“It was ironic, really - you want to die because you can't be bothered to go on living - but then you're expected to get all energetic and move furniture and stand on chairs and hoist ropes and do complicated knots and attach things to other things and kick stools from under you and mess around with hot baths and razor blades and extension cords and electrical appliances and weedkiller. Suicide was a complicated, demanding business, often involving visits to hardware shops.  And if you've managed to drag yourself from the bed and go down the road to the garden center or the drug store, by then the worst is over. At that point you might as well just go to work.”  (Marian Keyes, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married)


I am sinking, and there is nothing but endless ocean around me...oh, there are plenty of voices telling me to swim, that this is how the ocean is, that the next wave will lift me up... but there is nothing to grab onto, no proffered hands, no buoyant flotsam, no boat straining to come to pick me up.  The mind numbing darkness bids me to stop struggling and give up to the waves their sacrifice.  But something keeps the body moving treading helplessly...

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome  of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult,  that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren,  that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.”  (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections)



Or we sink into non-productive pity for ourselves ...

Why bother, you ask?

"The world languishes for want of an ever scarce necessity, let us be extravagantly generous with the abundance we possess . . . the answer is simple; let us but speak kind words to one another."

Why bother with a blog? After all they die so easily. You start off believing that by writing down some of the thoughts whirling in your mind it will somehow clear your thinking, you solicit feedback, debate, argument, comment to test those thoughts.

But there is silence, because no one is reading them . . . and you come to realize that yes, you are alone in the world.

But there is a responsibility we bear, as unique entities in this existence to pass along to an undefined posterity some understanding of life as we knew it. In so doing we come to understand ourselves in our differences, and the debt of appreciation we owe to those who have done so for us.


We write for the lonely to come.

Remembrance...

Ay as from dreams of some old glorious fight,

Flags flying, and shaken steel, and mounds of slain,
A soldier starts, and feels his old wound pain
His tossing side: anon he sits upright
And rubs his lonely eyes in the dim night,
The glorious vision fading from his brain:
Only the sullen-throbbing pangs remain,
The unforgetful wound, the tear-dimmed sight.
So oft times having wandered in my sleep
By those loved lanes and hedgerows to our tryst,
I press the lids of thy great eyes, and weep
To feel against my heart thy wild heart leap
Once more--Night yawns--Where are the eyes I kissed?
The heart-aches and the tears are all I keep.
(John Barlas)

Times.. .

The Time hath been, a boyish, blushing Time,
When Modesty was scarcely held a crime,
When the most Wicked had some touch of grace,
And trembled to meet Virtue face to face,
When Those, who, in the cause of Sin grown grey,
Had serv'd her without grudging day by day,
Were yet so weak an awkward shame to feel,
And strove that glorious service to conceal;
We, better bred, and than our Sires more wise,
Such paltry narrowness of soul despise,
To Virtue ev'ry mean pretence disclaim,
Lay bare our crimes, and glory in our shame.
(Charles Churchill)

Empty & Alone

“I have outlasted all desire,
My dreams and I have grown apart;
My grief alone is left entire,
The gleamings of an empty heart.
The storms of ruthless dispensation
Have struck my flowery garland numb,
I live in lonely desolation
And wonder when my end will come.
Thus on a naked tree-limb, blasted
By tardy winter's whistling chill,
A single leaf which has outlasted
Its season will be trembling still.”
(Alexander Pushkin)

Gleanings

"You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world." (Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden)

“In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.” (Sigmund Freud)

“Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.” (Leon Trotsky)

“Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it.” (Walter M. Miller, Jr.)

“Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness.” (T.H. White)

"You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.” (W. Somerset Maugham)

Death or Life?

“A man who wants to die feels angry and full of life and desperate and bored and exhausted, all at the same time; he wants to fight everyone, and he wants to curl up in a ball and hide in a cupboard somewhere. He wants to say sorry to everyone, and he wants everyone to know just how badly they've all let him down.” (Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down)

There are times when patience and contemplative quiet wear thin, when despair and rage and tedium combine to overthrow the settled mind and to torture the tired heart.  When one wearies of the world and those in it . . . when even beauty and art can barely restrain the looming indifference.  Comes down the darkness and Melancholy opens her all too inviting and long familiar bosom . . .

Once you realize that there is no changing the world, and that very few individuals even notice your existence, that the ideals of humanity have little to do with, or effect on, the reality of life on this planet; then what is left?

". . .For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all . . ."

(William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

The embattled seclusion and delusion (for Hamlet really is going mad even while he pretends to play at it) exampled in Shakespeare's play and the questioning of the paradoxes of life is all there is left to the thinking mind, and so our heart must save us.

To Passion

An acolyte to a chimerical image

I adore a slatternly goddess

Whose temples are dark rain glutted alleys

And the shadowed depths of human eyes

For want of her I devour my own soul

In inked night hours and deep brooding clouds

The dolorous reeling beauty of drink

And fever'd dreams of melancholy lust

Not in dear poetry condolence find

Nor Lethe's sad draught of forgetfullness

Holy incense, sickly-sweet, quenches nought.

I desire my cruel mistress more than hope

A balm long empty. In my spurn'd spiritless heart

Yet burn the hellfire coals of her votive flame.

I Find No Peace

I find no peace, and all my war is done.
I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I season.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not--yet can I scape no wise--
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.
I love another, and thus I hate myself.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.



 

(Sir Thomas Wyatt,October 11, 1542)

 

Autumn Musings . . .

In autumn moonlight, when the white air wan
Is fragrant in the wake of summer hence,
'Tis sweet to sit entranced, and muse thereon
In melancholy and godlike indolence:
When the proud spirit, lull'd by mortal prime
To fond pretence of immortality,
Vieweth all moments from the birth of time,
All things whate'er have been or yet shall be.
And like the garden, where the year is spent,
The ruin of old life is full of yearning,
Mingling poetic rapture of lament
With flowers and sunshine of spring's sure returning;
Only in visions of the white air wan
By godlike fancy seized and dwelt upon.

(Robert Bridges, 1844-1930)

Forgetfulness . . .

I would I might forget that I am I,
And break the heavy chain that binds me fast,
Whose links about myself my deeds have cast.
What in the body's tomb doth buried lie
Is boundless; 'tis the spirit of the sky,
Lord of the future, guardian of the past,
And soon must forth, to know his own at last.
In his large life to live, I fain would die.
Happy the dumb beast, hungering for food,
But calling not his suffering his own;
Blessèd the angel, gazing on all good,
But knowing not he sits upon a throne;
Wretched the mortal, pondering his mood,
And doomed to know his aching heart alone,

(George Santayana)

Nursery Rhymes

The Owl & The Pussycat

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

(Edward Lear)

The funny thing about nursery rhymes is that they have core collective wisdom that almost sneaks up on you at times.  They seem non-sensical at first but then a slow understanding begins to creep through . . . that pretty things are delighful; that our differences are nothing compared to our capacities for love and friendship; that sacrificing for our friends benefit is noble, that sensual treats like food and song and dancing by the light of the moon are really what life is about . . .

Words have Power

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around" (Leo Buscaglia)

Our existence is literally defined by the words we choose to use . . . the restriction of language,by poor education, or by cultural and/or political negation steals the experience of life from us, because it cannot be verbalized and thus shared.

Think about George Orwell's book 1984 where "Newspeak" seeks to eliminate language in the deliberate effort to end "thought crime" i.e., resistance to authority, by destroying any way of conceptualizing anything other than rigid orthodoxy.

The English language is the most expressive language on the planet, by far nearly a quarter of a million words, although 20,000 to 40,000 is the upper usage range (Shakespeare, who invented quite a few words himself, used around 25,000 in his works) Other modern languages have at best a quarter of that.  So we have variety and near endless options to illustrate our world with.

Now consider the words you use to describe your life, your day to day experiences . . . when someone asks you how your day has been,was it "fine" or "okay?"  Even if it wasn't a great day, mightn't it still be interesting or mundane or insiped, or pehaps it was better than that; exhilirating, exceptional, rewarding?

The power of our words can transform; how we see ourselves, our world, and how we can effect, or even infect, that world, hopefully for the better.

Vocabulary then isn't just some little mind teaser; it is our fundamental expression and our self-definition, it is thus life itself and how you choose to create it . . .

 

New Mornings . . .

Still quiet climb the burning vermilion rays,

Hailing anew; as wonder of ancient time
Earnest with uprais'd hands, priests chanted praise
Rich with awe, poured out in sacred mime
Red oblations of holy wine to greet
Yon ascending god, Phoebus glorified;
Myself, obeisant, here pay homage meet,
Ere the pallid moon set, and starry skied
Night betake herself to triumphant dreams

Such light discovered in thy brilliant eyes;

Aurora's passion now so sallow seems
To their lavish spirit; contented sighs
That fill me quite; bid my heart wake the day;
In thy thought, dawns delight, and here I pray.

Old Wounds . . .

Ay as from dreams of some old glorious fight,

Flags flying, and shaken steel, and mounds of slain,
A soldier starts, and feels his old wound pain
His tossing side: anon he sits upright
And rubs his lonely eyes in the dim night,
The glorious vision fading from his brain:
Only the sullen-throbbing pangs remain,
The unforgetful wound, the tear-dimmed sight.
So oft times having wandered in my sleep
By those loved lanes and hedgerows to our tryst,
I press the lids of thy great eyes, and weep
To feel against my heart thy wild heart leap
Once more--Night yawns--Where are the eyes I kissed?
The heart-aches and the tears are all I keep.
(John Barlas)

Roman Afterlife

Catullus’ farewell poem to his dead brother;

By strangers’ coasts and waters, many days at sea

I come here for the rites of your unworldling,
Bringing for you, the dead, these last gifts of the living
And my words – vain sounds for the man of dust.
Alas, my brother,
You have been taken from me. You have been taken from me,
By cold chance turned a shadow, and my pain.
Here are the foods of the old ceremony, appointed
Long ago for the starvelings under the earth:
Take them: your brother’s tears have made them wet; and take
Into eternity my hail and my farewell.

A unique and fascinating art form are the Faiyum mummy portraits. A type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden board attached to the mummified dead found in Roman Egypt.

Some authors suggest that the idea of such portraits may be related to the custom among the Roman nobility of displaying images of their ancestors, in the atrium of their house. In funeral processions, these wax masks were worn by professional mourners to emphasize the continuity of an illustrious family line, but originally perhaps to represent a deeper evocation of the presence of the dead.

The images depict the heads or busts of men, women and children. They probably date from c. 30 BC to the 3rd century AD. Done with delicacy and detail, the portraits appear highly individualistic. Therefore, it has been assumed for a long time that they were produced during the lifetime of their subjects and displayed as "salon paintings" within their houses, to be added to their mummy wrapping after their death.

The Royal museum of Scotland compared one such portrait to the reconstructed head, made from a copy of the skull found in the same mummy the results were uncanny;

Affinity

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.” (Kahlil Gibran)

There are instances in life that punctuate and illuminate our existence beyond our normal understanding; call them what you will . . . revelation, inspiration, deja vu, love at first sight, etc. Of a sudden something turns on our brain and we glimpse the wonderful.  This happened to me recently, totally unexpectedly, as it always is, and from an odd agency at that . . .

Whether it is an amazing sunset or sunrise (but they all are, aren't they?) or a painting of such beauty and grace; or the words of an author two hudred years removed who spoke and wrote in an language undecipherable to us yet who knew the deepest feelings of our hearts.  Or the glance and sparkle of a strangers eyes that somehow reveal, like the starry summer night sky, whole worlds to us.

How could this be? Limited by time and space perhaps we tend to think too much within those limits.

Now there are philosophies about the shared life force of the universe and the continuing existence of all that is living and has ever lived; possible, certainly if we assume a closed system and Newton's laws of energy, matter and thermodynamics.  

But what about thoughts and feelings, can they be explained merely as the chance recombination of electro-chemical processes that we theorize is thought?  Carl Jung postulated that all humanity had a collective consciousness, a communal intellectual set of understandings, unspoken yet understoood.

“My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”

Freud called these "archaic remnants" - thoughts which could not be explained by anything in the individual's own life and which seem to be "aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind.'

Are we experiencing then the power of shared experience (which is after all always the best kind)? Maybe . . .

I understand "affinity" (my word of definition) more in the form of Vibratory Physics or wave resonace if you will, e.g., Keely's laws of harmonics. Briefly two vibrations at the same  frequency can under certain circumstances reinforce each other and create synchronous or sympathetic harmonics.  It is a synergystic effect.  Postulating that since we all have energy fields, then we all resonate at a certain wavelength and there could be times when we overlap with external energies (and there could be infinite sources for these which would account for variety) that, well, touch us . . . and we respond to it, in a sense by becoming more of ourselves.

It's as good an explanation as any . . . at any rate it is often quite wonderful!

Know Thyself

"What constitutes the freedom, the soul of an individual life, is its uniqueness. The reflection of the universe in someone's consciousness is the foundation of his or her power, but life only becomes happiness, is only endowed with freedom and meaning when someone exists as a whole world that has never been repeated in all of eternity. Only then can they experience the joy of freedom and kindness, finding in others what they have already found in themselves." (Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate)
 

"We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us." (Jean-Paul Sartre)
 

"Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life." (Herbert Otto)
 

"He soon realized that he was not overly intelligent so much as overly sensitive.  The impressions of life, filled both his mind and emotions to unimaginable depths, overflowing with thoughts and sensations each analyzed and explored over and over again.  The problem was in organizing such data into a meaningful philosophy.  The catastrophism of the world re-created an equal and frustrating chaos internally. But at grasping at these millions of impressions he began to glimpse the truth that, unlike others, living, for him was a complex and wholly different experience from the majority of humanity.  By understanding this contrast he could at last free himself from the contraints of the social normative and finally be, of all things, unique"

The difficulty of originality is in creating a new language of definition.  Instinctively we measure ourselves by the standards (of behavior, character, morality, etc.) of society that we know and too often try to fit ourseves into.  Well that doesn't work too well does it?  At least not for the thoughtful individualist. 

We have then the opportunity of creating an entirely new existence, simply by choosing different words with which we may define and express it. The words we use have infinite power in this way . . . more on that in another post.
 

The Precious Few

"Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less." (Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1758)

It is obvious that throughout history a majority of the earth's population has been illiterate or, which is much worse, willfully ignorant; and despite the initiation of public education and the availabilty of so called higher education, mostly in the West, it remains so.  Sadly it seems to remain so as a percentage of population.  Think of the ubiquitous bell curve for a minute;

As philosophers, managers, sociologists, etc., repeatedly tell us only a small fraction of the population actually accomplishes, discovers, dreams, innovates or improves things. Horace Walpole commented that "Ninety percent of the population, makes you want to be with the other ten percent." and with ongoing experience and observation I beleive his witticism is probably an accurate reflection of the reality of humanity.

It's those few restless individuals all the way on the right, crammed into the front of the angle that keep life vibrant. It may be, too that the world owes its continued existence to them.  Think of the story of Lot bargaining with God, pushing the envelope really, (Genesis 19) if he could only have found a handful of decent people, Sodom & Gommorrah would still be popular seaside resort towns.

Think on that. It may well be that at some point if there are too few kind, intelligent, individualistic, responsibly insane people on the planet, it will all go up the spout . . . literally the world keeps turning because these unique people exist

If you are reading this you may very well be one of these statistical wonders, for which you have my sincere appreciation, and affection.