offices of society, which is to say the arrangement via which roads are built, (along which water bottles may be transported,) hand-carts are manufactured, (the better for carrying multiple bottles,) contracts are upheld by the law, and people are duly paid or fired, depending on whether or not water is punctually delivered. Thus while my personal debt to the individual whose action benefits me is minimal, my debt to society grows ever larger, for it is via the good offices of society, not individuals, that my needs are met, and my discomfort is minimized.
This situation reverses itself in the undeveloped countries.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Intrinsic values are basic.
I stumbled across a video today, which set “materialism” in contrast to “inherent values.” The narrator spoke casually of the need for us, as individuals, to pursue our “inherent values,” which made me realize that I, 1. Didn’t know what mine were, (I do have some, right?) and, 2. Had no idea what options I could select from. (I assume that someone has made a menu-list of inherent values I can choose from – if not, it’s going to seriously undercut my already low opinion of humanity.)
So, as when addressing all other questions of great potential import, I turned to wikipedia. Sure enough, someone had indeed made a menu, and you could even select individual values, or combo meals, which pleased me to no end, as I think it is best to get good value for your values.
What follows is a list of "Life stances and other views," and their "Main intrinsic values"
Nihilism - None
Humanism - human flourishing
Hedonism - pleasure
Eudaemonism - happiness
Utilitarianism - utility (although this is often synonymous with pleasure or happiness)
Rational Deontologism - virtue or duty
Rational Eudæmonism, or tempered Deontologism - both virtue and happiness combined
Emptiness - nothing possesses essential, enduring identity
Situational Ethics - love
Buddhism - Enlightenment
So how you like them apples? A chart from which to choose, and a few considerations upon which to deliberate, and I ought to have my own fast-food-philosophy ready to hand out the drive-thru window in no time.
Considerations: Shall we have one single value around which we center our philosophy, or multiple? Obviously the advantage of having a singular focus is that it would be easier to keep one’s eye on the target, and easier to argue other things around. However, having multiple inherent values allows us the balance them against each other, (which could be a lot of fun,) and just sounds more reasonable.
Casting my eyes back over that last sentence, I realize that I just held up “fun” and “reasonable” as two inherent values. Which, given that “fun” and “reasonable” are two rather different things, pretty much settles the question in favor of multiple values.
What follows are my thoughts on these . . . values . . .
Nihilism - None - “That must be exhausting.”
Humanism - human flourishing - That sounds like a good thing. I mean, it would correlate with conditions which would be more pleasant to live in, right? More dental care and less blowflies?
Hedonism - pleasure - I think the preceding rationale for humanism appealed to pleasure, didn’t it? (Or at least a lack of unpleasantness.) So have to go with Yes.
Eudaemonism - happiness - Uhm – as far as absence of pain, and presence of contentment/satisfaction/fulfillment, (ie, happiness,) go, I think those are the things by which we distinguish what is evil from what is good, right?
Utilitarianism - utility (often synonymous with pleasure or happiness)
I agree with the parenthetical bit – sounds like an argument for happiness; albeit for the greatest number, of course.
Rational Deontologism - virtue or duty - Ok – but duty TO WHAT? To the state? To one’s family? Sounds like a moving target, to me. Are virtue and duty the same? Couldn’t we have virtue which IS duty in service of good, which can be equated to happiness? In which case, duty itself would NOT be an inherent value, otherwise faithful Nazis would be virtuous.
Rational Eudæmonism, or tempered Deontologism - both virtue and happiness combined - Ok, this sounds like what I lit upon above – virtue is duty in service of promoting the general weal, which is defined as absence of pain and misery.
Emptiness - nothing possesses essential, enduring identity - I think physical pain does have an enduring identity, and is an unquestionable bad, except insofar as it serves as an investment toward a later reduction of pain and misery, the end result of which is a net loss of misery in the system. Which means that bad (pain) may be inflicted or accepted as a good, when it is a means to an end which is a good, which must by definition be the net reduction of pain. And accepting pain for these reasons would qualify as virtue.
Situational Ethics - love - UNCLEAR
Buddhism - Enlightenment - Does “enlightenment” have to be defined only in Buddhist terms? As in, liberating oneself from suffering by liberating oneself from desire? Which, honestly, I would at least half-buy into. I mean – to the degree that suffering (pain/misery) is caused by excessive desire, (which it certainly can be) then reduction of desire would be a very smart adaptation to avoid causing oneself suffering. So – yeah – I’m not sure I buy into it as an INTRINSIC value, but it certainly does have value.
I notice that nowhere here is “Knowledge” or “Wisdom” mentioned. Could knowledge be an intrinsic value? Is wisdom simply the knowledge of how to align oneself with the universe so as to minimize friction (pain and unpleasantness,) and maximize harmony, (KY Jelly and full belly?)
Just ran across this line in Wikipedia:
Nicholas Maxwell, a contemporary philosopher, advocates that academia ought to alter its focus from the acquisition of knowledge to seeking and promoting wisdom, which he defines as the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others.”
Which pretty much sums up what I am doing at this very moment – attempting to identify what is of value in life.
Oooh, and check this out: “Researchers in the field of positive psychology have defined wisdom as the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and "its deliberate use to improve well being."
This echoes what I said, in that the knowledge is used as means to improve well being.
How interesting that for all our society’s nattering on about the importance of freedom, it isn’t listed (on this menu, at least,) as an inherent value.
So let’s begin, shall we? I value “human flourishing,” (but not too much, please!) pleasure and happiness and therefore utilitarianism, duty or virtue only when it is in service of reduction of pain and increasing of happiness, enlightenment insofar as it supports a rational choice to amend one’s worldview to decrease suffering, and the acquisition of Wisdom and Knowledge for those ends, or for their own sakes.
Thus I am left with this: I support as intrinsic values the absence of pain, and promotion of happiness.
The acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, utilitarianism, duty and virtue, enlightenment, humanism, and freedom are secondary strategies which derive their value from the degree to which they promote or have the potential to promote, the first and primary, instrinsic values.
Knowledge and Wisdom contribute to being able to align oneself with the greater forces at work in reality, so as to promote comfort and preclude pain, much as a wind-vane aligns itself with the wind, to reduce friction. From Wikipedia: “A wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results, and doesn’t do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results"
Enlightenment is the ability to consciously choose to reduce one’s own suffering, (or that of others,) by diminishing unreasonable desire, and thus consists of a sub-category of wisdom.
Utilitarianism contributes to being able to calculate a balance between what promotes pleasure for one group, by necessitating discomfort to another.
Duty consists of the degree of personal pain, inconvenience or discomfort that is our personal lot, by the undertaking of which we would make our contribution toward minimizing the overall amount of pain in the system. Again: “A wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results, and doesn’t do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results “
Virtue consists of willingly accepting your assigned portion, or even voluntarily taking on a greater amount of pain, inconvenience or discomfort, thus contributing toward a reduction in overall misery experienced by others.
“Humanism” seems to me a problematic concept, as it seems to imply at least 3 distinct meanings.
1. That human well-being is the core good which defines the others
2. Human well-being is to be favored over the well-being of other organisms, or even ecosystems.
3. Human well-being is the true measure of good, as opposed to the adherence to a code of religiously-based precepts.
I have delineated those above so that I could better address them.
First, I do believe that both one and two are correct, insofar as I would typically favor the needs of a human being over the needs of another organism. I am leery of this position, however, in that we should be somewhat suspicious of our beliefs, methods and motives anytime we find ourselves to be too conveniently served by the outcome.
Secondly, it is in the nature of humans, and of the world, that many if not most actions taken seem to contain within themselves the seed of their own eventual reversal, so it is that if human well-being is favored over that of ecosystems, or large numbers of organisms, soon human well-being itself is threatened by the direct results of the very actions that were taken in favor of this same human well-being.
As such, though I do, in every way except the practical, agree that human needs should be prioritized over those of other species, at a practical level this could be disastrous, as the human need to consume and reproduce in order to experience a sense of well-being may result in an overall degradation of the very systems upon which humans are dependent for their sense of well-being.
As regards number three, I fear that human well-being, difficult though it may be, is so many orders of magnitude easier to either achieve or quantify than it would be to judge between the possibly contradictory demands of competing supernatural beings, that I am afraid religiously-based precepts can only be justifiably adhered to on any level wider than that of the private individual insofar as these precepts serve to promote human well-being.
Thus, I can only be said to favor humanism insomuch as it identifies itself as secular, and maintains a forward-looking, anticipatory view toward possibly counter-productive results of the human-favoring stances it adopts.
Finally Freedom is valuable in that it allows each of us to determine for ourselves what will most serve to promote human happiness and alleviate misery, which operates on the assumption that an aggregate of individuals will better (ie, more accurately and more effectively) give voice to their collective concerns than any point of perception or vocalization emerging from or based in a singular entity.
So, as when addressing all other questions of great potential import, I turned to wikipedia. Sure enough, someone had indeed made a menu, and you could even select individual values, or combo meals, which pleased me to no end, as I think it is best to get good value for your values.
What follows is a list of "Life stances and other views," and their "Main intrinsic values"
Nihilism - None
Humanism - human flourishing
Hedonism - pleasure
Eudaemonism - happiness
Utilitarianism - utility (although this is often synonymous with pleasure or happiness)
Rational Deontologism - virtue or duty
Rational Eudæmonism, or tempered Deontologism - both virtue and happiness combined
Emptiness - nothing possesses essential, enduring identity
Situational Ethics - love
Buddhism - Enlightenment
So how you like them apples? A chart from which to choose, and a few considerations upon which to deliberate, and I ought to have my own fast-food-philosophy ready to hand out the drive-thru window in no time.
Considerations: Shall we have one single value around which we center our philosophy, or multiple? Obviously the advantage of having a singular focus is that it would be easier to keep one’s eye on the target, and easier to argue other things around. However, having multiple inherent values allows us the balance them against each other, (which could be a lot of fun,) and just sounds more reasonable.
Casting my eyes back over that last sentence, I realize that I just held up “fun” and “reasonable” as two inherent values. Which, given that “fun” and “reasonable” are two rather different things, pretty much settles the question in favor of multiple values.
What follows are my thoughts on these . . . values . . .
Nihilism - None - “That must be exhausting.”
Humanism - human flourishing - That sounds like a good thing. I mean, it would correlate with conditions which would be more pleasant to live in, right? More dental care and less blowflies?
Hedonism - pleasure - I think the preceding rationale for humanism appealed to pleasure, didn’t it? (Or at least a lack of unpleasantness.) So have to go with Yes.
Eudaemonism - happiness - Uhm – as far as absence of pain, and presence of contentment/satisfaction/fulfillment, (ie, happiness,) go, I think those are the things by which we distinguish what is evil from what is good, right?
Utilitarianism - utility (often synonymous with pleasure or happiness)
I agree with the parenthetical bit – sounds like an argument for happiness; albeit for the greatest number, of course.
Rational Deontologism - virtue or duty - Ok – but duty TO WHAT? To the state? To one’s family? Sounds like a moving target, to me. Are virtue and duty the same? Couldn’t we have virtue which IS duty in service of good, which can be equated to happiness? In which case, duty itself would NOT be an inherent value, otherwise faithful Nazis would be virtuous.
Rational Eudæmonism, or tempered Deontologism - both virtue and happiness combined - Ok, this sounds like what I lit upon above – virtue is duty in service of promoting the general weal, which is defined as absence of pain and misery.
Emptiness - nothing possesses essential, enduring identity - I think physical pain does have an enduring identity, and is an unquestionable bad, except insofar as it serves as an investment toward a later reduction of pain and misery, the end result of which is a net loss of misery in the system. Which means that bad (pain) may be inflicted or accepted as a good, when it is a means to an end which is a good, which must by definition be the net reduction of pain. And accepting pain for these reasons would qualify as virtue.
Situational Ethics - love - UNCLEAR
Buddhism - Enlightenment - Does “enlightenment” have to be defined only in Buddhist terms? As in, liberating oneself from suffering by liberating oneself from desire? Which, honestly, I would at least half-buy into. I mean – to the degree that suffering (pain/misery) is caused by excessive desire, (which it certainly can be) then reduction of desire would be a very smart adaptation to avoid causing oneself suffering. So – yeah – I’m not sure I buy into it as an INTRINSIC value, but it certainly does have value.
I notice that nowhere here is “Knowledge” or “Wisdom” mentioned. Could knowledge be an intrinsic value? Is wisdom simply the knowledge of how to align oneself with the universe so as to minimize friction (pain and unpleasantness,) and maximize harmony, (KY Jelly and full belly?)
Just ran across this line in Wikipedia:
Nicholas Maxwell, a contemporary philosopher, advocates that academia ought to alter its focus from the acquisition of knowledge to seeking and promoting wisdom, which he defines as the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others.”
Which pretty much sums up what I am doing at this very moment – attempting to identify what is of value in life.
Oooh, and check this out: “Researchers in the field of positive psychology have defined wisdom as the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and "its deliberate use to improve well being."
This echoes what I said, in that the knowledge is used as means to improve well being.
How interesting that for all our society’s nattering on about the importance of freedom, it isn’t listed (on this menu, at least,) as an inherent value.
So let’s begin, shall we? I value “human flourishing,” (but not too much, please!) pleasure and happiness and therefore utilitarianism, duty or virtue only when it is in service of reduction of pain and increasing of happiness, enlightenment insofar as it supports a rational choice to amend one’s worldview to decrease suffering, and the acquisition of Wisdom and Knowledge for those ends, or for their own sakes.
Thus I am left with this: I support as intrinsic values the absence of pain, and promotion of happiness.
The acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, utilitarianism, duty and virtue, enlightenment, humanism, and freedom are secondary strategies which derive their value from the degree to which they promote or have the potential to promote, the first and primary, instrinsic values.
Knowledge and Wisdom contribute to being able to align oneself with the greater forces at work in reality, so as to promote comfort and preclude pain, much as a wind-vane aligns itself with the wind, to reduce friction. From Wikipedia: “A wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results, and doesn’t do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results"
Enlightenment is the ability to consciously choose to reduce one’s own suffering, (or that of others,) by diminishing unreasonable desire, and thus consists of a sub-category of wisdom.
Utilitarianism contributes to being able to calculate a balance between what promotes pleasure for one group, by necessitating discomfort to another.
Duty consists of the degree of personal pain, inconvenience or discomfort that is our personal lot, by the undertaking of which we would make our contribution toward minimizing the overall amount of pain in the system. Again: “A wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results, and doesn’t do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results “
Virtue consists of willingly accepting your assigned portion, or even voluntarily taking on a greater amount of pain, inconvenience or discomfort, thus contributing toward a reduction in overall misery experienced by others.
“Humanism” seems to me a problematic concept, as it seems to imply at least 3 distinct meanings.
1. That human well-being is the core good which defines the others
2. Human well-being is to be favored over the well-being of other organisms, or even ecosystems.
3. Human well-being is the true measure of good, as opposed to the adherence to a code of religiously-based precepts.
I have delineated those above so that I could better address them.
First, I do believe that both one and two are correct, insofar as I would typically favor the needs of a human being over the needs of another organism. I am leery of this position, however, in that we should be somewhat suspicious of our beliefs, methods and motives anytime we find ourselves to be too conveniently served by the outcome.
Secondly, it is in the nature of humans, and of the world, that many if not most actions taken seem to contain within themselves the seed of their own eventual reversal, so it is that if human well-being is favored over that of ecosystems, or large numbers of organisms, soon human well-being itself is threatened by the direct results of the very actions that were taken in favor of this same human well-being.
As such, though I do, in every way except the practical, agree that human needs should be prioritized over those of other species, at a practical level this could be disastrous, as the human need to consume and reproduce in order to experience a sense of well-being may result in an overall degradation of the very systems upon which humans are dependent for their sense of well-being.
As regards number three, I fear that human well-being, difficult though it may be, is so many orders of magnitude easier to either achieve or quantify than it would be to judge between the possibly contradictory demands of competing supernatural beings, that I am afraid religiously-based precepts can only be justifiably adhered to on any level wider than that of the private individual insofar as these precepts serve to promote human well-being.
Thus, I can only be said to favor humanism insomuch as it identifies itself as secular, and maintains a forward-looking, anticipatory view toward possibly counter-productive results of the human-favoring stances it adopts.
Finally Freedom is valuable in that it allows each of us to determine for ourselves what will most serve to promote human happiness and alleviate misery, which operates on the assumption that an aggregate of individuals will better (ie, more accurately and more effectively) give voice to their collective concerns than any point of perception or vocalization emerging from or based in a singular entity.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Opportunity cost
Dear heavens, I feel as though my throat, lungs and chest have been passed over with a cheese grater. I’m used to short, intense bursts of energy, but 30 damn minutes at about 10mph just friggin slaughtered me. I’m not sure if that is a good pace, or a wimpy pace, but it was pretty much a killer pace for me, and that’s all I really need to know.
But enough about that – right now I got a gajillion other things on my mind. Primarily: This girlfriend I have is sweet, super intelligent, really a quality person . . . but I am starting to realize that . . . it just isn’t going to last. Which should come as no surprise, really, since every relationship anyone has ever been in has ended in either a break-up or a death, and if I have to choose between the two, break-ups are much easier to explain to mutual friends. What I don’t understand is why I seem to go into every relationship thinking that this one will be “the one” in which we magically sail off into the sunset. Somehow it always catches me by surprise when I find that this girl is, in fact, not the fucking complete package – the perfect- in-every-way woman. You would think I would have learned by now that every relationship is certainly going to be flawed, (I mean, hell, I’m involved in it, so it’s bound to be fucked-up to some degree,) is going to require some work, and most likely will be, to a greater or lesser degree, temporary.
I’m ready to do the work – I know we will fight and have difficulties, but I guess I am not yet prepared to accept that every girl is most likely just a temporary stop along the way, and I cannot figure out if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It seems as though it would be taking my cynicism to new heights to just acknowledge to myself at the outset that this girl is probably just a temporary harbor from the storm, (no need to continue with the “docking” metaphor, is there?) and sooner or later I’ll be moving on. In a way I appreciate the naivete with which I approach the relationships, and the fact that I am actually looking at them for long-term potential, but maybe I am just being dishonest with myself.
On the upside, as a result of my approaching it with an eye to the long-term, I really do fall for these chicks – but perhaps that is part of the problem. Perhaps by going in “hoping for the best” I allow the swirl of emotions to cloud my judgement, and thus am taken by surprise when deal-breakers pop up. I also have to wonder to what extent I actually allow myself to fall for them because the “swirl of emotions” in me tends to have a positive effect on them – so maybe in the end it is just all cynical manipulation on my part anyway.
The previous girlfriend had a lot going for her – she was extremely sweet and caring, and very, very attached, and AMAN TANRIM did this girl get turned on when you took out a camera. Tall, good looking, amazing body (did ballet for 16 years, till she got too tall) – an ass I could stare at all day – and did, in fact. She had gorgeous silky long black hair, lived in high-heels and was always perfectly turned out: weekly manicures, waxes, whatevers, the whole 9 yards. And then she asked me if India was close to Brazil. And slowly, what emerged was the fact that her grasp of economics, philosophy, art, biology, fuck- you-name-it, if it wasn’t within her very circumscribed experience, it was a bleeding mystery to her. In fashion, style, femininity, and social charm, however, she had a fucking black-belt.
I am not sure, even at this remove, if I am being fair to her. I mean – to what degree am I cognizant of the ins and outs of office politics in the magazine publishing division of Turkish media conglomerates? Hell, to what degree am I cognizant of ANYTHING of practical value? Not much, I suppose, if we want to be honest. I guess my very circumscribed experience just happens to include an ass-load of books and articles on world politics, literature, art and history, and I (for no doubt unjustifiably self-centered reasons,) tend to favor my set of knowledge over hers. Cultural imperialism? Mebbe. Classism? Mebbe. Inevitable? ‘Fraid so.
There was, in fact, one other problematic detail – she had a disturbing habit of tracking my eyes, and making sure to register every other woman I looked at. This by itself is nothing really, but if you have ever been in a relationship with a jealous person, you start to see the signs early. And it was not long before she started asking odd questions, and poking about in a jealous manner.
So she was served notice some time ago that . . . well . . . I put it as kindly as I could . . . that I was not really in love with her. But she kept coming around, (even the most repugnant boys are difficult for a girl to get over once they have fallen for them, and I am not the most repugnant,) until I told her I had met someone new.
And had I ever. We met at a book club (auspicious beginning, yes?) and she worked for a group who advised governments on ways to promote transparency in public policy. She had done a year at Harvard, and was in the dissertation stage of getting her Ph.D from one of the more prestigious schools in Turkey. So whereas the previous girlfriend didn’t know who Khaddafi was, or Mubarak, or how long he had been in power or whether or not he was generally viewed as irredeemably corrupt, or . . . nevermind . . . the new young lady could tell you offhand the number of gas pipelines coming out of Russia into Europe, and how the proposed new pipelines could affect former soviet-bloc countries. So whereas the last young lady had spent business dinners on the phone with me so that visiting foreigners wouldn’t figure out how little English she spoke, the new young lady travelled to Tanzania, Ukraine, India, Thailand, the Czech Republic, etc, to give speeches on development. Let’s just say the difference in conversations we could have were notable.
Yet – what is lacking? Oh, dear – I have to confess – I’m afraid animal vibes are what’s missing now. When I smell her neck . . . I am simply not overcome with a desire to fuck her. There’s nothing wrong with her physically – she’s quite fit – used to be a swimmer – nice ass – fucks with conviction – but . . . we just don’t have animal chemistry. I’d rather cuddle and watch a movie than fuck. And what am I to do about that? I mean – for the first time in my life, I am wishing we had just stayed friends, because now I have to break up with someone who I really, really like talking to.
I determined a couple of years ago that if I got married again, I wanted one who was drop-dead gorgeous, as well as intellectually interesting. (Go ahead, snort in your coffee, and say “well, don’t we all.” Fuck you – you aren’t me, bitch. Sit back and watch. But I digress.) So I decided there were two directions one could take to arrive at this end: 1. Start photographing models, and sort your way through to the smart ones, and shop one of those. 2. Start chatting your way through the academics until you hit a hottie, and take her home.
As a result, I spent a week or so last year in Ukraine, photographing models, (this one goes under the name Alissa White – don’t look her up on google images with a low filter setting if you got excitable young males in the room,) and I joined a book club. So far, things aren’t working out too badly – but it looks like it’s time to pick up the camera again.
But enough about that – right now I got a gajillion other things on my mind. Primarily: This girlfriend I have is sweet, super intelligent, really a quality person . . . but I am starting to realize that . . . it just isn’t going to last. Which should come as no surprise, really, since every relationship anyone has ever been in has ended in either a break-up or a death, and if I have to choose between the two, break-ups are much easier to explain to mutual friends. What I don’t understand is why I seem to go into every relationship thinking that this one will be “the one” in which we magically sail off into the sunset. Somehow it always catches me by surprise when I find that this girl is, in fact, not the fucking complete package – the perfect- in-every-way woman. You would think I would have learned by now that every relationship is certainly going to be flawed, (I mean, hell, I’m involved in it, so it’s bound to be fucked-up to some degree,) is going to require some work, and most likely will be, to a greater or lesser degree, temporary.
I’m ready to do the work – I know we will fight and have difficulties, but I guess I am not yet prepared to accept that every girl is most likely just a temporary stop along the way, and I cannot figure out if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It seems as though it would be taking my cynicism to new heights to just acknowledge to myself at the outset that this girl is probably just a temporary harbor from the storm, (no need to continue with the “docking” metaphor, is there?) and sooner or later I’ll be moving on. In a way I appreciate the naivete with which I approach the relationships, and the fact that I am actually looking at them for long-term potential, but maybe I am just being dishonest with myself.
On the upside, as a result of my approaching it with an eye to the long-term, I really do fall for these chicks – but perhaps that is part of the problem. Perhaps by going in “hoping for the best” I allow the swirl of emotions to cloud my judgement, and thus am taken by surprise when deal-breakers pop up. I also have to wonder to what extent I actually allow myself to fall for them because the “swirl of emotions” in me tends to have a positive effect on them – so maybe in the end it is just all cynical manipulation on my part anyway.
The previous girlfriend had a lot going for her – she was extremely sweet and caring, and very, very attached, and AMAN TANRIM did this girl get turned on when you took out a camera. Tall, good looking, amazing body (did ballet for 16 years, till she got too tall) – an ass I could stare at all day – and did, in fact. She had gorgeous silky long black hair, lived in high-heels and was always perfectly turned out: weekly manicures, waxes, whatevers, the whole 9 yards. And then she asked me if India was close to Brazil. And slowly, what emerged was the fact that her grasp of economics, philosophy, art, biology, fuck- you-name-it, if it wasn’t within her very circumscribed experience, it was a bleeding mystery to her. In fashion, style, femininity, and social charm, however, she had a fucking black-belt.
I am not sure, even at this remove, if I am being fair to her. I mean – to what degree am I cognizant of the ins and outs of office politics in the magazine publishing division of Turkish media conglomerates? Hell, to what degree am I cognizant of ANYTHING of practical value? Not much, I suppose, if we want to be honest. I guess my very circumscribed experience just happens to include an ass-load of books and articles on world politics, literature, art and history, and I (for no doubt unjustifiably self-centered reasons,) tend to favor my set of knowledge over hers. Cultural imperialism? Mebbe. Classism? Mebbe. Inevitable? ‘Fraid so.
There was, in fact, one other problematic detail – she had a disturbing habit of tracking my eyes, and making sure to register every other woman I looked at. This by itself is nothing really, but if you have ever been in a relationship with a jealous person, you start to see the signs early. And it was not long before she started asking odd questions, and poking about in a jealous manner.
So she was served notice some time ago that . . . well . . . I put it as kindly as I could . . . that I was not really in love with her. But she kept coming around, (even the most repugnant boys are difficult for a girl to get over once they have fallen for them, and I am not the most repugnant,) until I told her I had met someone new.
And had I ever. We met at a book club (auspicious beginning, yes?) and she worked for a group who advised governments on ways to promote transparency in public policy. She had done a year at Harvard, and was in the dissertation stage of getting her Ph.D from one of the more prestigious schools in Turkey. So whereas the previous girlfriend didn’t know who Khaddafi was, or Mubarak, or how long he had been in power or whether or not he was generally viewed as irredeemably corrupt, or . . . nevermind . . . the new young lady could tell you offhand the number of gas pipelines coming out of Russia into Europe, and how the proposed new pipelines could affect former soviet-bloc countries. So whereas the last young lady had spent business dinners on the phone with me so that visiting foreigners wouldn’t figure out how little English she spoke, the new young lady travelled to Tanzania, Ukraine, India, Thailand, the Czech Republic, etc, to give speeches on development. Let’s just say the difference in conversations we could have were notable.
Yet – what is lacking? Oh, dear – I have to confess – I’m afraid animal vibes are what’s missing now. When I smell her neck . . . I am simply not overcome with a desire to fuck her. There’s nothing wrong with her physically – she’s quite fit – used to be a swimmer – nice ass – fucks with conviction – but . . . we just don’t have animal chemistry. I’d rather cuddle and watch a movie than fuck. And what am I to do about that? I mean – for the first time in my life, I am wishing we had just stayed friends, because now I have to break up with someone who I really, really like talking to.
I determined a couple of years ago that if I got married again, I wanted one who was drop-dead gorgeous, as well as intellectually interesting. (Go ahead, snort in your coffee, and say “well, don’t we all.” Fuck you – you aren’t me, bitch. Sit back and watch. But I digress.) So I decided there were two directions one could take to arrive at this end: 1. Start photographing models, and sort your way through to the smart ones, and shop one of those. 2. Start chatting your way through the academics until you hit a hottie, and take her home.
As a result, I spent a week or so last year in Ukraine, photographing models, (this one goes under the name Alissa White – don’t look her up on google images with a low filter setting if you got excitable young males in the room,) and I joined a book club. So far, things aren’t working out too badly – but it looks like it’s time to pick up the camera again.
Monday, December 12, 2011
i thank you God for most this amazing.
I refuse demands for capitulation – I demand a celebration. Today is my birthday – today is the birth day of light, and of love and wings, and of the gay great happening illimitably earth.
It is – it actually is – my birthday. I have never been one for celebrating such things – but the older I get, and the less people I have around me who care, the more special it comes to seem. I have long scoffed at the silly emphasis people put on making a day special, but am slowly coming to realize that making a day “special” is just a way of staunching the boredom that flows in and out and permeates our daily existence placing a small marker tabbed upon one day that says our time here and ourselves are something more than an accumulation of ordinary days which began in squalling mucus and ends in a hoarse rattle of same.
I made today special by first, praying this morning. I know – sounds weird – but here is the realization I am coming to: As much as my brain, which cries out at the utter improbability, and lack of evidence for a deity, my soul needs NOT a deity to beg of, or to prevent a descent into darkness final at the end of my days – for an end to be an end is ok with me – but my soul needs someone to whom I can grateful.
It may sound strange to say it – but it is the realization I have been coming to. The reason I need a woman in my life pretty much almost all the time, (aside from for fucking, for company, for conversation, for attention,) is that I want someone to whom I can be nice – someone I can compliment – someone I can show attention to, and make smile. That is one of the main motivations, needs, I have, which cause me to seek out women. Similarly – my need for a deity is motivated largely by an excess of gratitude, of thanks for the sheer splendor of my life, which I cannot discharge in any direction absent a being who oversees all things. It’s a bit of a conundrum, I know.
I find that most of my interactions and conversations with God consist of my simply saying thank you, expressing how grateful I am that despite the idiocy that has characterized my life, I feel so richly surrounded by a wealth of good things. I know it could be simple chance – a roll of the chromosomal dice, a choice to walk here, a chance twist of the steering wheel there – it could be just an accumulation of chances that has resulted in my being so damn fortunate – but if so, I should not feel grateful – I should only feel lucky. And if I am only lucky, I need feel only relief – that I dodged a disaster, that I came out unscathed, that I owe no one for the fortunate spin of the wheel.
Yet I feel distinctly grateful – blessed. The fact that I am surrounded by others who may be equally fortunate does absolutely nothing to dilute my specific sense of joy. My mind teeters on the edge of explosm when I contemplate how uncommon is my particular lot – my life’s individual blend of pungent proclivities and aromatic assholery. To have the ability and option to travel, to see, to read, to write, to work or waste, to meet, to contemplate and converse, to dive, to drink, to fight, fuck and fidget. (You knew the alliteration would catch up with me eventually, didn’t you?)
But seriously – in a world where so much can go wrong – and in which “getting it right” is so ridiculously difficult – I feel as though I have, against all probabilities, especially given my wastrel and lackadaisical nature, ass-ended so far up Maslow’s hierarchy that I find myself nearly constantly nuzzling the nether-regions of self-actualization – something that I feel so many others who have worked so much harder and more conscientiously than myself have conspicuously failed to do.
So I began this morning by praying – by thanking God for yet another day – for yet another year – and for the utterly unimaginable good fortune of my life. I packed the lovely lunch a lovely lady had packed for me from the leftovers of the delightful dinner that she had fixed me last night in (unbeknownst to me) recognition of my impending birthday. (Apparently she had had some difficulty in deciphering which date was actually my birthday, as I habitually enter false ones on forms and websites.) Then I treated myself to a morning workout in the gym, doing only the exercises that I wanted to do. And now, writing this, I sit in a comfortable chair, in a warm office, drinking coffee and milk.
It is a world away from the sensations I recall when covering my face with a balaclava as I ascended a ladder anchored in snow, to hold a board of siding to nail it to a garage – or struggled to apply sufficient force to a freezing-cold iron crowbar, ripping free the wood from the nails that still stuck in the concrete around the forms, as the snowflakes swirled around my nose and eyes and the cold pain in my fingers became more insistent. I remember the misery of financial insecurity – of cold early mornings packing a pail of unappetizing food before exiting the house to face a day of drudgery and boredom – leaving the house in the dark, I would return again after dark, to eat alone what I had the energy to prepare.
I thank God for the health and wealth – the amazing richness of texture and flavor in my life today. I joy in every moment – I am grateful now even for the times of loneliness, pain, cold and hurt, for it helps me now to know what grand good fortune I have, and makes me feel that every step of my life has been shadowed by kindness.
It is – it actually is – my birthday. I have never been one for celebrating such things – but the older I get, and the less people I have around me who care, the more special it comes to seem. I have long scoffed at the silly emphasis people put on making a day special, but am slowly coming to realize that making a day “special” is just a way of staunching the boredom that flows in and out and permeates our daily existence placing a small marker tabbed upon one day that says our time here and ourselves are something more than an accumulation of ordinary days which began in squalling mucus and ends in a hoarse rattle of same.
I made today special by first, praying this morning. I know – sounds weird – but here is the realization I am coming to: As much as my brain, which cries out at the utter improbability, and lack of evidence for a deity, my soul needs NOT a deity to beg of, or to prevent a descent into darkness final at the end of my days – for an end to be an end is ok with me – but my soul needs someone to whom I can grateful.
It may sound strange to say it – but it is the realization I have been coming to. The reason I need a woman in my life pretty much almost all the time, (aside from for fucking, for company, for conversation, for attention,) is that I want someone to whom I can be nice – someone I can compliment – someone I can show attention to, and make smile. That is one of the main motivations, needs, I have, which cause me to seek out women. Similarly – my need for a deity is motivated largely by an excess of gratitude, of thanks for the sheer splendor of my life, which I cannot discharge in any direction absent a being who oversees all things. It’s a bit of a conundrum, I know.
I find that most of my interactions and conversations with God consist of my simply saying thank you, expressing how grateful I am that despite the idiocy that has characterized my life, I feel so richly surrounded by a wealth of good things. I know it could be simple chance – a roll of the chromosomal dice, a choice to walk here, a chance twist of the steering wheel there – it could be just an accumulation of chances that has resulted in my being so damn fortunate – but if so, I should not feel grateful – I should only feel lucky. And if I am only lucky, I need feel only relief – that I dodged a disaster, that I came out unscathed, that I owe no one for the fortunate spin of the wheel.
Yet I feel distinctly grateful – blessed. The fact that I am surrounded by others who may be equally fortunate does absolutely nothing to dilute my specific sense of joy. My mind teeters on the edge of explosm when I contemplate how uncommon is my particular lot – my life’s individual blend of pungent proclivities and aromatic assholery. To have the ability and option to travel, to see, to read, to write, to work or waste, to meet, to contemplate and converse, to dive, to drink, to fight, fuck and fidget. (You knew the alliteration would catch up with me eventually, didn’t you?)
But seriously – in a world where so much can go wrong – and in which “getting it right” is so ridiculously difficult – I feel as though I have, against all probabilities, especially given my wastrel and lackadaisical nature, ass-ended so far up Maslow’s hierarchy that I find myself nearly constantly nuzzling the nether-regions of self-actualization – something that I feel so many others who have worked so much harder and more conscientiously than myself have conspicuously failed to do.
So I began this morning by praying – by thanking God for yet another day – for yet another year – and for the utterly unimaginable good fortune of my life. I packed the lovely lunch a lovely lady had packed for me from the leftovers of the delightful dinner that she had fixed me last night in (unbeknownst to me) recognition of my impending birthday. (Apparently she had had some difficulty in deciphering which date was actually my birthday, as I habitually enter false ones on forms and websites.) Then I treated myself to a morning workout in the gym, doing only the exercises that I wanted to do. And now, writing this, I sit in a comfortable chair, in a warm office, drinking coffee and milk.
It is a world away from the sensations I recall when covering my face with a balaclava as I ascended a ladder anchored in snow, to hold a board of siding to nail it to a garage – or struggled to apply sufficient force to a freezing-cold iron crowbar, ripping free the wood from the nails that still stuck in the concrete around the forms, as the snowflakes swirled around my nose and eyes and the cold pain in my fingers became more insistent. I remember the misery of financial insecurity – of cold early mornings packing a pail of unappetizing food before exiting the house to face a day of drudgery and boredom – leaving the house in the dark, I would return again after dark, to eat alone what I had the energy to prepare.
I thank God for the health and wealth – the amazing richness of texture and flavor in my life today. I joy in every moment – I am grateful now even for the times of loneliness, pain, cold and hurt, for it helps me now to know what grand good fortune I have, and makes me feel that every step of my life has been shadowed by kindness.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
The Weekly Beat-Down
I have been going to the Krav Maga gym for over two years now, and have been teaching the Friday evening class for maybe 6 months. At first I had two students who came on Fridays – then three, then two, then four, then ten, then six and last night we had such a damn full-house that I was actually hoping more people wouldn’t come through the door.
We have developed a very good rapport in the group – there are a core of guys (and girls,) who for the most part really like to throw down, don’t mind a cut lip or bloody nose, and are really, truly interested in improving their fightgame techniques and improving their cardio and strengthening and toughening their bodies.
It is really a joy to watch people transform as the weeks go by. They come in very quiet, and cautious and shy. They sit to the side and don’t do anything until instructed to do so. Depending on their previous athletic experience, their movements are often awkward, to put it kindly. They don’t know the length of their own arm or leg, nor how to unwind it to maximize force at the end. They get gassed out, and have to take little breaks during the cardio session. After a couple of weeks their movements are a little bit better, their cardio has improved immensely, sometimes they have dropped some weight and toned up a bit, (in one case, 15 kilos lost in a couple of months– no joke – but that chick was a bit of a porker to begin with.) And even more critically, they lose some of that shyness that kept them glued to the wall before, and start milling around before class begins, and it is here that you can really learn something vital about them.
What people do when there is no instructor guiding them is, to me, a primary indicator of what they have come for. If you look around before class begins, you will see one or two people jumping rope, one person on the double-end bag, a couple people doing calisthentics, about 3 people talking, and 2 or 3 people working on the heavy bags. Every few minutes most of the individuals will probably get tired, and need to take a break from that body part, and so will walk away from their spot, and almost immediately gravitate toward another activity, while someone else will take their place. Almost everybody, that is. Because there is always a small core of people who don’t need to change their activity, because talking about things just never tires them out.
I don’t begrudge these chatters their chat. I really don’t. I do understand that there might be some totally excellent gossip to exchange, or maybe your wrist is hurt today, or maybe you just wanna chitter-chat. That’s cool – I think it does reflect slightly on why you are here – I mean – you are surrounded by toys and tools to help you improve, and you sit there doing what you could do at any tea shop, and probably do all day, but whatever. I do eventually have to conclude, though, that the social aspect is one of the larger factors in why you choose to come here.
And that, too, is totally cool. Frankly, it’s part of the reason I come as well. In fact, other than saying hello to colleagues in passing, and seeing the girliefriend about two nights a week, the gym is about my ONLY social interaction. So I can dig that you might come to hang and see people. I totally get that – but that doesn’t mean you need to hang around me.
More specifically – when I am working on the heavy bags, or the double-end bag, or jumping rope, or whatever, don’t come up and start talking to me. A. Because you are interrupting what I am doing, and B. because you are implicitly devaluing the activity I am doing, by indicating what you have to say is more important. Or, if you do, (and I’ll be nice and stop and chat, and then if you don’t actually have something pertinent to deal with, I will go back to working,) then PLEASE don’t continue to fucking hover in my peripheral vision making random comments trying to get a goddam conversation going with me. And when I eventually get tired of you standing 2 meters away staring at me, waiting for me to speak to you, and I move across the room to another place, DON’T FUCKING FOLLOW ME. Repeat after me: “I am not a damn kitten, looking to bond with a maternal figure. I am a full grown adult male, who needs to direct his fucking emotional needs toward somebody else.” And for fuck’s sake don’t follow me into the dressing room – it’s creepy and I am still going to ignore you, and I’m only there to pull something out of my bag – I promise I’m not going to do anything even slightly interesting, so please fuck off already and stop being clingy.
Right now I have four students who are often on my mind, in part because all of them prefer to train with me as their partner, and have expressed this.
In no particular order, let’s begin with my favorite, who we’ll call Snowflake – because that’s what her name means, and that’s the tattoo on the inside of her forearm. (For those of you far away, let me just say that for some reason here in Istanbul, it is not at all unusual or low-class anymore for young ladies to have tattoos on their wrists and forearms.) Snowflake started with me as her teacher – and she immediately outshone the tall, awkward boy who started at the same time. Her talent lies largely in her ability to take a movement apart into smaller parts, and then work on repeating that sequence again and again until she can execute it well. But her true gift comes from inside. Some people, the first time they hit somebody, immediately cringe and collapse and apologize all over themselves. And others, the first time they land a good hit on somebody, light up inside like the fourth of July. And boy, can you see it on Snowflake’s face. When she lands a good hit, she literally dances a bit to let a wee bit of the excess joy wiggle out. When she learns how to throw a much bigger person to the ground, she cannot stop grinning to save her life. Couple those things with the willingness to practice, practice, practice, before and after class, and she really is turning into a little monster. In fact, she busted Artie’s nose last week. I was very proud of her.
Artie, on the other hand, is a doe-eyed caricature of a sensitive soul. His head is too large for his body, his soft, kind eyes too large for his head, his nose dwarfs even his eyes, and his limbs too skinny to support any of it. His movements have some resemblance to what I imagine giraffes fucking would look like. He has been coming for more than a year, and frankly, you wouldn’t know it. Which is, actually, what has made all the difference for him. About 3 weeks ago a girl who had been coming for a long time, but had never coincided with Artie (his attendance is quite on-again off-again,) made some comment about how he needn’t despair, he was, after all, a newbie. Artie, in his soft-eyed, gangly and jelly-limbed way, took deep offense to this. He came to me after class in deep depression, and asked what he could do. I told him a number of things, and next class, his roundhouse kicks were suddenly fucking crisp, nice, beautiful to behold. (I actually had the whole class stop and watch his roundhouse kick.) His guard had improved immensely, too. His punches were cleaner and crisper. He’s still no ninja, but 6 more months of what he’s been doing for that past three weeks, and he could be. It appears that he has started to really open his mind to focus on what he is doing, and to learn his own body, and has begun practicing at home on his own. The results are really, really encouraging, and I hope he knows that, because I sure do.
Corrie, on the other hand, is on my mind for all the wrong reasons. He friended me on facebook, and instant messages me nearly every day, with questions about whether I plan to attend that night or not. Then he almost always says “let’s be partners tonight – I want to train with you,” which would be fine, really, except that it happens so often it’s a bit irksome. That, and it was most recently (last night,) phrased as “I’ll have you.” Then during weekends he will call me, or message me to see if I want to hang out – which I wouldn’t mind, except that he spends a so much time complaining about his wife, and running her down, that I basically end up trying to change the subject all the time, which I am not all that good at, so it doesn’t work, so I fall back on just not giving him any encouragement, which basically boils down, in practical terms, to him whining and whining, and me occasionally making remarks about the economy, or the weather, or China’s odd stance on Zimbabwe. So I basically stopped answering the phone when he calls, which has led him to make remarks about feeling “dumped,” and his “ass left out in the cold.” Recently he stayed late, after everyone had left, and then stripped off and came out in his towel to talk to me while I was working out a combination, saying “Ooooh, don’t hit the naked guy! Oooh!” These, along with a constant theme of comments about “fucked in the ass,” “the soggy-biscuit game” make me wonder exactly how repressed he is. I mean – I don’t think a legit gay guy would always be talking about gay shit and making gay jokes, but the amount of social, (and physical) contact he wants with me is . . . oddness inducing. And recently he has taken to asking me after class if I want to wrestle – which I wouldn’t mind, except A. You suck at it, and don’t even seem to be trying, and B. You’re weirding the fuck out of me already, go away.
And finally, is Alp. Alp is probably 20 or 22 or so, and probably clocks in at about 6’3’’ and 200 pounds without an ounce of fat on him. (He likes to pause in front of the mirror and check his “baclavas” – the word here for his six-pack.) Really, the kid is a physical phenom. He’s big, strong, and fast as shit. Did I mention strong? And fast as shit? Well, when he first came he was . . . a bit unccoordinated, or just hadn’t really put together yet how to move, how to cover, how to throw. But fortunately for him, he likes to go hard, (I still have a lump on my bone in my forearm from practicing some months ago with him, and was out for a week with a bum knee after he kicked it,) and he doesn’t let his ego get in the way of learning. He hates losing, yet every time he loses, he dialogues with the winner to get advice and tips, and goes to practicing it, and comes back better. And yes – I’m the winner we’re talking about. Other people don’t want to fight with him because – well, did I mention he’s big, ripped, fast as shit, and his technique is getting better and better every damn day? So I fight with him – and he doesn’t know the meaning of sparring, apparently, because we just end up going for the damn knockout. I don’t really want that, but there is a natural escalation in sparring, and when the other guy is literally trying to take your head off, you tend to up your speed and power as well.
It used to be that I won, handily, every match with him. Those days though, are past. A few weeks ago he knocked me out, (momentarily,) and I realized that I was no longer playing with the same kid. He’d learned how to fake with the left, while I had been not training as much as I needed to, and he had been training his ass off, and it showed. So I upped my game over the following week, and held my own again, (but barely.) This week we squared off again, and I won, but I am not sure how convincingly. And so the trend says, and I think that, next week I can put a few things into play that will give me the win – but the lad is constant reminder that youth is no longer on my side – I am NOT the unquestioned best. I am so used to being physically stronger and/or faster and/or smarter and/or tougher than most people (minus professional tough-guys, I hasten to point out,) that it is slightly discomfitting to find that the next generation is indeed crawling up the ladder, and as surely as night follows day, is sure to overtake you someday.
So this morning, when I wake up, and I feel my back muscles slightly sore, my ankles slightly loose, my hips aching, and the cut inside my lip stinging it reminds me that last night was spent in what is coming to be my favorite place – the gym.
We have developed a very good rapport in the group – there are a core of guys (and girls,) who for the most part really like to throw down, don’t mind a cut lip or bloody nose, and are really, truly interested in improving their fightgame techniques and improving their cardio and strengthening and toughening their bodies.
It is really a joy to watch people transform as the weeks go by. They come in very quiet, and cautious and shy. They sit to the side and don’t do anything until instructed to do so. Depending on their previous athletic experience, their movements are often awkward, to put it kindly. They don’t know the length of their own arm or leg, nor how to unwind it to maximize force at the end. They get gassed out, and have to take little breaks during the cardio session. After a couple of weeks their movements are a little bit better, their cardio has improved immensely, sometimes they have dropped some weight and toned up a bit, (in one case, 15 kilos lost in a couple of months– no joke – but that chick was a bit of a porker to begin with.) And even more critically, they lose some of that shyness that kept them glued to the wall before, and start milling around before class begins, and it is here that you can really learn something vital about them.
What people do when there is no instructor guiding them is, to me, a primary indicator of what they have come for. If you look around before class begins, you will see one or two people jumping rope, one person on the double-end bag, a couple people doing calisthentics, about 3 people talking, and 2 or 3 people working on the heavy bags. Every few minutes most of the individuals will probably get tired, and need to take a break from that body part, and so will walk away from their spot, and almost immediately gravitate toward another activity, while someone else will take their place. Almost everybody, that is. Because there is always a small core of people who don’t need to change their activity, because talking about things just never tires them out.
I don’t begrudge these chatters their chat. I really don’t. I do understand that there might be some totally excellent gossip to exchange, or maybe your wrist is hurt today, or maybe you just wanna chitter-chat. That’s cool – I think it does reflect slightly on why you are here – I mean – you are surrounded by toys and tools to help you improve, and you sit there doing what you could do at any tea shop, and probably do all day, but whatever. I do eventually have to conclude, though, that the social aspect is one of the larger factors in why you choose to come here.
And that, too, is totally cool. Frankly, it’s part of the reason I come as well. In fact, other than saying hello to colleagues in passing, and seeing the girliefriend about two nights a week, the gym is about my ONLY social interaction. So I can dig that you might come to hang and see people. I totally get that – but that doesn’t mean you need to hang around me.
More specifically – when I am working on the heavy bags, or the double-end bag, or jumping rope, or whatever, don’t come up and start talking to me. A. Because you are interrupting what I am doing, and B. because you are implicitly devaluing the activity I am doing, by indicating what you have to say is more important. Or, if you do, (and I’ll be nice and stop and chat, and then if you don’t actually have something pertinent to deal with, I will go back to working,) then PLEASE don’t continue to fucking hover in my peripheral vision making random comments trying to get a goddam conversation going with me. And when I eventually get tired of you standing 2 meters away staring at me, waiting for me to speak to you, and I move across the room to another place, DON’T FUCKING FOLLOW ME. Repeat after me: “I am not a damn kitten, looking to bond with a maternal figure. I am a full grown adult male, who needs to direct his fucking emotional needs toward somebody else.” And for fuck’s sake don’t follow me into the dressing room – it’s creepy and I am still going to ignore you, and I’m only there to pull something out of my bag – I promise I’m not going to do anything even slightly interesting, so please fuck off already and stop being clingy.
Right now I have four students who are often on my mind, in part because all of them prefer to train with me as their partner, and have expressed this.
In no particular order, let’s begin with my favorite, who we’ll call Snowflake – because that’s what her name means, and that’s the tattoo on the inside of her forearm. (For those of you far away, let me just say that for some reason here in Istanbul, it is not at all unusual or low-class anymore for young ladies to have tattoos on their wrists and forearms.) Snowflake started with me as her teacher – and she immediately outshone the tall, awkward boy who started at the same time. Her talent lies largely in her ability to take a movement apart into smaller parts, and then work on repeating that sequence again and again until she can execute it well. But her true gift comes from inside. Some people, the first time they hit somebody, immediately cringe and collapse and apologize all over themselves. And others, the first time they land a good hit on somebody, light up inside like the fourth of July. And boy, can you see it on Snowflake’s face. When she lands a good hit, she literally dances a bit to let a wee bit of the excess joy wiggle out. When she learns how to throw a much bigger person to the ground, she cannot stop grinning to save her life. Couple those things with the willingness to practice, practice, practice, before and after class, and she really is turning into a little monster. In fact, she busted Artie’s nose last week. I was very proud of her.
Artie, on the other hand, is a doe-eyed caricature of a sensitive soul. His head is too large for his body, his soft, kind eyes too large for his head, his nose dwarfs even his eyes, and his limbs too skinny to support any of it. His movements have some resemblance to what I imagine giraffes fucking would look like. He has been coming for more than a year, and frankly, you wouldn’t know it. Which is, actually, what has made all the difference for him. About 3 weeks ago a girl who had been coming for a long time, but had never coincided with Artie (his attendance is quite on-again off-again,) made some comment about how he needn’t despair, he was, after all, a newbie. Artie, in his soft-eyed, gangly and jelly-limbed way, took deep offense to this. He came to me after class in deep depression, and asked what he could do. I told him a number of things, and next class, his roundhouse kicks were suddenly fucking crisp, nice, beautiful to behold. (I actually had the whole class stop and watch his roundhouse kick.) His guard had improved immensely, too. His punches were cleaner and crisper. He’s still no ninja, but 6 more months of what he’s been doing for that past three weeks, and he could be. It appears that he has started to really open his mind to focus on what he is doing, and to learn his own body, and has begun practicing at home on his own. The results are really, really encouraging, and I hope he knows that, because I sure do.
Corrie, on the other hand, is on my mind for all the wrong reasons. He friended me on facebook, and instant messages me nearly every day, with questions about whether I plan to attend that night or not. Then he almost always says “let’s be partners tonight – I want to train with you,” which would be fine, really, except that it happens so often it’s a bit irksome. That, and it was most recently (last night,) phrased as “I’ll have you.” Then during weekends he will call me, or message me to see if I want to hang out – which I wouldn’t mind, except that he spends a so much time complaining about his wife, and running her down, that I basically end up trying to change the subject all the time, which I am not all that good at, so it doesn’t work, so I fall back on just not giving him any encouragement, which basically boils down, in practical terms, to him whining and whining, and me occasionally making remarks about the economy, or the weather, or China’s odd stance on Zimbabwe. So I basically stopped answering the phone when he calls, which has led him to make remarks about feeling “dumped,” and his “ass left out in the cold.” Recently he stayed late, after everyone had left, and then stripped off and came out in his towel to talk to me while I was working out a combination, saying “Ooooh, don’t hit the naked guy! Oooh!” These, along with a constant theme of comments about “fucked in the ass,” “the soggy-biscuit game” make me wonder exactly how repressed he is. I mean – I don’t think a legit gay guy would always be talking about gay shit and making gay jokes, but the amount of social, (and physical) contact he wants with me is . . . oddness inducing. And recently he has taken to asking me after class if I want to wrestle – which I wouldn’t mind, except A. You suck at it, and don’t even seem to be trying, and B. You’re weirding the fuck out of me already, go away.
And finally, is Alp. Alp is probably 20 or 22 or so, and probably clocks in at about 6’3’’ and 200 pounds without an ounce of fat on him. (He likes to pause in front of the mirror and check his “baclavas” – the word here for his six-pack.) Really, the kid is a physical phenom. He’s big, strong, and fast as shit. Did I mention strong? And fast as shit? Well, when he first came he was . . . a bit unccoordinated, or just hadn’t really put together yet how to move, how to cover, how to throw. But fortunately for him, he likes to go hard, (I still have a lump on my bone in my forearm from practicing some months ago with him, and was out for a week with a bum knee after he kicked it,) and he doesn’t let his ego get in the way of learning. He hates losing, yet every time he loses, he dialogues with the winner to get advice and tips, and goes to practicing it, and comes back better. And yes – I’m the winner we’re talking about. Other people don’t want to fight with him because – well, did I mention he’s big, ripped, fast as shit, and his technique is getting better and better every damn day? So I fight with him – and he doesn’t know the meaning of sparring, apparently, because we just end up going for the damn knockout. I don’t really want that, but there is a natural escalation in sparring, and when the other guy is literally trying to take your head off, you tend to up your speed and power as well.
It used to be that I won, handily, every match with him. Those days though, are past. A few weeks ago he knocked me out, (momentarily,) and I realized that I was no longer playing with the same kid. He’d learned how to fake with the left, while I had been not training as much as I needed to, and he had been training his ass off, and it showed. So I upped my game over the following week, and held my own again, (but barely.) This week we squared off again, and I won, but I am not sure how convincingly. And so the trend says, and I think that, next week I can put a few things into play that will give me the win – but the lad is constant reminder that youth is no longer on my side – I am NOT the unquestioned best. I am so used to being physically stronger and/or faster and/or smarter and/or tougher than most people (minus professional tough-guys, I hasten to point out,) that it is slightly discomfitting to find that the next generation is indeed crawling up the ladder, and as surely as night follows day, is sure to overtake you someday.
So this morning, when I wake up, and I feel my back muscles slightly sore, my ankles slightly loose, my hips aching, and the cut inside my lip stinging it reminds me that last night was spent in what is coming to be my favorite place – the gym.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
I think of you
I think of you throughout the day,
I think about you late at night
I think about you when I'm hungry
Or when my trousers feel too tight.
I think of the curve your lips have
I consider your waist and hip
I pause to ponder that scar of yours
As I hunger for your lip.
Your eyes dance fierce and bright
My dear, your laugh sings high and strong
I only think of you, my dear,
When I think how life is long.
I think about you late at night
I think about you when I'm hungry
Or when my trousers feel too tight.
I think of the curve your lips have
I consider your waist and hip
I pause to ponder that scar of yours
As I hunger for your lip.
Your eyes dance fierce and bright
My dear, your laugh sings high and strong
I only think of you, my dear,
When I think how life is long.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Where I live
Dogs in the street
pull at pizza boxes.
Old car windows empty
except at the edges.
Walking at night
I see so little;
In the day I know
where I live.
pull at pizza boxes.
Old car windows empty
except at the edges.
Walking at night
I see so little;
In the day I know
where I live.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
What is to be said of the Chinese film?
It is full of colors in every frame.
The cinematography is impeccable.
It ends in death for every person.
Every army wears a different color, and all are magnificent.
Each character betrays another:
One of love of daughter
One of love of mother
One of love of lover
One of love of life;
But the end is this:
the emperor knows best
and punishes incest.
It is full of colors in every frame.
The cinematography is impeccable.
It ends in death for every person.
Every army wears a different color, and all are magnificent.
Each character betrays another:
One of love of daughter
One of love of mother
One of love of lover
One of love of life;
But the end is this:
the emperor knows best
and punishes incest.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Fugio
I am nothing other than time. Time and agreement – a temporary living arrangement between some carbon and some oxygen, some hydrogen and nitrogen atoms who migrate in and out at all hours, carrying supply to meet demand. (As I typed that last sentence a babbling group of foul-smelling methane molecules made it past the last border checkpoint – and in a zone far north, thermally charged caffeine and lactose molecules were admitted.) L’etat – cest moi!
But though the molecules themselves be most apparent, make no mistake, it is the time in which I swim. My constitution carries an addendum – a morbid post-script scribbled at the bottom, making clear the genre in which I act, “This message will self-destruct in ___ “ And there a careless clerk has left a t uncrossed, as it were, and an empty opening, left to be filled in later, comes to dominate by virtue of the power invested in its emptiness. It yawns at me in the morning -my telomeres are ticking, my stem-cells running thin.
I see my hands before me now – the hair upon the knuckles which I burn back with an old cigarette lighter left over from years ago when I still smoked – the hair upon the knuckles which I burn back when it becomes long enough to reach out and touch another finger – I see my hands before me now – and I see the beginning of the first liver-spot. The first spot – yes – but not the first sign of the impending revolution – no – there have been others. The sound my knees and wrists and ankles make have been with me for years – but only recently has rising from bed begun to sound like a string of small, pathetic fire-crackers – hair has long harbored in my nose, and for years even my ears have produced hair with an abundance and energy usually more assoiciated with the fierce and misplaced fecundity of youth – but now abundance has doubled down upon abundance, but instead of pliable and whispy young tender shoots I put forth black stalks of the kind to be found upon the more intimate zones of a matronly rhino.
The silver has sparkled in the lines beneath my lips for some years now – some ladies say they find it attractive – which doesn’t stop it being what it is – a sign the times has left lying across my face, encircling my lips, so that whatever words I offer are seen as emerging from a well of wisdom distilled from experience, as opposed to the fresh leaping genius of youth.
I am time – time cest moi. I am conscious of time – I am self-conscious. I know well the potholes of my road, and I watch them deepen with mounting alarm.
But though the molecules themselves be most apparent, make no mistake, it is the time in which I swim. My constitution carries an addendum – a morbid post-script scribbled at the bottom, making clear the genre in which I act, “This message will self-destruct in ___ “ And there a careless clerk has left a t uncrossed, as it were, and an empty opening, left to be filled in later, comes to dominate by virtue of the power invested in its emptiness. It yawns at me in the morning -my telomeres are ticking, my stem-cells running thin.
I see my hands before me now – the hair upon the knuckles which I burn back with an old cigarette lighter left over from years ago when I still smoked – the hair upon the knuckles which I burn back when it becomes long enough to reach out and touch another finger – I see my hands before me now – and I see the beginning of the first liver-spot. The first spot – yes – but not the first sign of the impending revolution – no – there have been others. The sound my knees and wrists and ankles make have been with me for years – but only recently has rising from bed begun to sound like a string of small, pathetic fire-crackers – hair has long harbored in my nose, and for years even my ears have produced hair with an abundance and energy usually more assoiciated with the fierce and misplaced fecundity of youth – but now abundance has doubled down upon abundance, but instead of pliable and whispy young tender shoots I put forth black stalks of the kind to be found upon the more intimate zones of a matronly rhino.
The silver has sparkled in the lines beneath my lips for some years now – some ladies say they find it attractive – which doesn’t stop it being what it is – a sign the times has left lying across my face, encircling my lips, so that whatever words I offer are seen as emerging from a well of wisdom distilled from experience, as opposed to the fresh leaping genius of youth.
I am time – time cest moi. I am conscious of time – I am self-conscious. I know well the potholes of my road, and I watch them deepen with mounting alarm.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
What I hope to achieve
I have babbled, I believe, at great length about the list I have made for my life. I recently found out that it can be called a bucket list. Unfortunately for me, I find the very sound-quality of this name distasteful and trivializing. Nuff-sed.
I have been recently adding to, explicating, and regrouping this list. Actually, I should say it in plural, these lists, as it is really more than one. There are reading lists, travelling lists, learning lists, etc. Sometimes the handling of these lists is nothing more than a mental vacation - a quick visit to fantasy land, a reshuffling of the cards, and mental fondling of fantasies - at other times I consult or work with the lists in order to check on a goal, or add to, or modify it. I don't mind, I don't criticize myself if I find myself using the lists for a momentary bit of fantasy fuel and escapism - I don't discourage this at all - because if I am escaping into a world of my own goals for my life, then at the very least I am keeping my dreams in front of my eyes that I may not forget what aspirations I have.
In doing so, a number of questions have occurred to me, regarding the nature of the list. For example - what value is there in the fulfillment of a goal? As a specific example - If my goal was to climb mount Kilimanjaro - what if sudden illness or accident took me at 500 meters from the top - would I count that goal achieved? If the goal I wrote down was to read the Masnavi, and after finishing a gruellingly nasty book-length translation I note that this was only book six of the entire poem - must I continue? If my goal was to achieve conversational fluency in a total of 5 languages - if I end up with three, was it a total wash? If my goal was to learn to cook five things really well - does french toast count as one? If my goal was to earn a black-belt, but the martial art I have fallen into does not have belt rankings - do I need to take up a new sport, or once I achieve instructor status, is that enough? Furthermore - what if I don't fulfill a goal - how much of a failure is that?
By asking these (no doubt trivial to anyone with real things on their mind) questions, I am pushed into examining the reasons FOR the list - the role I expect it, want it to play in my life. I realized at one point that the point of entering a marathon was not to be able to cross the finish line. Were that the case, they could just start everybody 20 meters from the finish line and be done with it. The finish line exists only as an arbitrary marker to delineate the defining edge of an experience, with the experience, the achievement, the value within, located in the experience that is in every step of the way. Minus the experience of the pain and sweat and cramps that dog your every step of the road, the finish line is meaningless.
Thus - if I become sick 500 meters from the top of Kilimanjaro, I shall regard it as a success to have travelled to Tanzania, to have talked with the people there, to have confronted the logistics of planning, to have learned about the mountain, to have felt the pain of the climb - all of that, even minus the summit, makes it a success.
On the other hand, if by counting French Toast as one thing I can cook, I learn nothing, then this goal was meaningless.
Which reveals to me that the main goal of my list is to establish arbitrary points, far enough removed from my present condition that by the time I am near that point, I will have travelled sufficient distance to have (inshallah) learned sufficient or experienced sufficient that I am left changed by the experience. In other words, the end goal of this list is not to do the thing, but to mold myself.
If my goals stay largely unmet, but in the process of struggling I have molded my body and my mind into a finer tool, or molded myself into a finer person, then it was a great success. The man is molded by his experiences, and the goals are but arbitrary points established sufficiently far removed from myself that in the process of there arriving I may find myself changed by the experience.
Today, by the way, I will be working toward my goal of 100 pushups - (website here: http://hundredpushups.com/) and studying the constellations (I have picked 18.) I may even crawl through my ceiling and see if I can spot any stars from my roof. And in between I will be reading "Culture and Imperialism" by Edward Said - (or, failing that, I might just watch "Game of Thrones" on my computer - we shall see!)
I have been recently adding to, explicating, and regrouping this list. Actually, I should say it in plural, these lists, as it is really more than one. There are reading lists, travelling lists, learning lists, etc. Sometimes the handling of these lists is nothing more than a mental vacation - a quick visit to fantasy land, a reshuffling of the cards, and mental fondling of fantasies - at other times I consult or work with the lists in order to check on a goal, or add to, or modify it. I don't mind, I don't criticize myself if I find myself using the lists for a momentary bit of fantasy fuel and escapism - I don't discourage this at all - because if I am escaping into a world of my own goals for my life, then at the very least I am keeping my dreams in front of my eyes that I may not forget what aspirations I have.
In doing so, a number of questions have occurred to me, regarding the nature of the list. For example - what value is there in the fulfillment of a goal? As a specific example - If my goal was to climb mount Kilimanjaro - what if sudden illness or accident took me at 500 meters from the top - would I count that goal achieved? If the goal I wrote down was to read the Masnavi, and after finishing a gruellingly nasty book-length translation I note that this was only book six of the entire poem - must I continue? If my goal was to achieve conversational fluency in a total of 5 languages - if I end up with three, was it a total wash? If my goal was to learn to cook five things really well - does french toast count as one? If my goal was to earn a black-belt, but the martial art I have fallen into does not have belt rankings - do I need to take up a new sport, or once I achieve instructor status, is that enough? Furthermore - what if I don't fulfill a goal - how much of a failure is that?
By asking these (no doubt trivial to anyone with real things on their mind) questions, I am pushed into examining the reasons FOR the list - the role I expect it, want it to play in my life. I realized at one point that the point of entering a marathon was not to be able to cross the finish line. Were that the case, they could just start everybody 20 meters from the finish line and be done with it. The finish line exists only as an arbitrary marker to delineate the defining edge of an experience, with the experience, the achievement, the value within, located in the experience that is in every step of the way. Minus the experience of the pain and sweat and cramps that dog your every step of the road, the finish line is meaningless.
Thus - if I become sick 500 meters from the top of Kilimanjaro, I shall regard it as a success to have travelled to Tanzania, to have talked with the people there, to have confronted the logistics of planning, to have learned about the mountain, to have felt the pain of the climb - all of that, even minus the summit, makes it a success.
On the other hand, if by counting French Toast as one thing I can cook, I learn nothing, then this goal was meaningless.
Which reveals to me that the main goal of my list is to establish arbitrary points, far enough removed from my present condition that by the time I am near that point, I will have travelled sufficient distance to have (inshallah) learned sufficient or experienced sufficient that I am left changed by the experience. In other words, the end goal of this list is not to do the thing, but to mold myself.
If my goals stay largely unmet, but in the process of struggling I have molded my body and my mind into a finer tool, or molded myself into a finer person, then it was a great success. The man is molded by his experiences, and the goals are but arbitrary points established sufficiently far removed from myself that in the process of there arriving I may find myself changed by the experience.
Today, by the way, I will be working toward my goal of 100 pushups - (website here: http://hundredpushups.com/) and studying the constellations (I have picked 18.) I may even crawl through my ceiling and see if I can spot any stars from my roof. And in between I will be reading "Culture and Imperialism" by Edward Said - (or, failing that, I might just watch "Game of Thrones" on my computer - we shall see!)
Of the wealth of nations no end
I cannot adequately express, without descent into cloyingly trite-sounding language, the depths of gratitude and joy that walk with me through my day to day life.
Of course, I have moments many of annoyance impatience apprehension daily, but the emotion dominant my days throughout is the feeling of deep and abiding gratitude - thankfulness - recognition of gifts given undeserved to me.
From the sun upon the skin to the shimmer of the water the raven black in silhouette that perches upon the marbled minaret rail the coffee so common the flowers profusion the salad I lazily consume.
The books upon my shelf the bag my books surrounds the endless cups of dark sugared tea consumed in gardens green sheltered in shady by floating ivy trellis the photos of her eyes heavy-lidded locked in an embrace with death made manifest in brass - the muscles (mine) that scream or creak or cry - whiskey glass rum glass small cherry tomato walnuts.
The sweat slicks and neck aches and wrist cracking - for these I am grateful - the hip hand-hollowed, the tenders exposed - the dust and the ants that own my kitchen - the jeans my ass over, the blanket my bed upon - sniffs, yawns, sighs, even students complaining - for all this, Lord, I give thanks.
Of course, I have moments many of annoyance impatience apprehension daily, but the emotion dominant my days throughout is the feeling of deep and abiding gratitude - thankfulness - recognition of gifts given undeserved to me.
From the sun upon the skin to the shimmer of the water the raven black in silhouette that perches upon the marbled minaret rail the coffee so common the flowers profusion the salad I lazily consume.
The books upon my shelf the bag my books surrounds the endless cups of dark sugared tea consumed in gardens green sheltered in shady by floating ivy trellis the photos of her eyes heavy-lidded locked in an embrace with death made manifest in brass - the muscles (mine) that scream or creak or cry - whiskey glass rum glass small cherry tomato walnuts.
The sweat slicks and neck aches and wrist cracking - for these I am grateful - the hip hand-hollowed, the tenders exposed - the dust and the ants that own my kitchen - the jeans my ass over, the blanket my bed upon - sniffs, yawns, sighs, even students complaining - for all this, Lord, I give thanks.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Ay, there's the rub
I am haunted by something which I cannot name, and am therefore powerless against. For if naming provides identification, and identification aids in classification and if classification could assist in finding similar examples and if similar examples could provide a solution which when taken might apply also to my own problem - it is the namelessness that matters.
But what am I saying – it does have a name, and a well-known one at that. They recur – my dreams – they are recurring dreams, and by their unpleasantness we know them, they are nightmares. I can no more stop them than I could stop the a wave in the open ocean. Not every night (thank heavens for that - to wake with this feeling that I have now, and will carrry with me for much of the day – to have that everyday, that would be too much – what I have now is not too much – is is much nonetheless more than I would have,) but not every night they come to me.
There are a few – a menu – you may choose if you like. Do you dislike men without skin, whose muscles visible to the air red and angry across ligaments come beckon to you as you sit with friends and only you can see him – no one else notices – and you would notify them, but when you go to speak ofyou’re your voice fails and is not your tool – he turns off your voice for you because he knows your thoughts, and he would not tolerate your dragging others into this intimate moment of stark terror shared between you two, old friends of many nights since childhood. Eventually he will beckon, and I will go – I have no choice – I am not mine own. There are also the lizards, of course – the large, muscular-bulging variety, slate gray often in color, but possibly green – they wait for me with mouths of pink, and move but rarely and then to the purpose.
Am I afraid of heights? Indeed, in waking life, I am, but not so much than I cannot swallow it and push forward and continue – but in my dream, and it is always structured the same – in my dream it overpowers me, the fear, and leaves me – cowering on a finely graded ledge, one foot-slip away from . . . But I should begin with where it begins.
Always, always, I am always in a strange place – and usually, I want to get out. Last night I wanted to get in – but only to another builidng, and to that end, rather than go down into the very narrow and oh-so-inconveniently placed drainage ditch between the two buildings, I thought I could save time by going UP the small steps located on the side of this building, on this side of the ditch, and then cross over on the small walkboards that are strung between them.
Quickly up I go, the easy stops on the outside of the building. As I get to the top I begin to notice that I had failed to notice that the top few steps are dangerously minimal, and angled in the not-healthy 4 story drop direction. But ahead is a landing – then the crossing – yet somehow when I get to the landing, either the changing nature of the dream, or my own cursed lack of attention earlier result in me finding myself upon a landing that, while safe, makes going back down a fool’s errand. There are no handholds now, and the steps are very dangerous, so I must got forward. But when I turn to look at the walkway in front of me, there are details I had not noticed before – it is cracked, the wood is rotten, it was thin to begin with, has somehow grown yet thinner with proximity, and it will surely not carry my weight.
Suddenly the fear just rises like a sneeze – you could fight it, but once it is upon you, it has a life and determination all its own, and you would be best served to get out of the way. The fear sets in with a sudden downswooping of panic, and I clutch onto – there is always something there to clutch on to – and usually it is mostly stable – I clutch it and I absolutely cower in agonizing fear of falling. Sooner or later, though – it is not so long – 20 – 30 seconds in the dream – I have to get on, and there is always a door or a window available to me.
Last night it was a door. I knocked on the door, and then looking across (while waiting for the door to open,) I saw two people from work, the assistant director and her assistant, stuck in a similar plight on the rooftop of the house opposite. And – oddly enough – I recognized that rooftop – I had been there about 2 or 3 months before. One of them was waiting on the other while she collected her courage – they had just come out of a gable window, and I knew the route they would have to take – up, across the faded cedar shakes that came loose and slid clattering down the roof to dissappear off the edge – they had to transverse the roof – but I couldn’t remember what came after that.
The woman who answered the door was quite old – probably in her 70’s. She had me wait while she fetched her husband – all I wanted was to ask for a set of stairs – can you show to the hallway so I can take the stairs down and out of the building?
When her elderly husband showed up I was nude – except for a cap, and the bag I was carring with me – it was rather embarrassing – I was keenly aware of how inappropriate this was – but what is one to do – apparently I wander naked today – I asked for the stairs – he did not seem to understand, which is odd because I know the words for stairs – it doesn’t seem like such a far out request – but he wasn’t at all sure. He walked away and came back – and using his hands he asked me if I wanted the riser (up) part of the stairs or the tread (flat) part of the stairs. He had obviously misunderstood – I explained that I wanted to WALK DOWN the stairs. Can he just show me where the stairs are? He eventually agreed,and told his wife to do so – as she was showing me the way – first down this set of stairs in their apartment, through this room – she used a couple of slavic words. I was in the middle of asking about this when her husband came back, and now I could hear the slavic words he was using, as well – they were immigrants here – perhapst that explains the misunderstanidng about the stairs. But after a down staircase, now there were also winding up tightly two up staircases, and still no sign of the main hall of the building, where I can acess a stairwell and go down to the ground level. And now they are taking me to these internal, UP staircases, that are terribly rickety to boot – but I don’t want to go up – but they seem to be telling me that up is the way to get out.
Now in case I have not bored you with this topic before, this is ALWAYS the case. For one reason or another, I always end up travelling UP, trying to get down. And the means by which I am travelling up get progressively thinner, smaller, and less secure. I cannot believe this is happening to me again.
I think these people are Bulgarian immigrants – they certainly aren’t Turks – I follow their advice,and go up the staircases, squeezing myself out a hole at the top and emerging half-way out a window only about 10 feet off the ground. I am in luck.
I throw my backpack to the ground first, and then prepare myself to vault out the window. But in that moment, a young boy scurries through and seizes my bag, and runs off. I jump.
The family below are gypsies, I think. They are . . . malformed . . . unsympathetic, and one of them stole my bag, and I know it is somewhere nearby, and all that needs to happen is a quick word from the right guy, and it will reappear. Unfortunately, my first few inquiries leading nowhere, I decide to adopt a more straightforward approach. I seize one of them, a kid of about 20, and tell him to get my bag here or . . . I’ll burn him. He is not sufficiently pro-active and motivated, so I seize him by the neck, flick my lighter, and hold it up to his cheek – but it goes out. So I try his forehead , and then his hair with slighly better success. But really, this lighter sucks. His friends and family are all watching – some of them offer their lighters to me – mine keeps going out. I am glad, (albeit slightly bothered) by their happy willingess to help. Eventually I get my hands on a properly functioning lighter, and hold the flame to his ear. He wiggles, but the ear does not do much – the hair dissappears, the color changes, it crinkles slightly - I don’t recall seeing smoke, though I am sure there was. The main effect (he doesn’t squirm nearly so much as would be appropriate,) is that the top half of his ear shrinks, and practically disappears, leaving a bit of a shrunken, half-ear behind it.
And still no sign of the bag. It is time to move – they are moving – they push me into one of the waiting multi-passenger cars, and smile a not nice smile at me. As one of them leans past me – a man of perhaps 55 or 60, I see a piece of broken glass bottle bottom pinned between thumb and forefinger, and as he leans past me to put something in the back, he takes advantage of the moment, and the opportunity, and grinds the piece of broken glass into my back. I don’t react, and so he starts cutting long lines down my back – I wonder what my shirt will look like in an hour, but say nothing.
I say nothing because I can see something – everyone in this family keeps constant vigilant half hooded an eye on the guy who is the leader – he is the one sitting in the driver’s seat of this car – and when another guy tries to get at me with a screwdriver, he does so with both eyes watching the driver, to be sure he does not see it. I twist the screwdriver out of his hand, and plunge it a short way into his leg – only a short way, because I am beginning to catch the fear of the attention open conflict might draw. The man I stabbed makes no noise, just rubs it and stares malevolently at me – I can only imagine what is coming later.
But what interests me most is the fact that the driver, the leader, seems to be aware of what is going on – he has a slight smirk on his face all the time, and yet the others seem deathly afraid that he will actively notice – which, given what we are doing now – what does he do to people when he gets lathered? The longer I wait, the more I realize this guy is Vesuvius on a coffee break – the pressure and heat are slowly building, and he is enjoying it, and when it comes, we will all suffer exquisitely, and horribly, and we will pretend it is all fine, because we are so afraid of what else may be inside him, waiting to find its own creative realization upon us.
Over time, (and there is much,) I see that many of these people are trapped, like me. They want out – but slowly the leader’s mind and their own captivity has twisted them into stunted sadistic beings who can no longer think their way out. We go to church, the whole group of us, a lot. It is there that I realize one of the women in the group is working for law enforcement, and her contacts are here in the church – it is the only place we get to interact with anyone. As we leave, in the parking lot I walk past basement windows and realize that it is far too busy down there – emotion-laden sounds come up from below, and the the sound of much machine clanking – none of this bodes well, and slowly I feel myself losing my confidence that I can, when the moment comes, screw my courage to the sticking point and finish one or four or all of these fuckers. I know when the moment comes my strength in my hands will fail, and I will fear and move too slowly and then I will be caught, and I will throw myself at their feet in abject fear of what is to come, not so much the death as the losing, not so much the death as the pain, the pain not so much the pain as the helpless grinding humiliation exposed, and I will beg and I will be broken and thus one of them.
With my hands upon the keys
I have drowsed upon the couch –
Today I will write no more
I must go and close the door.
But what am I saying – it does have a name, and a well-known one at that. They recur – my dreams – they are recurring dreams, and by their unpleasantness we know them, they are nightmares. I can no more stop them than I could stop the a wave in the open ocean. Not every night (thank heavens for that - to wake with this feeling that I have now, and will carrry with me for much of the day – to have that everyday, that would be too much – what I have now is not too much – is is much nonetheless more than I would have,) but not every night they come to me.
There are a few – a menu – you may choose if you like. Do you dislike men without skin, whose muscles visible to the air red and angry across ligaments come beckon to you as you sit with friends and only you can see him – no one else notices – and you would notify them, but when you go to speak ofyou’re your voice fails and is not your tool – he turns off your voice for you because he knows your thoughts, and he would not tolerate your dragging others into this intimate moment of stark terror shared between you two, old friends of many nights since childhood. Eventually he will beckon, and I will go – I have no choice – I am not mine own. There are also the lizards, of course – the large, muscular-bulging variety, slate gray often in color, but possibly green – they wait for me with mouths of pink, and move but rarely and then to the purpose.
Am I afraid of heights? Indeed, in waking life, I am, but not so much than I cannot swallow it and push forward and continue – but in my dream, and it is always structured the same – in my dream it overpowers me, the fear, and leaves me – cowering on a finely graded ledge, one foot-slip away from . . . But I should begin with where it begins.
Always, always, I am always in a strange place – and usually, I want to get out. Last night I wanted to get in – but only to another builidng, and to that end, rather than go down into the very narrow and oh-so-inconveniently placed drainage ditch between the two buildings, I thought I could save time by going UP the small steps located on the side of this building, on this side of the ditch, and then cross over on the small walkboards that are strung between them.
Quickly up I go, the easy stops on the outside of the building. As I get to the top I begin to notice that I had failed to notice that the top few steps are dangerously minimal, and angled in the not-healthy 4 story drop direction. But ahead is a landing – then the crossing – yet somehow when I get to the landing, either the changing nature of the dream, or my own cursed lack of attention earlier result in me finding myself upon a landing that, while safe, makes going back down a fool’s errand. There are no handholds now, and the steps are very dangerous, so I must got forward. But when I turn to look at the walkway in front of me, there are details I had not noticed before – it is cracked, the wood is rotten, it was thin to begin with, has somehow grown yet thinner with proximity, and it will surely not carry my weight.
Suddenly the fear just rises like a sneeze – you could fight it, but once it is upon you, it has a life and determination all its own, and you would be best served to get out of the way. The fear sets in with a sudden downswooping of panic, and I clutch onto – there is always something there to clutch on to – and usually it is mostly stable – I clutch it and I absolutely cower in agonizing fear of falling. Sooner or later, though – it is not so long – 20 – 30 seconds in the dream – I have to get on, and there is always a door or a window available to me.
Last night it was a door. I knocked on the door, and then looking across (while waiting for the door to open,) I saw two people from work, the assistant director and her assistant, stuck in a similar plight on the rooftop of the house opposite. And – oddly enough – I recognized that rooftop – I had been there about 2 or 3 months before. One of them was waiting on the other while she collected her courage – they had just come out of a gable window, and I knew the route they would have to take – up, across the faded cedar shakes that came loose and slid clattering down the roof to dissappear off the edge – they had to transverse the roof – but I couldn’t remember what came after that.
The woman who answered the door was quite old – probably in her 70’s. She had me wait while she fetched her husband – all I wanted was to ask for a set of stairs – can you show to the hallway so I can take the stairs down and out of the building?
When her elderly husband showed up I was nude – except for a cap, and the bag I was carring with me – it was rather embarrassing – I was keenly aware of how inappropriate this was – but what is one to do – apparently I wander naked today – I asked for the stairs – he did not seem to understand, which is odd because I know the words for stairs – it doesn’t seem like such a far out request – but he wasn’t at all sure. He walked away and came back – and using his hands he asked me if I wanted the riser (up) part of the stairs or the tread (flat) part of the stairs. He had obviously misunderstood – I explained that I wanted to WALK DOWN the stairs. Can he just show me where the stairs are? He eventually agreed,and told his wife to do so – as she was showing me the way – first down this set of stairs in their apartment, through this room – she used a couple of slavic words. I was in the middle of asking about this when her husband came back, and now I could hear the slavic words he was using, as well – they were immigrants here – perhapst that explains the misunderstanidng about the stairs. But after a down staircase, now there were also winding up tightly two up staircases, and still no sign of the main hall of the building, where I can acess a stairwell and go down to the ground level. And now they are taking me to these internal, UP staircases, that are terribly rickety to boot – but I don’t want to go up – but they seem to be telling me that up is the way to get out.
Now in case I have not bored you with this topic before, this is ALWAYS the case. For one reason or another, I always end up travelling UP, trying to get down. And the means by which I am travelling up get progressively thinner, smaller, and less secure. I cannot believe this is happening to me again.
I think these people are Bulgarian immigrants – they certainly aren’t Turks – I follow their advice,and go up the staircases, squeezing myself out a hole at the top and emerging half-way out a window only about 10 feet off the ground. I am in luck.
I throw my backpack to the ground first, and then prepare myself to vault out the window. But in that moment, a young boy scurries through and seizes my bag, and runs off. I jump.
The family below are gypsies, I think. They are . . . malformed . . . unsympathetic, and one of them stole my bag, and I know it is somewhere nearby, and all that needs to happen is a quick word from the right guy, and it will reappear. Unfortunately, my first few inquiries leading nowhere, I decide to adopt a more straightforward approach. I seize one of them, a kid of about 20, and tell him to get my bag here or . . . I’ll burn him. He is not sufficiently pro-active and motivated, so I seize him by the neck, flick my lighter, and hold it up to his cheek – but it goes out. So I try his forehead , and then his hair with slighly better success. But really, this lighter sucks. His friends and family are all watching – some of them offer their lighters to me – mine keeps going out. I am glad, (albeit slightly bothered) by their happy willingess to help. Eventually I get my hands on a properly functioning lighter, and hold the flame to his ear. He wiggles, but the ear does not do much – the hair dissappears, the color changes, it crinkles slightly - I don’t recall seeing smoke, though I am sure there was. The main effect (he doesn’t squirm nearly so much as would be appropriate,) is that the top half of his ear shrinks, and practically disappears, leaving a bit of a shrunken, half-ear behind it.
And still no sign of the bag. It is time to move – they are moving – they push me into one of the waiting multi-passenger cars, and smile a not nice smile at me. As one of them leans past me – a man of perhaps 55 or 60, I see a piece of broken glass bottle bottom pinned between thumb and forefinger, and as he leans past me to put something in the back, he takes advantage of the moment, and the opportunity, and grinds the piece of broken glass into my back. I don’t react, and so he starts cutting long lines down my back – I wonder what my shirt will look like in an hour, but say nothing.
I say nothing because I can see something – everyone in this family keeps constant vigilant half hooded an eye on the guy who is the leader – he is the one sitting in the driver’s seat of this car – and when another guy tries to get at me with a screwdriver, he does so with both eyes watching the driver, to be sure he does not see it. I twist the screwdriver out of his hand, and plunge it a short way into his leg – only a short way, because I am beginning to catch the fear of the attention open conflict might draw. The man I stabbed makes no noise, just rubs it and stares malevolently at me – I can only imagine what is coming later.
But what interests me most is the fact that the driver, the leader, seems to be aware of what is going on – he has a slight smirk on his face all the time, and yet the others seem deathly afraid that he will actively notice – which, given what we are doing now – what does he do to people when he gets lathered? The longer I wait, the more I realize this guy is Vesuvius on a coffee break – the pressure and heat are slowly building, and he is enjoying it, and when it comes, we will all suffer exquisitely, and horribly, and we will pretend it is all fine, because we are so afraid of what else may be inside him, waiting to find its own creative realization upon us.
Over time, (and there is much,) I see that many of these people are trapped, like me. They want out – but slowly the leader’s mind and their own captivity has twisted them into stunted sadistic beings who can no longer think their way out. We go to church, the whole group of us, a lot. It is there that I realize one of the women in the group is working for law enforcement, and her contacts are here in the church – it is the only place we get to interact with anyone. As we leave, in the parking lot I walk past basement windows and realize that it is far too busy down there – emotion-laden sounds come up from below, and the the sound of much machine clanking – none of this bodes well, and slowly I feel myself losing my confidence that I can, when the moment comes, screw my courage to the sticking point and finish one or four or all of these fuckers. I know when the moment comes my strength in my hands will fail, and I will fear and move too slowly and then I will be caught, and I will throw myself at their feet in abject fear of what is to come, not so much the death as the losing, not so much the death as the pain, the pain not so much the pain as the helpless grinding humiliation exposed, and I will beg and I will be broken and thus one of them.
With my hands upon the keys
I have drowsed upon the couch –
Today I will write no more
I must go and close the door.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Life is messy.
A snapshot of my life in this Sunday-morning moment would be deceptive. Chaos reigns across the living areas of my apartment. In the kitchen, on Friday evening I cooked a piece of salmon, with a covering of mustard seed, pine nuts, bit o' bread crumbs and lemon, and some capers thrown in for good measure. That was then wrapped in a bit of pastry dough, which was then brushed with some egg, and baked in the oven. The random remains were left in the kitchen, where they still are this morning. Then, Saturday morning I made a strawberry cobbler, of which I proceeded to eat half. Again, much of the remains and dirty utensils, sit still on my counters, largely where they were left when I put them down, having exhausted their use. Then, last night, I bought a chicken, and ate it piece by piece by dipping it in barbecue sauce, garlic yogurt, or sriracha sauce, all while priming the engine with a beer so bad it nearly makes me gag when I drink it. The sauces, of course, still sit out in the kitchen. On the floor, there is a pizza box, containing, yes, pizza. Thus, in short, my kitchen is a mess.
My living room has only a few disordered items of its own, chief among them being a brackish bowl of greasy water containing in it's discolored depths some salmon skin, some carrot pieces, and some lettuce. I know it sounds like that soup you once saw in a Vietnamese restaurant, but it isn't. It's just turtle food. You see, if I put their food in their main tank with them, the water gets all nasty much sooner. But if I feed them in a separate bowl, then I need to change the water less often. On the couch where I sit, there is a lap-desk, (bean-bag type construction on the bottom, black plastic on top,) which sits upon the sofa beside me, because it is really more useful at providing a stable base upon which a coffee cup might rest within reach than a lap-desk for the laptop, which balances on my leg which, wrapped in a blanket, balances on the coffee table, just fine. The coffee table itself is strewn with electronics - two hard drives of what a few years ago would have been considered phenomenal capacity, but now, given my penchant for taking photos and downloading TV shows, are both brimming near capacity. Were that not enough memory and entertainment electric, my ipod, wrapped in its little white cord, is also on the table, beside a computer mouse. Cords from all these devices in different directions writhe, each with its own kinks and folds rising and across the table snaking as though they had life.
When I said the living room had but a few disordered items of its own, I meant that - well, there is also my jacket on the chair across from me - but most of the mess in the living room is actually spill-over from the dining area. Yesterday I bought a rose bush. It is about 6 feet tall, and is supported by a reed which it twines around and up - I set it in my living room, next to the window, over the turtles, and it so pleased me to have a rosebush in my living room that I decided to I had to re-pot some other plants, but quickly ran out of soil. The project having been suddenly abandoned, however, the pots still sit scattered around the coffee table, looking, but for their new-ness, like something you would expect to find in the back shed of a gardener. Beyond the pots, on its side, lies an empty beer can, and beyond that a rug, having been thrown from across the room last night, lies crumpled, under a chair which supports an empty pizza box.
The pizza box is not there because, like so many other items, I just left it where it was when I was done eating pizza - no, I went and pulled it from the rubbish to put it on that chair, because I wanted to cut a circle out of it. In the end I didn't, or rather, I cut a circle out of the flyer pasted onto it instead - (it was just easier that way-)which goes some way toward explaining why there is a cut up Little Ceasar's flyer on the floor in the dining room, next to the pages of newspaper and magazine spread out over the floor. There are about 9 of them, and they were intended to protect the floor from the paint which was aimed at the poor canvas which sits atop them. Given the amount of paint on them, I suppose they did a bang-up job, but given the amount of paint on the floor, it would appear I should have used about 29 sheets, as opposed to 9. I don't suppose Jackson Pollack worried about this sort of thing . . .
Naturally, then, upon the dining room table overlooking the brightly colored floor and newspapers and of course, canvas, sit tubes and bottles and bottles and tubes of paint, plus a large bottle of milk that ought to be in the fridge, about half a chicken on a rather smeary plate, and a pile of bones and excess skin off to the side of the plate. There are brushes, tape, string, glue, pens, and a pallette with paint crusted over it. Yet let's not get too caught up there.
Allow your glance to travel beyond the table, and you find, across the back of a dining room chair, and scattered across the floor next to the bookshelves and the rugs that hang behind them, dirty clothes. Not just run-of-the-mill dirty clothes, but workout-dirty clothes. Amidst the mix I can also pick out a pair of boxing gloves and hand-wraps, though my view is somewhat obscured by a large pot, like the others in the living room, intended yesterday to receive a plant.
The plants I speak of are all around me - literally on four sides. Most of them are blooming right now - putting out runners and blossoms and blooms. There are wide, spreading spider plants, long trailing leafy vines, small pots of flowering plants, some meter-long bamboo stems, and a couple of things that could pass for small trees. And a rose bush, of course. We mustn't forget him, as he is rather my favorite, and I shall soon name him.
As we leave the living room, I was about to say that my entryway is ok - but it is not. Upon the table, there you will see receipts from food delivered, along with spare change, a wallet, various bank cards, and possibly an open switchblade. On the floor in the entryway there are two plastic bags which contain glass bottles intended for the recycle bin. Due to a recent wine-tasting I here hosted, there are, if memory serves, 6 empty wine bottles, as well as 1 empty each of vodka and bourbon and beer - but let us leave here.
My hallway and bathroom, I am happy to say, are uncluttered - or at least no more cluttered than typically passes for well-ordered and clean. The hallway, however, leads unfortunately to the bedroom. Upon the floor of the bedroom is a rustic Turkish hand-woven nomadic carpet, brilliant in its reds and oranges, many of which you cannot see because of the pile of jeans and t-shirts and sweaters that begins upon the rug and travels like a great amorphous all-consuming living being from the floor to the foot of the chair and then up the chair, where it ponderously perches and surveys, via the window, life in the street below. The pile grows, and moves, from day to day, shifting its bulk this way or that depending on its mood. As of this morning it has crowned itself with a small black bra, the front straps of which each bear four little pearl-like beads suspended under a fine-tiny golden ring.
As our gaze approaches the bed, across the floor are scattered water bottles, perhaps three, empty all as of this morning. The bedside table upon which they stood one-by-one when full in turn, is currently covered in books, which were once stacked neatly, perhaps five in one stack, three in another, next to the lamp by which they were to be read, but which now lays over at a 45-degree angle, tilted precariously into upon and against the books that saved it from a crashing and untimely end. Scattered beside the perilously piled books and off-kilter lamp are three bracelets of a gold color, and a largish gold colored swatch watch, of the sort that seems fashionable these days, but which I think is a bit big for her very small wrists, which she holds beside her head which uses no pillow, but lays directly upon the red sheet. As her face is turned away, I from the door see only long black hair, and those slender hands with long fingers, stemming from her tiny wrists. Stretched out on the bed, even covered by the red duvet, she looks even longer than she is. She woke me this morning coming in at four. After when we were finished at five, shortly she began to snore. It was the first time I had heard her snore - it was, in an odd way, endearing.
The turtles are moving now, in their tank - banging about and having small dramas, I suspect, in which way they quite remind me of humans. They have heard me typing, and as the sun is now up, they know in their tiny brains that soon the morning sun will soon reach them, and they will take up their basking spots on the stacked rocks to sun themselves.
And I - I will clean today. I will put away the tubes of paint, and pick up the newspaper from the floor. The beer cans and barbecue sauce will go into the kitchen, and the chicken will be stripped from bones and wrapped in plastic and frozen in the freezer like in a civilized household. The flowerpots, empty, will go back in storage, to await the arrival of soil. The painting will go up on the easel, with the others, where I can look at it and think. The clothes will go in the washer, the boxing gloves, stuffed full of newspaper, so they may stay freshy-smelly, put away. The rancid turtle water will be flushed, the turtles brushed, and every rock cleaned in the shower. The dishes I'll wash, coffee I'll make, a new cake I'll bake - a strawberry cobbler, perhaps, again. What I won't do is scrub the floor - I rather like the paint splatters, and there will be time enough in life for scrubbing when I am older and done with the living.
My living room has only a few disordered items of its own, chief among them being a brackish bowl of greasy water containing in it's discolored depths some salmon skin, some carrot pieces, and some lettuce. I know it sounds like that soup you once saw in a Vietnamese restaurant, but it isn't. It's just turtle food. You see, if I put their food in their main tank with them, the water gets all nasty much sooner. But if I feed them in a separate bowl, then I need to change the water less often. On the couch where I sit, there is a lap-desk, (bean-bag type construction on the bottom, black plastic on top,) which sits upon the sofa beside me, because it is really more useful at providing a stable base upon which a coffee cup might rest within reach than a lap-desk for the laptop, which balances on my leg which, wrapped in a blanket, balances on the coffee table, just fine. The coffee table itself is strewn with electronics - two hard drives of what a few years ago would have been considered phenomenal capacity, but now, given my penchant for taking photos and downloading TV shows, are both brimming near capacity. Were that not enough memory and entertainment electric, my ipod, wrapped in its little white cord, is also on the table, beside a computer mouse. Cords from all these devices in different directions writhe, each with its own kinks and folds rising and across the table snaking as though they had life.
When I said the living room had but a few disordered items of its own, I meant that - well, there is also my jacket on the chair across from me - but most of the mess in the living room is actually spill-over from the dining area. Yesterday I bought a rose bush. It is about 6 feet tall, and is supported by a reed which it twines around and up - I set it in my living room, next to the window, over the turtles, and it so pleased me to have a rosebush in my living room that I decided to I had to re-pot some other plants, but quickly ran out of soil. The project having been suddenly abandoned, however, the pots still sit scattered around the coffee table, looking, but for their new-ness, like something you would expect to find in the back shed of a gardener. Beyond the pots, on its side, lies an empty beer can, and beyond that a rug, having been thrown from across the room last night, lies crumpled, under a chair which supports an empty pizza box.
The pizza box is not there because, like so many other items, I just left it where it was when I was done eating pizza - no, I went and pulled it from the rubbish to put it on that chair, because I wanted to cut a circle out of it. In the end I didn't, or rather, I cut a circle out of the flyer pasted onto it instead - (it was just easier that way-)which goes some way toward explaining why there is a cut up Little Ceasar's flyer on the floor in the dining room, next to the pages of newspaper and magazine spread out over the floor. There are about 9 of them, and they were intended to protect the floor from the paint which was aimed at the poor canvas which sits atop them. Given the amount of paint on them, I suppose they did a bang-up job, but given the amount of paint on the floor, it would appear I should have used about 29 sheets, as opposed to 9. I don't suppose Jackson Pollack worried about this sort of thing . . .
Naturally, then, upon the dining room table overlooking the brightly colored floor and newspapers and of course, canvas, sit tubes and bottles and bottles and tubes of paint, plus a large bottle of milk that ought to be in the fridge, about half a chicken on a rather smeary plate, and a pile of bones and excess skin off to the side of the plate. There are brushes, tape, string, glue, pens, and a pallette with paint crusted over it. Yet let's not get too caught up there.
Allow your glance to travel beyond the table, and you find, across the back of a dining room chair, and scattered across the floor next to the bookshelves and the rugs that hang behind them, dirty clothes. Not just run-of-the-mill dirty clothes, but workout-dirty clothes. Amidst the mix I can also pick out a pair of boxing gloves and hand-wraps, though my view is somewhat obscured by a large pot, like the others in the living room, intended yesterday to receive a plant.
The plants I speak of are all around me - literally on four sides. Most of them are blooming right now - putting out runners and blossoms and blooms. There are wide, spreading spider plants, long trailing leafy vines, small pots of flowering plants, some meter-long bamboo stems, and a couple of things that could pass for small trees. And a rose bush, of course. We mustn't forget him, as he is rather my favorite, and I shall soon name him.
As we leave the living room, I was about to say that my entryway is ok - but it is not. Upon the table, there you will see receipts from food delivered, along with spare change, a wallet, various bank cards, and possibly an open switchblade. On the floor in the entryway there are two plastic bags which contain glass bottles intended for the recycle bin. Due to a recent wine-tasting I here hosted, there are, if memory serves, 6 empty wine bottles, as well as 1 empty each of vodka and bourbon and beer - but let us leave here.
My hallway and bathroom, I am happy to say, are uncluttered - or at least no more cluttered than typically passes for well-ordered and clean. The hallway, however, leads unfortunately to the bedroom. Upon the floor of the bedroom is a rustic Turkish hand-woven nomadic carpet, brilliant in its reds and oranges, many of which you cannot see because of the pile of jeans and t-shirts and sweaters that begins upon the rug and travels like a great amorphous all-consuming living being from the floor to the foot of the chair and then up the chair, where it ponderously perches and surveys, via the window, life in the street below. The pile grows, and moves, from day to day, shifting its bulk this way or that depending on its mood. As of this morning it has crowned itself with a small black bra, the front straps of which each bear four little pearl-like beads suspended under a fine-tiny golden ring.
As our gaze approaches the bed, across the floor are scattered water bottles, perhaps three, empty all as of this morning. The bedside table upon which they stood one-by-one when full in turn, is currently covered in books, which were once stacked neatly, perhaps five in one stack, three in another, next to the lamp by which they were to be read, but which now lays over at a 45-degree angle, tilted precariously into upon and against the books that saved it from a crashing and untimely end. Scattered beside the perilously piled books and off-kilter lamp are three bracelets of a gold color, and a largish gold colored swatch watch, of the sort that seems fashionable these days, but which I think is a bit big for her very small wrists, which she holds beside her head which uses no pillow, but lays directly upon the red sheet. As her face is turned away, I from the door see only long black hair, and those slender hands with long fingers, stemming from her tiny wrists. Stretched out on the bed, even covered by the red duvet, she looks even longer than she is. She woke me this morning coming in at four. After when we were finished at five, shortly she began to snore. It was the first time I had heard her snore - it was, in an odd way, endearing.
The turtles are moving now, in their tank - banging about and having small dramas, I suspect, in which way they quite remind me of humans. They have heard me typing, and as the sun is now up, they know in their tiny brains that soon the morning sun will soon reach them, and they will take up their basking spots on the stacked rocks to sun themselves.
And I - I will clean today. I will put away the tubes of paint, and pick up the newspaper from the floor. The beer cans and barbecue sauce will go into the kitchen, and the chicken will be stripped from bones and wrapped in plastic and frozen in the freezer like in a civilized household. The flowerpots, empty, will go back in storage, to await the arrival of soil. The painting will go up on the easel, with the others, where I can look at it and think. The clothes will go in the washer, the boxing gloves, stuffed full of newspaper, so they may stay freshy-smelly, put away. The rancid turtle water will be flushed, the turtles brushed, and every rock cleaned in the shower. The dishes I'll wash, coffee I'll make, a new cake I'll bake - a strawberry cobbler, perhaps, again. What I won't do is scrub the floor - I rather like the paint splatters, and there will be time enough in life for scrubbing when I am older and done with the living.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A slice of cheese, two half-bottles of wine, and TV downloaded from the internet, were paradise enow'!
One of the advantages of having wine parties, or wine tastings, if you will, is that the poor suckers who attend tend to leave half-finished bottles of wine at your house. And furthermore, you know exactly which ones are best.
I can't exactly say it offsets the cost of all the cheeses and olives and dips and strawberries and grapes and apples and walnuts and little hand-rolled whatnots, but nor is it to be overlooked.
One of the advantages of having a bunch of half-drunk bottles of decent wine sitting around is that they go so well with sleeping pills, and what's more, they make television really, really good. Ok, not really. I mean, the show I am thinking of was good even when I was sober. So - really, I would have enjoyed it in any case.
'Tis a piss-poor blog entry, really. But the aforementioned sleeping pill has caught up with the wine, and the two together are doing a tag-team whammy on me brain.
May the force be with you all.
I can't exactly say it offsets the cost of all the cheeses and olives and dips and strawberries and grapes and apples and walnuts and little hand-rolled whatnots, but nor is it to be overlooked.
One of the advantages of having a bunch of half-drunk bottles of decent wine sitting around is that they go so well with sleeping pills, and what's more, they make television really, really good. Ok, not really. I mean, the show I am thinking of was good even when I was sober. So - really, I would have enjoyed it in any case.
'Tis a piss-poor blog entry, really. But the aforementioned sleeping pill has caught up with the wine, and the two together are doing a tag-team whammy on me brain.
May the force be with you all.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Poetry, and again!
Please note that all poems here quoted are done so from memory, and are thus likely to contain errors. You are encouraged to compare them with the originals, and upon finding errors, write me derisive emails containing cutting remarks.
I'm continuing on with the topic of poetry, since that is the thing that is occupying most of my excess mental time these days. Since the last post, I have taken up the habit of pausing morning and night to recite the poems that I have thus far memorized.
She walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies
and all that's best of dark and bright
meet in her aspect and her eyes
Thus muted to that tender light
Which heaven the gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired that nameless grace
That waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lighten's o'er her face
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their resting place
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so pure, yet eloquent
the smiles that thrill, the glints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Ok - I know for sure I fucked up a line there - specifically the fourth from the last, but you get the point. What bothers me about this poem, and a number of others, is that it starts out so well - the first few lines are absolutely immortal in sense and sound - I think had that line been spoken by anyone, including the most bumpkin of a farmer, in the most rural of late-night pubs, one off-hand night, these lines would still have caught on and been quoted and bandied-about and written on a napkin and scrawled on a wall, and probably would have ended up as a lyric in a popular song of the day. Those lines are just so damn good that I cannot imagine them being birthed into the world and the world not stopping to acknowledge them.
But we start with an image, of beauty, like the night - we have repeated references to dark and light, day and night, but she - she walks in beauty, like the night. Beauty in motion, she is. She has the beauty of a starry sky in a cloudless clime. She has a dark beauty that the brilliant day could never aspire to. And then she starts expressing thoughts serenely sweet and pure and dear!
Do you see my problem there? I was seeing a woman of cream-white skin, and raven-black hair, walking graceful as the night - with an almost feline-like movement, the white of her skin and the glints of her looks dodging between the dark-as-coal locks of hair reminding one of of a starry sky on a cloudless night. And suddenly she turns all serenely pure and dearly sweet? I guess if we are going to end up with a saccharine-child, I need a different image to start from:
She laughs her joy, dark-trilling bright
That tells of youth and hopes and dreams,
And 'twixt the raven falling locks
A starry soft-lit side-glance gleams,
As though a star on cloudless night
In race-play 'gainst far-off moonbeam
Should 'midst the forest my face see
and worthy to taste her lips me deem.
OK - do you see what I mean? Introduce the "Innocence" early in the poem, so we can start with an appropriate mental image. Now, obviously that was a rather imperfect two stanzas, but I'm just doing this off the top of my head, and I am not . . . help me here . . . who is this . . . Lord Byron. And he had ALL fucking day to work on this! That's what "Lord" means - it means you have all day to do fuck all except recover from hangovers, shag the domestics, engage in the odd war of liberation against the Ottomans, and write bleeding poetry! And that being the case, it ought to be fucking good, and not give me jarring notes that cause me to go from having an enchantingly dark creature of amazing feline-like grace moving about an enchanted night-scape to some simpering little butter-coated creature of 12 expressing thoughts of serene innocence and purity while sprinkling sugar on her crumbly scone!
Which brings me to my next poem of a problem. I chose this one of Whitman's, because it was so . . . antagonistic, and pompous, that it seemed to suit me well. And perhaps it is slowly growing on me, but I still cannot help but think that this poem really is a great example of a work that precisely characterizes a lack of all the things that poetry is supposed to have - like, I don't know - rhythm, artistic merit, etc.
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground, toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, o dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?
To begin with, the poem's lines seem jagged - there is so little rhythm in them that I feel as though I am swallowing my breath and at every line break. That, and the writer's supposition that others would naturally find or assume him to be heroic, coupled with a completely superfluous, apropos of nothing, reference to eastern-mysticism shoe-horned in (to the detriment of what little rhythm there was,) at the end, just unintentionally confirms the portrait of the author as the full-on jackass he seems to have intended to imply that he might be.
But enough about suck things. Let us go on to talk of a book that left me breathless when I was 18 or 19. I am speaking of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. When I was first back in the states after high school, I ran across this book in a second-hand bookshop, and was transfixed to the spot as surely as if someone had nailed my shoes to the floor.
The first 5 quartos made little sense to me - it took me a few pages to catch on to the types of images and metaphors he (or Fitzgerald,) was repeatedly using, and the direction in which his comments were drifting, but after that I just couldn't get enough. I've always been a sucker for mortality metaphors, and people extolling the wisdom of wine, women, and song. But then to go on and ask the Almighty: Who here has done more to create this situation, and who has done less? Why do I, who only walk this path, when my foot slips, ask pardon of you who not only created me, but created the treacherous path, and then strew it with snares and traps? I mean, if YOU created the world, and YOU allowed sin in, and then YOU allowed me to be born into it, exactly to what degree am I to blame vs. YOU?
Throw in a minor dash of the romanticism of the far-off east, and I was hooked.
Amazing, though, how a person with sufficient time to write, (or translate) such a poem would need to begin multiple stanzas with the same trope:
Come fill the cup, and in the fires of spring
The winter garment of repentance fling.
The bird of time hath but a little way to fly,
and lo, the bird is on the wing!
Ah, come fill the cup that today clears
of past regrets and future fears.
Tomorrow? Why tomorrow I may be myself,
With Yesterday's seven-thousand years.
But - as he said - the bird (of time) is on the wing, and Turkish class starts all to soon, so to the store I must go, or I will not drink milk tonight.
Think! In this battered caravanserai,
Whose alternate portals are night and day,
How Idiot after Idiot blogged his bit,
Abode his hour, then went his way!
I'm continuing on with the topic of poetry, since that is the thing that is occupying most of my excess mental time these days. Since the last post, I have taken up the habit of pausing morning and night to recite the poems that I have thus far memorized.
She walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies
and all that's best of dark and bright
meet in her aspect and her eyes
Thus muted to that tender light
Which heaven the gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired that nameless grace
That waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lighten's o'er her face
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their resting place
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so pure, yet eloquent
the smiles that thrill, the glints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Ok - I know for sure I fucked up a line there - specifically the fourth from the last, but you get the point. What bothers me about this poem, and a number of others, is that it starts out so well - the first few lines are absolutely immortal in sense and sound - I think had that line been spoken by anyone, including the most bumpkin of a farmer, in the most rural of late-night pubs, one off-hand night, these lines would still have caught on and been quoted and bandied-about and written on a napkin and scrawled on a wall, and probably would have ended up as a lyric in a popular song of the day. Those lines are just so damn good that I cannot imagine them being birthed into the world and the world not stopping to acknowledge them.
But we start with an image, of beauty, like the night - we have repeated references to dark and light, day and night, but she - she walks in beauty, like the night. Beauty in motion, she is. She has the beauty of a starry sky in a cloudless clime. She has a dark beauty that the brilliant day could never aspire to. And then she starts expressing thoughts serenely sweet and pure and dear!
Do you see my problem there? I was seeing a woman of cream-white skin, and raven-black hair, walking graceful as the night - with an almost feline-like movement, the white of her skin and the glints of her looks dodging between the dark-as-coal locks of hair reminding one of of a starry sky on a cloudless night. And suddenly she turns all serenely pure and dearly sweet? I guess if we are going to end up with a saccharine-child, I need a different image to start from:
She laughs her joy, dark-trilling bright
That tells of youth and hopes and dreams,
And 'twixt the raven falling locks
A starry soft-lit side-glance gleams,
As though a star on cloudless night
In race-play 'gainst far-off moonbeam
Should 'midst the forest my face see
and worthy to taste her lips me deem.
OK - do you see what I mean? Introduce the "Innocence" early in the poem, so we can start with an appropriate mental image. Now, obviously that was a rather imperfect two stanzas, but I'm just doing this off the top of my head, and I am not . . . help me here . . . who is this . . . Lord Byron. And he had ALL fucking day to work on this! That's what "Lord" means - it means you have all day to do fuck all except recover from hangovers, shag the domestics, engage in the odd war of liberation against the Ottomans, and write bleeding poetry! And that being the case, it ought to be fucking good, and not give me jarring notes that cause me to go from having an enchantingly dark creature of amazing feline-like grace moving about an enchanted night-scape to some simpering little butter-coated creature of 12 expressing thoughts of serene innocence and purity while sprinkling sugar on her crumbly scone!
Which brings me to my next poem of a problem. I chose this one of Whitman's, because it was so . . . antagonistic, and pompous, that it seemed to suit me well. And perhaps it is slowly growing on me, but I still cannot help but think that this poem really is a great example of a work that precisely characterizes a lack of all the things that poetry is supposed to have - like, I don't know - rhythm, artistic merit, etc.
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground, toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, o dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?
To begin with, the poem's lines seem jagged - there is so little rhythm in them that I feel as though I am swallowing my breath and at every line break. That, and the writer's supposition that others would naturally find or assume him to be heroic, coupled with a completely superfluous, apropos of nothing, reference to eastern-mysticism shoe-horned in (to the detriment of what little rhythm there was,) at the end, just unintentionally confirms the portrait of the author as the full-on jackass he seems to have intended to imply that he might be.
But enough about suck things. Let us go on to talk of a book that left me breathless when I was 18 or 19. I am speaking of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. When I was first back in the states after high school, I ran across this book in a second-hand bookshop, and was transfixed to the spot as surely as if someone had nailed my shoes to the floor.
The first 5 quartos made little sense to me - it took me a few pages to catch on to the types of images and metaphors he (or Fitzgerald,) was repeatedly using, and the direction in which his comments were drifting, but after that I just couldn't get enough. I've always been a sucker for mortality metaphors, and people extolling the wisdom of wine, women, and song. But then to go on and ask the Almighty: Who here has done more to create this situation, and who has done less? Why do I, who only walk this path, when my foot slips, ask pardon of you who not only created me, but created the treacherous path, and then strew it with snares and traps? I mean, if YOU created the world, and YOU allowed sin in, and then YOU allowed me to be born into it, exactly to what degree am I to blame vs. YOU?
Throw in a minor dash of the romanticism of the far-off east, and I was hooked.
Amazing, though, how a person with sufficient time to write, (or translate) such a poem would need to begin multiple stanzas with the same trope:
Come fill the cup, and in the fires of spring
The winter garment of repentance fling.
The bird of time hath but a little way to fly,
and lo, the bird is on the wing!
Ah, come fill the cup that today clears
of past regrets and future fears.
Tomorrow? Why tomorrow I may be myself,
With Yesterday's seven-thousand years.
But - as he said - the bird (of time) is on the wing, and Turkish class starts all to soon, so to the store I must go, or I will not drink milk tonight.
Think! In this battered caravanserai,
Whose alternate portals are night and day,
How Idiot after Idiot blogged his bit,
Abode his hour, then went his way!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Form, Function, and Poetry
In all of my useless casting-about to try and figure out what to do with myself prior to dying, I have made up a list of things that, I figure, might constitute a life well-lived, or at least a farcical resemblance thereof. This list faces constant revision and addition, though not too much outright subtraction.
In a recent fit of additions, I decided that I wanted to memorize approximately 10 poems. These would be 10 poems which capture the joy of sound that many poems offer, and have something to say about the human condition which, when trotted out of the back-room of memory from time to time, give me a gristly profundity upon which I might chew an hour or two.
This was the plan. I began selecting poems, and immediately, like all plans that come within a 2-mile radius of my hands, the plan began fraying at the edges and mutating at the core. Ok, not really - it's just that I have a difficult time saying "No" to any poem I like, so the body of poems I am drawing from seems to be growing.
The first thing I did was write my favorite poetry authority, and ask him of to suggest some poems. He responded with the following:
“Sunflower Sutra” (or “Supermarket in California ”) by Allen Ginsberg
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley
“ Lake Isle of Innesfree” (or “When You Are Old” or “Second Coming”) by W B Yeats
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas
“i thank You God for most this amazing” by cummings
When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman
“The Windhover” by Hopkins
Psalm 23
Sonnet XXI by EB Browning
“Kubla Khan” (or “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”) by Colerridge
If I was going to memorize Shakespeare, I’d memorize the St. Crispin’s Day speech or, like you said, something from Hamlet.
I promptly looked these up on the internet, and began printing them off. Unfortunately, while there, I started looking at other poems, and ended up with a few more - such as:
The time I've lost in wooing
Out of the rolling ocean the crowd
She walks in beauty like the night
Delight in disorder
Some chapters of the Tao
Some Quartos of the Rubiyat
And then printed them all off, and stared that them for a while. Where to begin? For no real reason other than the size of it, I shuffled Whitman's "When I hear the learn'd astronomer" to the top of the pile, at which point it occurred to me that perhaps, if I were going to undertake a body of stuff to memorize, it might be wise to begin with the small stuff, the better to train the brain to it, and gain that extra juicy-reward feeling that squirts up between the toes of my brain when I manage to kick a totally useless personal goal in the ass.
(Don't let yourself dwell on a mental image of that last metaphor.)
So it was with Whitman that I began. And within a day, it was well-done. Here, some days later, it is, from memory. Please pardon punctuation mistakes.
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs and figures were ranged in columns before me
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting, heard the learn'd astronomer, as he lectured, with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.
What I quickly noticed was that the second portion of the poem was easier to memorize than the first half. And the more I recited it to myself, the more I noticed the differences. The first half of the poem is broken in odd places, and has a hacking/coughing start-and-stop to it, punctuated by the wheezing "when," whereas the second half has more lilting words, and a rhythm that slides one line into another. Furthermore, the first half is full of science and order words - columns ranged and diagrams shown with charts to measure and astronomers and learn'd lecture rooms. The second half has not a single one of these words in it, but instead has soft action - rising, gliding, wandered off, mystical stars moist night perfect silence by myself. And somehow these changes made the second half easier to remember - easier to follow.
Which was odd, because in the course of memorizing that poem, I had accidentally memorized 1/3 of another one. Which is to say, just by flipping past it, and reading it once or twice in passing, it was now dancing with gluey slippers all over the echo-chamber of my mind, with no suggestion of stopping. It literally just fell into my head with almost zero effort. The first half below, is what I already had memorized when I finished with the first poem.
The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing,
The light that lies
In women's eyes
Has been my heart's undoing.
Though Wisdom oft has sought me
I scorned the lore she brought me
My only books
were women's looks,
And folly's all they taught me.
So I immediately set about learning the rest of it - I will skip the middle 2 stanzas, as they really are not up to the level of the others, and go on to the last couple.
And are these follies going?
And is my proud heart growing
Too cold or wise for brilliant eyes
Again to set it glowing?
In vain, alas, th'endeavor,
from bonds so sweet to sever!
Poor Wisdom's chance
Against a glance
Is now as weak as ever.
I had to wonder - how is that I had to work at "The learn'd astronomer," but "The time I've lost in wooing" seemed to go straight into my brain?
I think the answer is the reason for poetry itself: that rhythm, rhyme, and repeated relationships between sounds and concepts, allow the brain to make connections between the items faster, thus enabling faster commitment to memory, and better long-term retention. Naturally, if you were living in a pre-literate society, and you wanted future generations to remember reliably remember the combination to the alarm system on the family's country-house, or not forget what utter uncle-raping bastards populate the village three hill's over, you might choose to set it to rhyme and rhythm to facilitate it being sung or chanted around the camp fire.
And from functionality to form, like all art, it moved. What was a useful device for carrying water becomes in time an exercise in precision crafting, cutting, glazing, painting and firing, and is an art form, valued for its aesthetic. What was once the necessity of keeping your hair from your eyes and out of the fire, in time becomes a multi-billion dollar industry and art-form, with its own high temples and high priests from whom women the world over purchase the unguents and conditioning cremes with micro-gel beads of exotic fruit extracts, and make cash offerings to in hopes that their hair will now better express their unique, sophisticated yet simple, vivacious yet with a touch of mysterious reserve, personality.
Oscar Wilde once said that "All art is quite useless." The line preceding this one was "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." And perhaps that is where the dividing line lies between Art and Utility - between function and form. When one begins to add function-less (useless) aspects to a thing in order to make it more worthy of admiration, one is engaging in art.
The joy of useless beauty is captured to a (for me, at least,) jaw-dropping degree in the following poem, by e. e. cummings, written here from memory, so please excuse any errors.
i thank you, God, for most this amazing
day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
for a blue-true dream of sky, for all
that is natural, that is infinite, that is yes.
(i who have died am alive again today. this is
the sun's birthday. this is the birthday of
light and of love and wings, and of
the great gay happening illimitably earth.
how could tasting, touching, hearing, breathing,
thinking any, lifted from the no of all nothing,
human merely being, doubt unimaginable you?
(And now the ears of my ears awake,
and the eyes of my eyes are opened.)
In a recent fit of additions, I decided that I wanted to memorize approximately 10 poems. These would be 10 poems which capture the joy of sound that many poems offer, and have something to say about the human condition which, when trotted out of the back-room of memory from time to time, give me a gristly profundity upon which I might chew an hour or two.
This was the plan. I began selecting poems, and immediately, like all plans that come within a 2-mile radius of my hands, the plan began fraying at the edges and mutating at the core. Ok, not really - it's just that I have a difficult time saying "No" to any poem I like, so the body of poems I am drawing from seems to be growing.
The first thing I did was write my favorite poetry authority, and ask him of to suggest some poems. He responded with the following:
“Sunflower Sutra” (or “Supermarket in California ”) by Allen Ginsberg
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley
“ Lake Isle of Innesfree” (or “When You Are Old” or “Second Coming”) by W B Yeats
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas
“i thank You God for most this amazing” by cummings
When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman
“The Windhover” by Hopkins
Psalm 23
Sonnet XXI by EB Browning
“Kubla Khan” (or “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”) by Colerridge
If I was going to memorize Shakespeare, I’d memorize the St. Crispin’s Day speech or, like you said, something from Hamlet.
I promptly looked these up on the internet, and began printing them off. Unfortunately, while there, I started looking at other poems, and ended up with a few more - such as:
The time I've lost in wooing
Out of the rolling ocean the crowd
She walks in beauty like the night
Delight in disorder
Some chapters of the Tao
Some Quartos of the Rubiyat
And then printed them all off, and stared that them for a while. Where to begin? For no real reason other than the size of it, I shuffled Whitman's "When I hear the learn'd astronomer" to the top of the pile, at which point it occurred to me that perhaps, if I were going to undertake a body of stuff to memorize, it might be wise to begin with the small stuff, the better to train the brain to it, and gain that extra juicy-reward feeling that squirts up between the toes of my brain when I manage to kick a totally useless personal goal in the ass.
(Don't let yourself dwell on a mental image of that last metaphor.)
So it was with Whitman that I began. And within a day, it was well-done. Here, some days later, it is, from memory. Please pardon punctuation mistakes.
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs and figures were ranged in columns before me
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting, heard the learn'd astronomer, as he lectured, with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.
What I quickly noticed was that the second portion of the poem was easier to memorize than the first half. And the more I recited it to myself, the more I noticed the differences. The first half of the poem is broken in odd places, and has a hacking/coughing start-and-stop to it, punctuated by the wheezing "when," whereas the second half has more lilting words, and a rhythm that slides one line into another. Furthermore, the first half is full of science and order words - columns ranged and diagrams shown with charts to measure and astronomers and learn'd lecture rooms. The second half has not a single one of these words in it, but instead has soft action - rising, gliding, wandered off, mystical stars moist night perfect silence by myself. And somehow these changes made the second half easier to remember - easier to follow.
Which was odd, because in the course of memorizing that poem, I had accidentally memorized 1/3 of another one. Which is to say, just by flipping past it, and reading it once or twice in passing, it was now dancing with gluey slippers all over the echo-chamber of my mind, with no suggestion of stopping. It literally just fell into my head with almost zero effort. The first half below, is what I already had memorized when I finished with the first poem.
The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing,
The light that lies
In women's eyes
Has been my heart's undoing.
Though Wisdom oft has sought me
I scorned the lore she brought me
My only books
were women's looks,
And folly's all they taught me.
So I immediately set about learning the rest of it - I will skip the middle 2 stanzas, as they really are not up to the level of the others, and go on to the last couple.
And are these follies going?
And is my proud heart growing
Too cold or wise for brilliant eyes
Again to set it glowing?
In vain, alas, th'endeavor,
from bonds so sweet to sever!
Poor Wisdom's chance
Against a glance
Is now as weak as ever.
I had to wonder - how is that I had to work at "The learn'd astronomer," but "The time I've lost in wooing" seemed to go straight into my brain?
I think the answer is the reason for poetry itself: that rhythm, rhyme, and repeated relationships between sounds and concepts, allow the brain to make connections between the items faster, thus enabling faster commitment to memory, and better long-term retention. Naturally, if you were living in a pre-literate society, and you wanted future generations to remember reliably remember the combination to the alarm system on the family's country-house, or not forget what utter uncle-raping bastards populate the village three hill's over, you might choose to set it to rhyme and rhythm to facilitate it being sung or chanted around the camp fire.
And from functionality to form, like all art, it moved. What was a useful device for carrying water becomes in time an exercise in precision crafting, cutting, glazing, painting and firing, and is an art form, valued for its aesthetic. What was once the necessity of keeping your hair from your eyes and out of the fire, in time becomes a multi-billion dollar industry and art-form, with its own high temples and high priests from whom women the world over purchase the unguents and conditioning cremes with micro-gel beads of exotic fruit extracts, and make cash offerings to in hopes that their hair will now better express their unique, sophisticated yet simple, vivacious yet with a touch of mysterious reserve, personality.
Oscar Wilde once said that "All art is quite useless." The line preceding this one was "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." And perhaps that is where the dividing line lies between Art and Utility - between function and form. When one begins to add function-less (useless) aspects to a thing in order to make it more worthy of admiration, one is engaging in art.
The joy of useless beauty is captured to a (for me, at least,) jaw-dropping degree in the following poem, by e. e. cummings, written here from memory, so please excuse any errors.
i thank you, God, for most this amazing
day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
for a blue-true dream of sky, for all
that is natural, that is infinite, that is yes.
(i who have died am alive again today. this is
the sun's birthday. this is the birthday of
light and of love and wings, and of
the great gay happening illimitably earth.
how could tasting, touching, hearing, breathing,
thinking any, lifted from the no of all nothing,
human merely being, doubt unimaginable you?
(And now the ears of my ears awake,
and the eyes of my eyes are opened.)
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