Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Recomendada
All James Thurber cartoons esp. currently this one: two people looking at a glassy- eyed maiden gathering flowers: “She has the true Emily Dickinson spirit but she gets fed up sometimes.” That’d be me… See “The Thurber Carnival” a truly great humor collection.
“Yellow and Pink” by another TNY great, William Stieg, who also created “Shrek.” ( The original much better—and more gruesome—it grues on you.) For the evolutionary establishment, a low blow from the children’s department; a telling parable of eternal significance.
Gary Chapman’s series on the 5 Love Languages, for thine convenience, the short list:
- Words of affirmation
- Quality time
- Receiving gifts
- Acts of service
- Physical touch
Some of us are fortunate enough to have one person who does all 5 equally well—rare though that is—but the point is that love involves some measure of all five.
Mark 1: 1-8
Reflecting on the old saw: “If you can’t please anyone else, you may as well please yourself.” (a corollary of the Gestalt prayer?)
Well, doesn’t that depend on who or what lives inside oneself? Jesus’ parable of the man who tried to make himself moral is instructive negatively—he cleaned up his own act and cast one devil out, but never put anything in its place, so 7 devils, each worse than the first, came in and so all the reforming was only good for making the person 7x worse. ( I often tell a similar story to those trying to quit smoking—just quitting doesn’t always work unless something can come in and fill the needs once filled by nicotine—the “shark tranquilizer.”)
John is often remembered as a condemning prophet; but before he identified any broods of vipers, he offered something totally positive: Jesus; but not “Just Jesus” as some say but also/then the Holy Spirit. Using Isaiah—and I’d add Joel et. al.—he stands in a long line of HS promises that start with Genesis 1.
Hence if we are true to magnitude of these gifts—on most days most of us are not hence our reputation as evil—then we are not here to please anyone but He/They Who live/s within us. Easy if we surrender, impossible if we don’t. But if we do, the Psalms make sense: “What can man do to me?”
This of course changes nothing less than everything! And is an occasion for Pure Joy unless we drag along all our carnal past and current baggage. Aye, there’s the rub!!!
Mea culpa de Nuevo!
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
If all politics are local, are they also all personal?
What is different is the individual story.
It has been my contention and sole goal of this and my previous blog to point out that the building blocks of the world and even of the universe are individuals. Yea, persons and personality. Even Higgs’ Bozone has unique characteristics—we shall see. Men make collections—of fossils, rocks, seashells (me) and of course of people—in order to avoid dealing with individuals, which is very messy and high maintenance most of the time—I will speak of the exceptions some other time.
“Categorical Emperators” are most often a series of evasions, not as a reality—artificial to the core to satisfy our supposed pragmatisms, of which I spoke recently—most of which are in essence self-deception but serve a very ordinary human purpose. “The Individual Strikes Back” does it not? It will not be still; nor rest…so many examples.
Incidentally, speaking of artificial intelligence: computers and electronic medical record systems are not servers or servants but “Masters in this Hall.” If computers lived up to their hype, right out of the box it would be better, but as the old soul song goes: “You just keep me hangin’ on.” It has taken the whole IT team months just to try to get, yea, this very laptop to behave! And even this Word version keeps moving my cursor (a good name for it!) to different places in the text without my even touching the keyboard. We are not so far from “Hal” as we may have hoped.
A recent Dilbert cartoon has our antihero discovering the Higgs’ Boson at home in his very very short accelerator. The moment it appears it says, “BUILD AN ARK”. So Dilbert immediately shuts off the machine, saying, “Nothing but trouble.”
I’m not necessarily trying to make things clear—but I do want people to think about what they are doing—the poet you know is not always obscure for his own sake or for privacy issues:
The Vendee
The poet moves
To cover his heart with a dime.
The poet multiplies
But those who are not poets
Are turning up equally alone.
Pry up that stone
And you may be bitten by a terrible creature
But lift up an eye
And you may have been in starlight.
In the difference between what you leave alone
And your own stupid idea many times removed
The poet inserts a dime and says not to worry.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Dost off yor idea machine!!
From Notes from Underground:
“…who was it who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his advantage in the good and nothing else; and we all know that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests, consequently, so to say, through necessity, he would begin doing good?”
“Oh the babe! Oh the pure innocent child!”
“What is to be done with the millions of facts that bear witness that men, consciously , that is fully understanding their own interests, have left them in the background and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger, , compelled to this course by nobody and nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, willfully, struck out in another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness?”
One thinks of Anna and Vronsky. (Anna Karenina that is)
The only practical thing one can say about pragmatism is that it’s impossible to practice. For one thing, curses often turn to blessings after sometimes a very long time, and vice versa. To even begin to practice pragmatism one would have to see most of one’s future, as it actually will be. And that is only the first of many impossibilities. So I think that I, not being God, can cease to pursue that path. Does a child know what’s good for him or her? No, how could they? Yet as “adults” (so called) we calculate as if we knew; but we are so far from the truth of our condition that we launch out in the above directions simply by faith—faith with zero actual content, other than the determination to drag oneself—and as many others as possible, for “confirmation (social proof) into it. “Man wrapped up in self make very small package.” –attributed to Charles Chan—I think it helped him solve a mystery, anyway.
That’s interesting, I mean, about detectives’ modi operandi…they never use ideas and especially not ideals to solve mysteries; and if they pursue ideology, it is the way Freud did—as the Underground Man anticipates. Philosophy is often forged to reflect our own inadequacies and insecurities—and all philosophy is in the broad definition of the word, reactionary. Every human idea is taken to its logical and emotional extremes, and finally abandoned in the deserts of human futility and unfruitfulness. These phrases come to mind: “He’s shooting himself in his own foot.” And “give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself.” Or as one of my friends from Wholistic once said after a lecture on “Neurolinguistic Programming”, “ a pound of hog manure in a 5 gallon bucket.” I take the latter to be a rustic saying that still should be comprehensible even to the most urbane…
Friday, March 23, 2012
"P. and Pubs"
The New Yorker and Poetry magazine:
I have, courtesy of my parents, a long time subscription to TNY. But the relationship between TNY and myself goes back almost as far as high school, when I used to go the top room of the library where they stored the back issues, and read all the cartoons. As Calvin and Hobbes were to my children, so were TNY cartoons to my youth. I don’t know how much I learned from them; but the love of language therein displayed was a part of that exposure that has stayed with me.
There was also an air of mystery and challenge in the cartoonery noted above—Obscure/NY references never offended me but made me wonder and of course with Google—I’m kind of glad I didn’t have it then—it does take the wonder out of my bread!—it’s all too easy to “extry extry read all about it!”
As to Poetry magazine, I requested that of my sister, who was actually editing a theatre magazine at the time; I had requested a subscription to her publication in order to see her editorials at least; but she felt it would be too arcane to me. So, as I had perused a couple of issues of Poetry (hereafter known as “P”) given to my son Daniel also by my parents; and as I had been deep into writing poetry 30 years ago, it occurred to me that maybe it was time to give poetry another chance. As one can see, it has already been a good resource even in the first issue—which is actually part of the centenary celebration of the longest running small magazine in American history.
What I have noticed is the following—most of the cartoons in TNY and most of their poems do not revolve around a political axis. One thing that separates political cartooning—and there is a bit in TNY—is that it thrives generally on put-downs, hence is not all that funny, and can be—leaving aside the occ. tribute theme-- more irenic and frankly negative than anything else on the editorial pages. I have saved hundreds of cartoons over the years but very few are political and I can’t quote any.
And I can quote a lot of ‘toons!
If one is going to be generally funny, I feel that one has to go deeper, actually, than political statements. In general, art based on political views—all the worse when they are openly partisan—has little lasting value and one does not go back to it spontaneously; contrariwise, look at skits like The Dead Parrot, The Cheese Shop, and “No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition” (or do they?) These can even parody religion and still appeal to a huge swath of humanity regardless of politics or ideology.
Part of that is because these skits’ subject is human nature, not human ideas—and it is often the ideas we come up with that are parodied as being unworthy of the persons, and hence the people become sympathetic in and of themselves. When we make idiots of ourselves we are actually more sympathetic, realistic, and kind to ourselves and others than when we make a pretense of being perfect and—God forbid—perfectly right—which is probably the most unfunny thing we can do to ourselves. And striving for mere ideological purity is the state of mind and judgment most unfair to ourselves, as we set up goals that we can never reach. This makes up a large portion of American Malaise and the polarization which most people abhor verbally, but are addicted to and just can’t stop. Much of this is driven by polemic pieces, which are not unlike a shot of whiskey to an alcoholic—“Just one can’t hurt!”
P seems to be pretty nonpartisan so far—and much more open to spiritual themes. But one would be hard-pressed to find a magazine so professionally and tastefully done. In contrast most other magazines look rather garish by comparison. I suppose that that is due in part to their partisanship to poetry!!! The few ads in the back are all in black and white and very low key.
It is really no wonder, in retrospect, that I once fled to poetry, and may again. And I observe that Ste. Google will still not help you to understand the poem, in essence, any more than Big Blue could. Poetry is not usually a neat equation, though it may be a preposterous one.
Thus I find that it is still very much of a refuge and respite; which is what it always has been; but though a lot of it is entertaining—and funny, yes!—it is at its best a multilayered effort that to the world looks ambivalent at best, and hostile to civilization, principalities, and powers at worst; hence often the first to be outlawed. (C.f. Garcia Lorca—whose poetry could be political—but there was so much more.
“Upon the point of a pin is my heart twisting.” I know. –Lorca, “He Died at Dawn”
Thursday, March 22, 2012
EXODUST
I always thought that this would make a great name for a band--instead of "Kansas," say. (Much of the artistic talent of the 70's and beyond was thinking of cool and mysterious names for bands that never formed--sometimes those who did, well, "Strawberry Alarm Clock" speaks for itself, alas.)
But speaking of Kansas, there is no band by the above name that comes up on Bing--but "The Exodusters" were real people--African Americans who actually moved en masse to Kansas in 1879 to towns such as Nicodemus (now pop. 20) to get away from the increased persecution on the part of postbellum southerners and terrorist groups (Krazy Klansters). They felt, according to Wikipedia, that Kansas was more progressive and tolerant than most states; altho this did not prevent the Kansas Paranoia due to outbreaks of Yellow Fever, blamed on the immigrants, which brought this movement to a screeching halt. Of interest to me is that they were especially shunned in large cities. Mexicans in Iowa today are more than welcomed in small towns, some of whom depend on immigrants for their very survival...also that it is the state including the much feared feds, more then the locals who "crack down" on immigrants.
Mendota and DePue are towns that have welcomed Mexican workers and I have worked with many uncocumented familes--which is why I am for total unqualified amnesty and allowing the criminal justice system to work equally for them and us, regardless of origin. The exodus of Mexicans out of Mexico is one of the biggest blessings this country could have, and only paranoia and the promotion of one's own (dying) culture and people groups has caused an increasing number of people--whole towns worth-- to go back to Mexico. But in Mendota we are up from 15% to 25% and still going strong, largely because the old guard is going and gone, and the acceptance level has continued to go up.
Many immigrants are getting horrible and very limited medical care in spite of their hard work. In Mendota we have Community Health Partnership which can get labs but not medications, x-rays, or surgery hence no screenings at all for colon cancer, just as one example. Take an aspirin, we say=(
We would be more than paid back if we would open our doors even just a little wider--or do we want 2nd generation Mexicans to remember the rest of us as holding back essential care? We in Mendota have been more than blessed by 2nd generation immigrants, some of whom have gone on to be school teachers and superintendents and librarians and hospital board member--and I'm talking about just one familia!
And may I add, por lo general: "How can you say you love God, who you have not seen, if you do not love your brother who you have seen?" (That's for my familia too--and mea culpa for my many failures in this regard)
But speaking of Kansas, there is no band by the above name that comes up on Bing--but "The Exodusters" were real people--African Americans who actually moved en masse to Kansas in 1879 to towns such as Nicodemus (now pop. 20) to get away from the increased persecution on the part of postbellum southerners and terrorist groups (Krazy Klansters). They felt, according to Wikipedia, that Kansas was more progressive and tolerant than most states; altho this did not prevent the Kansas Paranoia due to outbreaks of Yellow Fever, blamed on the immigrants, which brought this movement to a screeching halt. Of interest to me is that they were especially shunned in large cities. Mexicans in Iowa today are more than welcomed in small towns, some of whom depend on immigrants for their very survival...also that it is the state including the much feared feds, more then the locals who "crack down" on immigrants.
Mendota and DePue are towns that have welcomed Mexican workers and I have worked with many uncocumented familes--which is why I am for total unqualified amnesty and allowing the criminal justice system to work equally for them and us, regardless of origin. The exodus of Mexicans out of Mexico is one of the biggest blessings this country could have, and only paranoia and the promotion of one's own (dying) culture and people groups has caused an increasing number of people--whole towns worth-- to go back to Mexico. But in Mendota we are up from 15% to 25% and still going strong, largely because the old guard is going and gone, and the acceptance level has continued to go up.
Many immigrants are getting horrible and very limited medical care in spite of their hard work. In Mendota we have Community Health Partnership which can get labs but not medications, x-rays, or surgery hence no screenings at all for colon cancer, just as one example. Take an aspirin, we say=(
We would be more than paid back if we would open our doors even just a little wider--or do we want 2nd generation Mexicans to remember the rest of us as holding back essential care? We in Mendota have been more than blessed by 2nd generation immigrants, some of whom have gone on to be school teachers and superintendents and librarians and hospital board member--and I'm talking about just one familia!
And may I add, por lo general: "How can you say you love God, who you have not seen, if you do not love your brother who you have seen?" (That's for my familia too--and mea culpa for my many failures in this regard)
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
"Either/Or by Kierkegaard; comments from the "foreward by the reviser"
"Neither volume represents fully or finally what K believes...each volume is written by a psuedonym...
he impersonates two different individuals who are passionately committed to these divergent outlooks on life. Each man is 'sold' on his own position, and each is out to 'sell' the other--and you!"
"With this book he intends only that we shall be sharply observant of 2 contrasted philosophies of life--or else, perhaps,find ourselves impelled to seek a solution elsewhere. True to his method, K will not dictate the answer. What he does do, and relentlessly, is compel us to take note of the question and of the need for a decision."--Howard A Johnson, Cathedral Church of Ste John the Divine, 1958
The modern existentialist, in theory, pays no attention to the import of a choice and chooses arbitrarily. This is very theoretical and impossible to live out. K appears at times to be frozen as he is very analytical; but I conjecture that that is because we have no way to determine this, for K, or for anyone else. Massive motion may take place entirely internally without a ripple on the surface--but maybe only for a few. In comparison to many philosophers, K is still practical while being far more than a mere pragmatist. Another reason why people easily give up on K's writings--but there are many others...
he impersonates two different individuals who are passionately committed to these divergent outlooks on life. Each man is 'sold' on his own position, and each is out to 'sell' the other--and you!"
"With this book he intends only that we shall be sharply observant of 2 contrasted philosophies of life--or else, perhaps,find ourselves impelled to seek a solution elsewhere. True to his method, K will not dictate the answer. What he does do, and relentlessly, is compel us to take note of the question and of the need for a decision."--Howard A Johnson, Cathedral Church of Ste John the Divine, 1958
The modern existentialist, in theory, pays no attention to the import of a choice and chooses arbitrarily. This is very theoretical and impossible to live out. K appears at times to be frozen as he is very analytical; but I conjecture that that is because we have no way to determine this, for K, or for anyone else. Massive motion may take place entirely internally without a ripple on the surface--but maybe only for a few. In comparison to many philosophers, K is still practical while being far more than a mere pragmatist. Another reason why people easily give up on K's writings--but there are many others...
Agrarian Value Pack
FYI This is about the time that my blog/s go into semi-dormancy because of having, for better or worse, 3 point something acres to look after--great exercise, good for that "winter waistland", but hard on my reading and writing both. Plus, today and the rest of this week begins a new era of medicine for me, that is, the electronic health record. I will have a teaching shadow--no not from the Teaching Com.--but from someplace out east--all day today. Part of me opposes her/their agenda by eliminating narrative and emphasizing government compliance and coding and reimbursement. Medicine by the numbers again--another control grab in other words. Well, those of you who pray for me--today and the rest of this week would be a fine time to do so...
What if TSE has written The WaistLand? It would be a best seller.
What if TSE has written The WaistLand? It would be a best seller.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Kabbalah poem, by that most famous of all authors, Anonymous.
INCANTATION AGAINST LILITH
"Veiled in velvet, is she here?
Leave off, leave off:
You shall not enter,
you shall not emerge.
It is not yours nor your share.
Return...return:
The sea is swelling;
its waves are calling.
I hold to the holy portion--
I am held in the holiness of the King."
Also: "The Nut Garden" by Yosef Gikatilla
The nut garden holds things felt and thought
and feeling for thought is always a palace--
Sinai with flames of fire about it,
burning though never by fire devoured.
On all four sides surrounded so--
entrance is barred to pretenders forever.
For one who learns to be wise, however,
its doors are open toward the East:
he reaches out and takes a nut
then cracks its shell, and eats..."
For some reason this reminds me of my own poem, "Akel Dama" perhaps re: the seed/nut being opened--never to fulfill its purpose of reproduction except..."unless a seed falls into the earth and dies"--it dies alone...
All from Poetry magazine, latest issue; but I don't think they would take mine!
Maybe later: Marina Tsvetaeva, whose photo with her dog looks amazingly like my sister.
"Veiled in velvet, is she here?
Leave off, leave off:
You shall not enter,
you shall not emerge.
It is not yours nor your share.
Return...return:
The sea is swelling;
its waves are calling.
I hold to the holy portion--
I am held in the holiness of the King."
Also: "The Nut Garden" by Yosef Gikatilla
The nut garden holds things felt and thought
and feeling for thought is always a palace--
Sinai with flames of fire about it,
burning though never by fire devoured.
On all four sides surrounded so--
entrance is barred to pretenders forever.
For one who learns to be wise, however,
its doors are open toward the East:
he reaches out and takes a nut
then cracks its shell, and eats..."
For some reason this reminds me of my own poem, "Akel Dama" perhaps re: the seed/nut being opened--never to fulfill its purpose of reproduction except..."unless a seed falls into the earth and dies"--it dies alone...
All from Poetry magazine, latest issue; but I don't think they would take mine!
Maybe later: Marina Tsvetaeva, whose photo with her dog looks amazingly like my sister.
Monday, March 19, 2012
La Familia
I learned in the past week that my brother and my parents are reading this fairly regularly.
It was my intention long ago to have a wider audience; however because Dennis was the only responder, I thought that no one else was reading, hence I pretty much gave up on writing for any particular audience. Dennis is easy to write for because he is such an intellectual omnivore; and like myself, only a part-time amateur philosopher and a discriminating consumer! I have also learned from Dennis how to find stuff on the internet; I once asked him what color the sky is on Mars--and he found it! A whiter shade of blue, it seems.
I am primarily grateful that some of my family finds my thoughts at least interesting and I hope also occasionally entertaining. Because my blog has been written for what I see have been selfish reasons, that is, it entertains myself but also gives me a chance to try to explain myself to myself, which of course we know is largely impossible because we are impossibly subjective towards ourselves, hence need others for getting our ego/id under control, and not being totally appalled by what we find inside of ourselves--our "black dragon" as I used to say of meself. Counselling helped but once I was married that has turned out to be counselling plus!
But now that we have gotten this far--I think that the blog will have to change-- be patient with me folks. "We all offend in many ways." I also apologize for any previous offences found in these posts as they are written off the cuff, weren't written with my family in mind; yet as my Dad often said, you write what you know; and no person who writes can avoid being reactionary in the widest sense of the word--more on that some other time.
It may be that the new opportunities outweigh the considerations of wanting to be hyper-private. As has always been my wont.
I used to be impenetrably shy--one reason I got into medicine is to "treat" that, one person at a time. I think, after a long period of continuous exposure to a rich palate of humanity, I have met with some success--thus can be more transparent than in the past.
There is the paradox of wanting to be known, and wanting not to be known. I find that people in general are more or less a mass of contradictions, not subject to reason, pure or other. So what ego and superego do is to gradually pick out a persona, push that forward in hopefully a reasonable and socially/culturally acceptable way, while at the same time culling out the unacceptable and hopefully the impractical. But most of us don't do this in any organized fashion so we have to settle for a "burning man" construction, jerry built as we go along. This makes for a very fragile superstructure. This also makes the proposal: "one is what one is" kind of a time bomb. There are a lot of things inside of me that really don't need to be encouraged! In a Christian matrix, one can call this "the flesh."
One last related observation. Being "understood" is a very mixed bag! And highly overrated. Yet there is the temptation to make oneself known to be better understood. And that is not without its value; depending at least as much on the state of the reader as of the author. Eric Burdon of Animals fame once sang a song with the refrain. "O Lord please don't let me be understood." Hmmmm. We also value "transparency"--but largely the talk show variety. It will take some time for me to explore what my responsibilities are now.
It was my intention long ago to have a wider audience; however because Dennis was the only responder, I thought that no one else was reading, hence I pretty much gave up on writing for any particular audience. Dennis is easy to write for because he is such an intellectual omnivore; and like myself, only a part-time amateur philosopher and a discriminating consumer! I have also learned from Dennis how to find stuff on the internet; I once asked him what color the sky is on Mars--and he found it! A whiter shade of blue, it seems.
I am primarily grateful that some of my family finds my thoughts at least interesting and I hope also occasionally entertaining. Because my blog has been written for what I see have been selfish reasons, that is, it entertains myself but also gives me a chance to try to explain myself to myself, which of course we know is largely impossible because we are impossibly subjective towards ourselves, hence need others for getting our ego/id under control, and not being totally appalled by what we find inside of ourselves--our "black dragon" as I used to say of meself. Counselling helped but once I was married that has turned out to be counselling plus!
But now that we have gotten this far--I think that the blog will have to change-- be patient with me folks. "We all offend in many ways." I also apologize for any previous offences found in these posts as they are written off the cuff, weren't written with my family in mind; yet as my Dad often said, you write what you know; and no person who writes can avoid being reactionary in the widest sense of the word--more on that some other time.
It may be that the new opportunities outweigh the considerations of wanting to be hyper-private. As has always been my wont.
I used to be impenetrably shy--one reason I got into medicine is to "treat" that, one person at a time. I think, after a long period of continuous exposure to a rich palate of humanity, I have met with some success--thus can be more transparent than in the past.
There is the paradox of wanting to be known, and wanting not to be known. I find that people in general are more or less a mass of contradictions, not subject to reason, pure or other. So what ego and superego do is to gradually pick out a persona, push that forward in hopefully a reasonable and socially/culturally acceptable way, while at the same time culling out the unacceptable and hopefully the impractical. But most of us don't do this in any organized fashion so we have to settle for a "burning man" construction, jerry built as we go along. This makes for a very fragile superstructure. This also makes the proposal: "one is what one is" kind of a time bomb. There are a lot of things inside of me that really don't need to be encouraged! In a Christian matrix, one can call this "the flesh."
One last related observation. Being "understood" is a very mixed bag! And highly overrated. Yet there is the temptation to make oneself known to be better understood. And that is not without its value; depending at least as much on the state of the reader as of the author. Eric Burdon of Animals fame once sang a song with the refrain. "O Lord please don't let me be understood." Hmmmm. We also value "transparency"--but largely the talk show variety. It will take some time for me to explore what my responsibilities are now.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
AKEL DAMA
"There's a hole in the roof/why don't you send your man up to fix it?"
The ground squirrel sprawls under the Phoenix mesquite
as if to straddle the entire adobe wall
and crush it beneath his silent gnashing of teeth.
Tiny birds, tinier leaves, flecks of sunlight
converge and the cavity is evacuated.
The seed pod is broken,
its contents consumed,
and you want to stay here?
Each tear
is preserved in the eye of God
Each seed
dies drooping from the mouth of the earth
Each booth tilted and
pierced by its very foundation.
-----------------------------------------------------
No, this is not Kabbala poetry; it's the last poem that I wrote, over 30 years ago, when Stephen was a baby and seemed so vulnerable in the face of the overwhelming heat. I in fact put Stephen at risk on that visit--so was probably feeling not only as vulnerable as a new parent is bound to feel, but also guilty for taking him on long walks in the rocky crest above Flo's parents' house. We came very close one time to plunging headlong into the rocks because I had Stephen in one arm,was off balance, and couldn't find a safe way down because we were off the beaten path.
I offer this as a contrast to what I will post later from a Kabbalic author. Not so much because the poems and songs are so superior to mine in workmanship--as they truly are--but because of the truism that great love covers over "a multitude of sins."--but that we have very strange and personal ways of expressing that love; which can even cover the unconscious, the parable, and the paradigm...when rightly interpreted, that is..."is of no private interpretation."
The ground squirrel sprawls under the Phoenix mesquite
as if to straddle the entire adobe wall
and crush it beneath his silent gnashing of teeth.
Tiny birds, tinier leaves, flecks of sunlight
converge and the cavity is evacuated.
The seed pod is broken,
its contents consumed,
and you want to stay here?
Each tear
is preserved in the eye of God
Each seed
dies drooping from the mouth of the earth
Each booth tilted and
pierced by its very foundation.
-----------------------------------------------------
No, this is not Kabbala poetry; it's the last poem that I wrote, over 30 years ago, when Stephen was a baby and seemed so vulnerable in the face of the overwhelming heat. I in fact put Stephen at risk on that visit--so was probably feeling not only as vulnerable as a new parent is bound to feel, but also guilty for taking him on long walks in the rocky crest above Flo's parents' house. We came very close one time to plunging headlong into the rocks because I had Stephen in one arm,was off balance, and couldn't find a safe way down because we were off the beaten path.
I offer this as a contrast to what I will post later from a Kabbalic author. Not so much because the poems and songs are so superior to mine in workmanship--as they truly are--but because of the truism that great love covers over "a multitude of sins."--but that we have very strange and personal ways of expressing that love; which can even cover the unconscious, the parable, and the paradigm...when rightly interpreted, that is..."is of no private interpretation."
Friday, March 16, 2012
miscellaneophilia
"It is not edited for the little old lady in Dubuque."--New Yorker founder and first editor Harold Ross; who also famously said, apropos of the Luce empire, "I believe in malice."
Edward Albee went on to write one of his most ferocious plays in the name of said lady, who plays an emissary from the land of death. "Albee conjures up a camp nightmare of what psychiatrists call, 'negative hallucination'--Homo sapiens inability to see what is right under his nose." --TNY 3/19
Pensee again! I don't think I could write even an acceptable magazine article much less a book!
(Rats)
"Does anybody remember laughter?" -Led Zepplin's Robert Plant, in his most recent performance of "Stairway to Heaven" in NYC The vid is well worth a watch. I also watched Kansas' live edition of "Carry On Wayward Son" --link is on my facebook page. Both Stunningly Beautiful After All These Years.
Stereotypes do not age well...in heaven...de veritas.
Poetry magazine is celebrating 100 years-- all in Chicago, of all places. I asked Catherine to get me a subscription to solve her "gift" problem. This issue is a translation issue with notes from the translators.
I am entranced with the creativity of Kabbalistic poetry but here's the word of a translator: "Working like verbal spirit traps, the poems of the Jewish mystical tradition precipitate a sense of transcendence, which becomes palpable before it is fathomable."
Ponts worth considering--and I do mean ponts:
John the Baptist was right...then he was wrong...and then we don't know.
Jesus's half sibs were wrong...then they got it right...and lived to write 2 books!
So? So it pays to be wrong once in awhile!
Edward Albee went on to write one of his most ferocious plays in the name of said lady, who plays an emissary from the land of death. "Albee conjures up a camp nightmare of what psychiatrists call, 'negative hallucination'--Homo sapiens inability to see what is right under his nose." --TNY 3/19
Pensee again! I don't think I could write even an acceptable magazine article much less a book!
(Rats)
"Does anybody remember laughter?" -Led Zepplin's Robert Plant, in his most recent performance of "Stairway to Heaven" in NYC The vid is well worth a watch. I also watched Kansas' live edition of "Carry On Wayward Son" --link is on my facebook page. Both Stunningly Beautiful After All These Years.
Stereotypes do not age well...in heaven...de veritas.
Poetry magazine is celebrating 100 years-- all in Chicago, of all places. I asked Catherine to get me a subscription to solve her "gift" problem. This issue is a translation issue with notes from the translators.
I am entranced with the creativity of Kabbalistic poetry but here's the word of a translator: "Working like verbal spirit traps, the poems of the Jewish mystical tradition precipitate a sense of transcendence, which becomes palpable before it is fathomable."
Ponts worth considering--and I do mean ponts:
John the Baptist was right...then he was wrong...and then we don't know.
Jesus's half sibs were wrong...then they got it right...and lived to write 2 books!
So? So it pays to be wrong once in awhile!
Thursday, March 15, 2012
7x77
Sorry for the hiatus but I've been more than a little distracted by events that require intense attention in the medical realm. But the above title is more than a "tittle"! For I have also had numerous occasions to think about, let's just say, family dynamics.
My brother used to say to my parents that we are a "dysfunctional" family--in the days when this was a popular term and 12 step programs and concepts were in their halycon days of high repute. I was into this too, almost by necessity, as I was exposed not once but twice to alcohol recovery programs in my 2 sequential residency programs. I continued to get large doses of 12-stepping when I assumed the mantle of directorship of the program we had at Mendota, begun by Dr. Spenader, who once chased an alcoholic onto the roof, and was looking for a better solution. I also was exposed to, and trained in, family counselling, which has always had a special attraction to me. I still do some of that, and would do more, but for the time constraints and I might add the progressive depersonalization and deprofessionalization of my discipline. I have also noticed that I have developed special interests also in physical illnesses that I was exposed to as a child in our household, such as asthma.
There are two concepts I learned from counsellors and counselling practice that fascinate me; no, three fascinating concepts: The first is that people are usually what they say they are--or the opposite; famous example: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."
The second is like unto it: that when families push one person forward as "the problem", it usually means that this person is a scapegoat for the overall tension and disharmony caused by the whole family system--and that these systems develop on their own with little or no planning, foresight, or insight.
I suppose the third is that everyone uses defense mechanisms for temporary relief of family discomforts; and the unhealthy use of these accounts for much if not most of the dysfunctional aspects of the "modern" family, which by all accounts reflects the horrible state of our nation and culture; which is why at least half of marriages disintegrate, often after a short time but unsurprisingly often after many years; the reason generally is that the worldview of one or both evolves into modernity, which holds the nuclear family in contempt. The work of Harvard sociologist C.F. Zimmerman, "Family and Civilization" published in 1949, is a classic study of the evolution of societies and families as they age and tend to align with each other with very little lag time. "Postmodernity" is even worse but a nesessary view to accomplish a more complete disintegration--which is its whole point if you think about it. It may be biologically determined, even, like "apoptosis", from which we daily benefit--"programmed cell death." (Now there's a cure for cancer--if we could harness it...)
The main point being, someone has to bear the burden of bad relationships. People usually are not content to blame or implicate themselves, which raises the discomfort level to "Unbearable"! It is an overwhelming temptation to be overly concerned about the problems of other family members who may appear to be vulnerable enough or passive enough to bear the burden. Of course the consequences of this can be dire or even life-threatening for the scapegoat. Plus families often take great care not to go too far, lest the scapegoat, uh, escapes! He or she is much needed for the "dysfunctional functions" of the whole system. The defense mechanisms with which I am most familiar are denial--which may be universal, but who am I to say?--plus projection , rationalization, and intellectualization-- mechanisms with which Freud was all too well acquainted--and from which he could have learned a lot more except for the hubris factor. (What was he compensating for, I wonder?)
(and, "What about Bob?") (an example of a scapegoat running rampant;)
All that aside, I suppose that all families, like all religions, are essentially reactionary--either to a deficit presented by the old guard, or just a human need that has been suppressed or overlooked. Either way, the goal seems to be either self-justification or group-justification. Children react to their parents, and it's not always very pretty--parents themselves are often scapegoated by their children--almost universally in adolescence! But in adolescence it serves a function--painful as such separations are--"breakin' up is hard to do" It is only when such attitudes are carried into adulthood that the "evolution" stops dead in its tracks and regresses. And the breakups are revisited ad nauseam. Adolescent thinking often becomes senescent thinking as well.
The majority of "las familias de dolor" never grow out of their need for pain--all in moderation of curse!-- or repair it even with insight therapy. And of course medications don't help unless they calm the person to the point where they can consider the problem from a less ruffled state of mind. So I am not against them any more than I am against adolescence; provided they are used as they should be and are designed to be: a stepping stone or minor aid to insight and accepting responsibility for my own half of the larger problem.
As usual time does not permit me to say much more today--I will just say that I too have been guilty of scapegoating, projection, and stereotyping--out of fear of what might happen if a real relationship might develop. I am certainly not alone in this--but it's always more convenient to blame the other person, is't not?
My brother used to say to my parents that we are a "dysfunctional" family--in the days when this was a popular term and 12 step programs and concepts were in their halycon days of high repute. I was into this too, almost by necessity, as I was exposed not once but twice to alcohol recovery programs in my 2 sequential residency programs. I continued to get large doses of 12-stepping when I assumed the mantle of directorship of the program we had at Mendota, begun by Dr. Spenader, who once chased an alcoholic onto the roof, and was looking for a better solution. I also was exposed to, and trained in, family counselling, which has always had a special attraction to me. I still do some of that, and would do more, but for the time constraints and I might add the progressive depersonalization and deprofessionalization of my discipline. I have also noticed that I have developed special interests also in physical illnesses that I was exposed to as a child in our household, such as asthma.
There are two concepts I learned from counsellors and counselling practice that fascinate me; no, three fascinating concepts: The first is that people are usually what they say they are--or the opposite; famous example: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."
The second is like unto it: that when families push one person forward as "the problem", it usually means that this person is a scapegoat for the overall tension and disharmony caused by the whole family system--and that these systems develop on their own with little or no planning, foresight, or insight.
I suppose the third is that everyone uses defense mechanisms for temporary relief of family discomforts; and the unhealthy use of these accounts for much if not most of the dysfunctional aspects of the "modern" family, which by all accounts reflects the horrible state of our nation and culture; which is why at least half of marriages disintegrate, often after a short time but unsurprisingly often after many years; the reason generally is that the worldview of one or both evolves into modernity, which holds the nuclear family in contempt. The work of Harvard sociologist C.F. Zimmerman, "Family and Civilization" published in 1949, is a classic study of the evolution of societies and families as they age and tend to align with each other with very little lag time. "Postmodernity" is even worse but a nesessary view to accomplish a more complete disintegration--which is its whole point if you think about it. It may be biologically determined, even, like "apoptosis", from which we daily benefit--"programmed cell death." (Now there's a cure for cancer--if we could harness it...)
The main point being, someone has to bear the burden of bad relationships. People usually are not content to blame or implicate themselves, which raises the discomfort level to "Unbearable"! It is an overwhelming temptation to be overly concerned about the problems of other family members who may appear to be vulnerable enough or passive enough to bear the burden. Of course the consequences of this can be dire or even life-threatening for the scapegoat. Plus families often take great care not to go too far, lest the scapegoat, uh, escapes! He or she is much needed for the "dysfunctional functions" of the whole system. The defense mechanisms with which I am most familiar are denial--which may be universal, but who am I to say?--plus projection , rationalization, and intellectualization-- mechanisms with which Freud was all too well acquainted--and from which he could have learned a lot more except for the hubris factor. (What was he compensating for, I wonder?)
(and, "What about Bob?") (an example of a scapegoat running rampant;)
All that aside, I suppose that all families, like all religions, are essentially reactionary--either to a deficit presented by the old guard, or just a human need that has been suppressed or overlooked. Either way, the goal seems to be either self-justification or group-justification. Children react to their parents, and it's not always very pretty--parents themselves are often scapegoated by their children--almost universally in adolescence! But in adolescence it serves a function--painful as such separations are--"breakin' up is hard to do" It is only when such attitudes are carried into adulthood that the "evolution" stops dead in its tracks and regresses. And the breakups are revisited ad nauseam. Adolescent thinking often becomes senescent thinking as well.
The majority of "las familias de dolor" never grow out of their need for pain--all in moderation of curse!-- or repair it even with insight therapy. And of course medications don't help unless they calm the person to the point where they can consider the problem from a less ruffled state of mind. So I am not against them any more than I am against adolescence; provided they are used as they should be and are designed to be: a stepping stone or minor aid to insight and accepting responsibility for my own half of the larger problem.
As usual time does not permit me to say much more today--I will just say that I too have been guilty of scapegoating, projection, and stereotyping--out of fear of what might happen if a real relationship might develop. I am certainly not alone in this--but it's always more convenient to blame the other person, is't not?
Monday, March 12, 2012
And, oh, by the Fe
It is no accident that atheism is officially a religion. Agnosticism is not; altho there is a faith element in it that elevates ignorance to the level of deity. Atheism is simply recycled humanism of the Enlightenment, which by its very reference to "Light" is making Absolutes and Absolute Truth claims; but again the leap can only be made by faith, as per Kierkegaard and others. Assumptions must be made; as in every and any human endeavor. It would profit us greatly to acknowledge this state of affairs as such.
Agnosticism also qualifies as a kind of holding tank, until more information is available. But that too is by faith--but whether it qualifies as a religion is a valid object for debate.
Agnosticism also qualifies as a kind of holding tank, until more information is available. But that too is by faith--but whether it qualifies as a religion is a valid object for debate.
Agnostics in Peril!!!!
The term "agnostic" was invented by Thomas Huxley because he was being referred to as an atheist and he did not feel that he was qualified to be an atheist. It was also bad PR.
His was an argument from ignorance; which forms the backbone of the intent of the term. There was an element of humility--probably not borrowed from Darwin but from Christian tradition--that is by and large clean gone out of the present day of the West. Certainly there is no lack of hubris and polarization on the scene!
Not too long ago Macroevolution was declared to have "evolved" from a theory to a "fact." This auto de fe reminds me a bit of Pharoah's magic team of Exodus 7 and 8. By sleight of hand and probably a lot of distracting verbiage, they convinced Pi Roh that the frogs of the magicians were somehow distinct from the plague frogs--when in fact they were probably using the plague itself to justify their existence and their job security.
Science itself has no new information to justify the verbal transition. In fact, science itself is, at its core, in dire crisis, as even the New Yorker has noted. When a discipline feels itself "rocked to the core", it usually appeals to faith, fiats, and fatwhas. It becomes rigid and seeks scapegoats, as with certain influential atheists who seek to deny entrance to the university to anyone with Christian beliefs. There is already this rule in place in regards to faculty--it would be only a short step to require students to renounce their faith at the door. (Downside: atheist faculty would lack scapegoats and conversion materials--how can they let THAT happen? No "sport" wouldn't be "sporting"!!!
What I am saying is that the West is so polarized that very few can be bothered with the strict definitions of fact and proof--which are very hard to come by--they are certainly not to be simply extrapolated from the rocks, which like the Bible of old, are of vastly more than one interpretation. (c.f. Dr. Kurt Wise)
So agnostics are in danger. People who claim to be agnostics are, in practice and attitude, "practical atheists." For our present culture calls for various kinds of complete committment. Chances are that if Dawkins has his way ( unlike Huxley hinself!) and macroevolution is elevated to the status of Absolute Truth (make no mistake; this is the goal and the present statement of affairs) then the lifespan of the utility and even permissibility of agnosticism will be quite limited and may have to become tacit in the future.
Not unlike the theologian in Germany who said, "When they came for the Jews, I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew." (Point of history: most of the Jews did not dare to speak up either--but were not allowed to vote with their feet...)(And are we?)
His was an argument from ignorance; which forms the backbone of the intent of the term. There was an element of humility--probably not borrowed from Darwin but from Christian tradition--that is by and large clean gone out of the present day of the West. Certainly there is no lack of hubris and polarization on the scene!
Not too long ago Macroevolution was declared to have "evolved" from a theory to a "fact." This auto de fe reminds me a bit of Pharoah's magic team of Exodus 7 and 8. By sleight of hand and probably a lot of distracting verbiage, they convinced Pi Roh that the frogs of the magicians were somehow distinct from the plague frogs--when in fact they were probably using the plague itself to justify their existence and their job security.
Science itself has no new information to justify the verbal transition. In fact, science itself is, at its core, in dire crisis, as even the New Yorker has noted. When a discipline feels itself "rocked to the core", it usually appeals to faith, fiats, and fatwhas. It becomes rigid and seeks scapegoats, as with certain influential atheists who seek to deny entrance to the university to anyone with Christian beliefs. There is already this rule in place in regards to faculty--it would be only a short step to require students to renounce their faith at the door. (Downside: atheist faculty would lack scapegoats and conversion materials--how can they let THAT happen? No "sport" wouldn't be "sporting"!!!
What I am saying is that the West is so polarized that very few can be bothered with the strict definitions of fact and proof--which are very hard to come by--they are certainly not to be simply extrapolated from the rocks, which like the Bible of old, are of vastly more than one interpretation. (c.f. Dr. Kurt Wise)
So agnostics are in danger. People who claim to be agnostics are, in practice and attitude, "practical atheists." For our present culture calls for various kinds of complete committment. Chances are that if Dawkins has his way ( unlike Huxley hinself!) and macroevolution is elevated to the status of Absolute Truth (make no mistake; this is the goal and the present statement of affairs) then the lifespan of the utility and even permissibility of agnosticism will be quite limited and may have to become tacit in the future.
Not unlike the theologian in Germany who said, "When they came for the Jews, I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew." (Point of history: most of the Jews did not dare to speak up either--but were not allowed to vote with their feet...)(And are we?)
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Joyful Joyful we adore we!
Thank,you, Dennis, for those kind words. I too believe that God sends us people for certain seasons of our lives. Certainly in my case I have “moved on” dozens of times and not always of my own accord. I don’t have any friends left over from high school, college, medical school, or residency; largely because my worldview is inherently different from the majority, and finding friends is not a matter of effort, my choices, or chance but directed from the outside.
I am very happy, no, more at “joyful”; to count you as my friend and intellectual classmate/foil. My other friend is Ken Beggs, who is an anesthetist recently retired from our hospital, whom I have known for several decades. So there are two of you; Ken, for most of those years, was my most cheerful and kind pagan—raised Catholic but Vietnam
How is than tolerance, then? Words are more than tricky when applied to reality, since words are mere tools, and reality can only be briefly affected by our propaganda. C.f. the Holocaust. “We are hot and you are not!”
I have more to say about word-religion of course; but as food for thought, ponder these by Ingmar Bergman when he announced his retirement from the film industry: “I’m done with all that whoring.”
And in a related (?) incident: “I hope I never get so old that I get religious.”
It would be interesting to know how long he lived after that; and whether he just faded to zero like Sartre, or did the logical Camus thing and commit suicide—so as not to grow that old?
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Anna Karenina
"I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it. I shall still be unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall go on praying; but my life now...every minute of it no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it."
From what I understand, but not directly, Tolstoy was a difficult man and rather a tyrant, esp. where his wife was concerned. The one thing I know is that Tolstoy died alone, freezing in a remote railway station. His Anna committed suicide at a railway station as well. Was Tolstoy toying with the idea of life imitating fiction? At several places near the end, Levin considers suicide, even though things appear to be going swimmingly well for him, at least compared to the other characters. He gives up on reason along the way, which is apparently the only way he can keep himself in the land of the living.
This book appears to me much more autobiographical than anything else I have read by him. I have read no criticism of the novel--or of anything else he wrote--but one of the reasons I kept reading is that I wanted to see how this work tied in with his essential loneliness--and was not disappointed.
The book began with Anna's brother's habit of cheating on his wife. As the novel ends, it can be presumed that this is still going on in spite of his sister's suffering and horrible end. What Tolstoy seems to be saying is that people never really change. There is a profound fatalism and the only counterweight seems to be the strong but indefensible will of the individual. I wonder if it was Tolstoy who believed, in War and Peace, that only mass movements defined history, not individuals, who seem to be isolated, vulnerable, and get run over by trains and wars and even peace, a lot.
In a therapeutic age, this is probably what people want to hear--free to pursue their own pleasures because one can shift responsibility to society, culture, government, and of course our relentless souls which are preprogrammed by nature and nurture, so that other people just have to get used to us or go away! Many of the questions Levin entertains are pretty mundane by dint of severe repetition by the 21st century; but what he wants us to believe, sometimes in the same breath, is that we can generate our own goodness, yet it is also a gift--which according to his story, Levin had but Anna didn't, as she was swept away by her own inevitable passions which she was powerless to resist.
It would seem that Tolsoy's epiphany was temporary. I notice that his characters seem to think they have gotten to the pinnacle of life by peaks of emotion, which change totally, sometimes on the same page! There's a constant seesaw of conviction; until Anna decides that all is lost hence all is detestable.
So one should technically not expect Levin's happiness will last, esp. since it isn't built on reason anymore, but just reacting to life and trying to convince one's self day after day that, when all is said and done, of course I am the good one; i.e. God himself! The ability of his characters to deceive themselves regularly in this regard shoud have given the author pause. But the Creator doesn't make mistakes!
more later, guests are here...
From what I understand, but not directly, Tolstoy was a difficult man and rather a tyrant, esp. where his wife was concerned. The one thing I know is that Tolstoy died alone, freezing in a remote railway station. His Anna committed suicide at a railway station as well. Was Tolstoy toying with the idea of life imitating fiction? At several places near the end, Levin considers suicide, even though things appear to be going swimmingly well for him, at least compared to the other characters. He gives up on reason along the way, which is apparently the only way he can keep himself in the land of the living.
This book appears to me much more autobiographical than anything else I have read by him. I have read no criticism of the novel--or of anything else he wrote--but one of the reasons I kept reading is that I wanted to see how this work tied in with his essential loneliness--and was not disappointed.
The book began with Anna's brother's habit of cheating on his wife. As the novel ends, it can be presumed that this is still going on in spite of his sister's suffering and horrible end. What Tolstoy seems to be saying is that people never really change. There is a profound fatalism and the only counterweight seems to be the strong but indefensible will of the individual. I wonder if it was Tolstoy who believed, in War and Peace, that only mass movements defined history, not individuals, who seem to be isolated, vulnerable, and get run over by trains and wars and even peace, a lot.
In a therapeutic age, this is probably what people want to hear--free to pursue their own pleasures because one can shift responsibility to society, culture, government, and of course our relentless souls which are preprogrammed by nature and nurture, so that other people just have to get used to us or go away! Many of the questions Levin entertains are pretty mundane by dint of severe repetition by the 21st century; but what he wants us to believe, sometimes in the same breath, is that we can generate our own goodness, yet it is also a gift--which according to his story, Levin had but Anna didn't, as she was swept away by her own inevitable passions which she was powerless to resist.
It would seem that Tolsoy's epiphany was temporary. I notice that his characters seem to think they have gotten to the pinnacle of life by peaks of emotion, which change totally, sometimes on the same page! There's a constant seesaw of conviction; until Anna decides that all is lost hence all is detestable.
So one should technically not expect Levin's happiness will last, esp. since it isn't built on reason anymore, but just reacting to life and trying to convince one's self day after day that, when all is said and done, of course I am the good one; i.e. God himself! The ability of his characters to deceive themselves regularly in this regard shoud have given the author pause. But the Creator doesn't make mistakes!
more later, guests are here...
Dennis, continued
I am happy to report that Dennis is home, all fixed up, coronary-wise. He has joined the "cabbage" club;CABG=coronary artery bypass graft. To quote Mrs. Fawlty: "Oh, good!"
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