This Just In... Christmas Is Over

Wha?  What happened?

What was all that noise, just now?  The singing, clamoring, and the YELLING ABOUT SELLING STUFF!!!  "Jesus Christ!" I said.  And I was right, apparently. 

I think that there was a little more going on there than a holiday for the birth of Jesus.  Yeah, yeah, I know, there was New Year's too, and a host of others.  But there was a helluva lot more going on.

We had people mourning the loss of their child.  There was vilification and the ascension of heroes.  There was drama and then some.  Once again, there was tragedy, and once again, the media slurped it up and sprayed it back at us, with more, more, more.

When are we going to learn?  There is no way to place a safety force field over our kids.  Adding more guns to the situation just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

We've gotta talk about what drives people crazy.  But that's what drives people crazy in the first place.

We need to get serious about our priorities.  Is it really so important that guns be so easily available?  And ammunition too?  Why is it so important that we have guns?

I don't own any.  I've fired a rifle before, and shot some pellet guns, but I imagine I rate as a gun novice.  Still, I feel that my safety is not increased by guns, or wouldn't be by me owning one.  I think guns threaten my safety more than enhance it.  But that's me.

I believe that people should have a right to own a gun and be a responsible steward of it.  Having a gun requires great responsibility.  As does driving a motor vehicle.  Or voting Republican, for that matter.

I just don't see the sense in amassing an arsenal, like so many do.  It only seems to build the paranoia and suspicion that is present at the beginning of the decision making.  Why do we need so many nuclear bombs, for example?  To "scare" our enemies, who have an equally large pile of similar bombs?  In order to deal with our problems, we need to approach them realistically, not by swinging a bigger stick.  Although such a tactic might work in the short term, in the long term the problems usually get exacerbated.

So go ahead.  Call me a liberal.  Bleeding heart.  All that shit.  Whatever.  You can even shoot me.  Kill me.  Rub me out.  Silence me with your assassin's bullet.  But there is a grand accounting to all of this, and that will bring the greater good.  So can your hysterical chanting about how the government's gonna take away our guns and we'll all be goose-stepping in no time.  Because it's hogwash.  Bullshit.  You're kidding yourself if you think owning a gun makes both you and me safer.  It still doesn't give you the right to kill, and all of your hypothetical scenarios where you get to play hero don't actually slay the dragon.  There's more to this story, poncho. 

Ready the Till

I don't know what I want to write about.  That's a beautiful thing.  An opportunity.  A commencement.  Pomp and circumstance.

It's a new year.  2013.  A new way of living.  A whole new world, out of the ashes.  This long strange trip continues, in spite of the grand proclamations of its demise.

As do I.

It's easy to take this time and look back on the year just past and project into the near future.  We always seem to do it.  What did you like and not like about last year?  What are you planning to do differently?

I have often begun the year with a flurry of written activity.  There was a time that I set goals of production for myself-- I seem to remember a goal of a hundred pages of writing and forty drawings.  Didn't happen, but it was ambitious and optimistic.  And I was producing a lot more art those days.

I had the idea that I need to relocate to an "artist's community" the other day.  Like in the last week.  I was thinking of some place that has a lot of talent in the community and nurtures its artists.  Perhaps that is just something that my community needs to do for me.  Maybe if I practice more, get more active, and start producing art, the community will respond.

I have a lot of raw material for art production.  Bits of collected metal, some gnarled, some rusted.  Lots of different grades of material, from chunks of steel to fine wire.  I also have a fair amount of scrap wood, and a floating assortment of screws and nails.  I tell ya, there's something brewing here.

I always have big plans this side of Christmas, in my head, for next year's decorations.  I want to try and win an award or get some press.  I'm an attention whore.  I want to work towards something beautiful that others can enjoy because I brought it to be.  That's the way of the artist.  Sort of.

So this morning I popped the top on my laptop and got moving on the writing.  And I feel like I got some of the plaque of the walls of my intestine and the soluble fiber is producing something.  It's time to get regular again, with this writing.  With this artistic stretching and groping for meaning and beauty.  There's ground to turn, worms to feed, seeds to sow.  I hope to be here even more than I was last year. 

And I want to have a more productive garden, too.

One More Thing Before the Year Ends

I've been away from my blogging regimen as of late.  I was busy making plans for the apocalypse.  But evidently, the world goes on, for the moment anyway.  So how about another blog post before we change the calendar?

Paradox exists, except when it doesn't.  There are no absolutes, except that there are no absolutes.

My feet are currently too cold for me to be able to write.  This is an ill-fated endeavor unless I can get some warmth going here.  So-- golly, you sure are nice.  I do love you so.

What are you living for?  And is it really okay to die?  Not that one should take one's life, or "give up"... but is it not okay to succumb to death?  Or to surrender to God, however you define him/her?

The rain continues to fall here, as we are getting duly soaked.  Our house is cool, the furnace not operating because of a venting problem that just means we should replace it entirely because it is so old and inefficient.  But that takes time and money and trust and contractors and a lot of things that need to be coordinated.  So far, it's just been easier to use more blankets and get through the day.

So I continue to write with cold toes.  Something pushes me to write these words.  It isn't out of a thirst for fame or fortune.  It's out of an impulse to communicate.  At my comfort level.  On my terms.

I'm an okay conversationalist, I think.  I can tell a story when I've got a good one to tell.  But in groups lately, specifically with my wife's family, I am a background figure.  I'm a listener and not much of a participator.  I'm not sure why this is.  I think it has to do with my medication, and my illness, and the strong personalities to deal with, and my tendency to stop dead in my tracks to search for the perfect word that I'm looking for.  Much easier to do when you're writing, but not so good when you're talking.  I can find a way to write around these pitfalls, but I haven't developed the skill so much in my speech.  Defer is the word I was looking for-- I defer to allow others to speak instead of assert my own speech, unless I'm going for a joke, because I'm much more confident with my sense of humor than with my knowledge of any given subject.

We had a lot of laughs over Christmas, especially at my parents house, when I played the digital rendition of an old cassette tape that my sister and I had made back in the late 1970's.  We listened to our juvenile voices as they improvised their way through a makeshift broadcast of a radio station.  I was about ten at the time, and my sister maybe seven or so, and we mimicked the jingles and production practices of our local KLOK AM radio station, fueled by our imagination.

I'm teaching myself how to use Audacity shareware to manipulate audio digitally, and the KLOK radio show that we did was one of the first things I wanted to try and work with, so that we could pass it on to our descendents.  I think it's a precious thing, this relic from our childhood, that brings back memories of a fun time and a kind and loving relationship between siblings.  And it is funny to follow the imaginative musings of these children, who are now so distant from us; to be remembered is an effort because we have ceased to be familiar with these infants.

Anyway, there were other discussions, too.  One of them explored different living arrangements for my brother-in-law's parents and his grandfather, who is now one-hundred years old, and although in pretty good health, needs a lot of assistance with everyday living.  This is where the questions about life and death came from.  I wonder, if I should somehow make it to my eighties, how much independence I will still have, and who will be around to assist me.  I hope to grow old with my wonderful Suzy.  But I don't have the reins of this life securely in my vibrant fist.  Sometimes I think I know what I'm doing, but most of the time I feel I'm in control only because I'm ignorant to the greater reality.

I don't know why I do this.  I don't know why I try to place little symbols next to each other in ways that express concepts and emotions and thoughts.  But it feels right.  And right sustains me, whatever that means.  So I keep trying.

What do you live for?  I live for lunch dates with my wife, and stupid knock-knock jokes with my nephews.  I live for bringing forth hearty produce and beautiful flowers, for planting seeds and helping them realize their potential, and then relishing in the bounty of their harvest.

The world ends and begins again everyday.  The sun rises; the sun sets.  A child is born and a grandfather is laid to rest.

What does it all mean?  Is there a reason?  Sure, I think so.  And somewhere within us, we know the answers to these questions.  Somehow, outside of words and thoughts, there is understanding.  The thing that keeps you breathing, and your heart beating.  The whatever it is that helps you think your way through a problem you don't know the answer to.  The carrot that leads you to your solution.  There are many labels and concepts for it, but none describe it completely.

It's kinda like this: it's the one thing that is everything and all things, while still only being the one thing.

http://youtu.be/XJyKTNdPL5s


Happy New Year!  See you next year.

Thinking For Yourself and Saving the World

You gotta think for yourself.

When you hear something that sounds crazy, unbelievable... why is that?  What are the questions that pop into your mind?  And do you seek answers for them? 

You go to work.  You start asking why.  Who?  What?  You believe or you don't.  But you question.  You go through the truth finding process.

So if it seems unbelievable, honor that.  Perhaps it is not to be believed until you can gather some more key information.

So much hinges on this very act.  The act of staying true to yourself, of staying true to truth itself.

Does truth exist monolithicly, static and unchangeable?  Or is it in constant motion?

It seems to me at this point in time that truth is a nebulous, but stationary quality that everything else cycles around.

A couple of things that came to light this week...  the first within the continuing presidential election campaign that voraciously ravages so much energy and so many of our resources.  And there are so many contradictions and so much confusion that cycles through this process that truth is often veiled and obstructed, tinkered with.  From one perspective, truth can be black or white, with no acceptance of gray in between.  From another, the colors just don't mix into a clear resounding picture.  But we try nonetheless to make sense of it all.

And we all do it in our own way, spending bits of time tuning in or ignoring, assessing truth when it feels right for us to do so.

If one makes up their mind too soon, it can cause stagnation and the greater truth that is presented over time, one that takes a longer time to be birthed into existence, is lost.  It is ignored, disbelieved, not truly observed or experienced.

There has been some volatile argument and discussion over the incident at the Libyan embassy that ended the lives of four Americans.  Some have been saying that there is a cover up of the truthful, actual events that took place that day in order that a more favorable political picture could be painted for the people in charge.  Some are saying that a general is being fired after being told to "stand down" on the day of the incident to cover up the culpability of the commander in chief.

I don't pretend to know what happened that day, but here's something else to consider.  I'm not in the military or the political popularity business.  But from the little research that I've done, it seems that this angle that is being trumpeted loudly by the "right" side of the political spectrum is founded on speculation that is specious at best.

But you've got to make up your own mind;  Don't take my word for it.  It's gotta make sense to you before you know how to respond.  So I won't recount the ins and outs of the supposed facts and details.  That part is for you to observe and procure at your leisure.  It's part of the fact checking process that has to happen.

My wife and I saw the movie "Argo" this past week.  I was alive when the events that the movie recounts occurred, but I was young and I didn't remember hearing about them.  So now, twenty years later, I discovered and experienced them for the first time.  And they were presented in a way such that the hindsight could now explain them more succinctly and thoroughly, and our extracted perspective could better judge the truth.  The movie recreated the events, but the truth still filtered through everything over time.  The truth is what stays the same, after all the falsifications and judgements and opinions are floated over and above and beyond.  The truth is what stays.  The truth is the granite exposed when the other transient muck of the mountain erodes away over time.

Even more than that is the way our perspective changes over time, if we are alive and changing like all living things.  Also this week, just yesterday in fact, I ran across the story of Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov and how he saved the world.  His story is something that is only now reaching it's way into my consciousness, and yet my consciousness is still in existence because he made the decisions that he did and allowed me and all of us to continue in our world.  If he hadn't been of such character and belief, there might not be a world today for humans to live and argue in.

Sometimes we don't hear it, but the truth is always there.  It gets to us eventually.  Finding the truth is the impetus for all of life.  Not because we need to find the ultimate truth in order to justify our very existence.  But because discovery feels good.  But it's a process, not a linear event with a beginning and an end that, once achieved, is static and unchanging.  The world keeps turning, just like it would have if nuclear war had destroyed us back in the sixties.  There would still be something, living, moving, and questing for the truth.

I leave you with Richard Feynman, because I care, and because I can. 

Mikey Likes It. Still.

This one's for the tallest kid in the class.

Whatever that means.

"I don't like Reggae.  I love it..."  So the song goes.  I thought about making a list of things that I like, regardless of how it may work against me.  And that song popped into my mind.  Yeah, I really like it.  It's catchy and a good refrain.  Don't know a lot about it, like who sings it, for instance.  But I like it.

I also like beer and pizza.  I like warm, dry socks in the winter.  I like beer.  I like repeating myself.  I like reproductive rights.  Equality.  Orange soda.  Cuddling.

I like not turning my blog into an E-Harmony ad.

I like storytellers.  I like narrative style, and the oral tradition.  I like sexual innuendo.  Most of the time.

I never really liked Andrew Dice Clay.  Didn't really "get" him.  But I like Lewis Black.

I really liked how I felt while tripping on magic mushrooms.  I like that sustained, "spiritually at peace" feeling.  I used to have it more often when I was younger and of fresher perspective.  But I still have it occasionally.  I haven't done illicit drugs in many years.  But I'm still on drugs, psychoactive ones at that, right now.  I don't really "like" them, but I tolerate them.  They do seem to help me some, in a way that brings me more success and less crisis.

I like friendships.  I like hanging out, joking around, laughing it up with friends.  I like sporting events.  I like family.  I like eating.  Almost anything, really.

But this isn't just about me.  What do you like?  Who are you, and what do you like, about yourself, about the world, about this blog?  What brings you pleasure?

I like dogs.  I like being clean-shaven, but I hate shaving.  I like getting mail from friends and family-- y'know, letters and stuff.  Like in the olden days, before all of this electronic stuff.  But I like getting email, too.  But not spam.

I like Life cereal.  It's true.  But I rarely eat it.  I like grits, and linguica, and eggs over easy.  And toast.

I like doing the work.  I like working for a few hours, then stepping back and regarding the progress.  Admiring it.  I like progress.

Tomorrow I'm driving up into the Santa Cruz mountains and attending a writer's workshop.  Three hours of intensive work towards writing my book and getting it published.

I like that.

Do What You're Supposed To

I just dared myself to write something.  Anything.  Because it doesn't matter what I can think of if I don't write it down.

Writing sustains and endures.  Thinking fogs and scrambles, mangles great ideas.

You gotta do it.  You gotta get those hammers throwing.  In the old days, that's how it used to be, tossing manual typewriter keys up at the paper, one at a time.  Because if you tried to go too fast, the keys would get tangled and stick together, or stick to the paper or the typewriter ribbon.

Not that I had a lot of experience with that.  I'm not THAT old.  But I did attempt to type a report when I was in the fourth grade.  I thought that typing it would make it more impressive.  Well, I waited too long to get it done, and my mom had to bail me out.  She was a much better typist than I was, at least at the time.  So I struggled and got about half done, and mom finished up and even sent a note along with me and my report, disclosing that she had finished up the typing for me.  I felt somewhat a failure but it wasn't a total disaster.  And I got a perfect 100 out of 100 for a grade.

But the worst part was that my classmate got a score of 110.  How in the world?  I couldn't imagine even how that was possible.  The scale didn't even go up that high!  How could he have done more than perfect?

Somehow, my 100 didn't feel so perfect for very long.

But that was fourth grade, when life was still full of magic and wonder.  Today, I'd cherish a 100 out of 100, regardless of what others did.

Life doesn't seem to have those easy scores, slam dunks.  Things are so much more complicated.  And it's probably because I've done so much thinking.  I'm tangled up in my own string.

I didn't even really realize that your own thinking can hurt you.  But it's true.  You have to work at your thinking or it gets undisciplined and clouded.  Your emotions can blur rational thought.  So even though something seems logical, it actually, after further scrutiny, doesn't measure up.

There are lots of ways that we skew our thinking, though.  We exaggerate for greater effect.  We rationalize with facts and figures and paint elaborate dioramas to explain, when the simple truth goes ignored.  This is at the heart of many a mental illness.

Some of it doesn't occur of our own volition.  The medical model tries to explain that there are chemical reactions that take place that drive our thinking and perception and that operate on a level beyond the control of the individual mind.

I don't know if I believe that.  I'm still trying to figure it out.  Am I just an organism controlled by chemistry and biology?  I don't think so.  There's more to it than that.

I think that my habit of thinking and questioning and deciding for myself is a process that should be encouraged.  Figure it out for yourself and you'll feel better.  Get help if you need it, take in information,  but evaluate it, consider the source, put some weight to it, and keep going.

But keep going.  Don't dawdle around thinking you got it figured all out, because you don't.  No, you don't.  Because the answer is not a set target.  It moves.  We're all in motion.  Oh yeah.  You're going somewhere, even though you might think you're attached to your chair.  You've got swooshing blood and pulsing organs and you're thinking you're something you're not.  You're more than all those parts that you can list, alphabetically if you're inclined.

And so am I.  So are we.  You and me?  And all these other glorious idiots?  We're all made of the same stuff.  And we are One.  The collective diversity.  Both the source and the container.  The Holy Singularity.  All of us.  Uno.

The same crazy crackheads that design our freeway systems think at speeds and in diagrams that mimic the webs of spiders and mycelium networks in fungi.  There is brilliance everywhere the eye is turned.  We are doing what needs to be done.  There is this purpose towards which we all strive, and our hearts yearn to realize.

And that is it.  That is the purpose.  To live, and to love.  And even to die.  But to love-- that is the greatest.  Honor that purpose.  Love like you mean it.  And the accountants will figure out how to balance the spreadsheet.  Just love, people.  Love.

I love you.

Books on My Theoretical Nightstand

So it's kinda like a power outage used to be.  Can't get onto facebook for whatever reason, so I'm suddenly flush with opportunity.  Why not write a blog entry?

I'm still getting the word out about my book, The Raging, Flaming Goat of Samos, and I'm still selling copies.  It's not jumping off the shelves, but it is moving.  Met a former coworker today who said she'd get 3 copies from Amazon.  So onward goes the flow of this business...  Gonna do a book signing at Mom's house in Escalon on Nov. 10th, and another one at our house in Santa Clara on Dec. 2nd.  Should be fun.  And we're sure to have food and drinks available.

I don't really feel much else driving me to write about it.  Is this was writer's block feels like?  I could go on about the daily mundane this and that, but then, I want to attract people to this blog, not repel them.  So maybe I need to do an exercise of some sort.  It's been a long time since I did a "Journal Jar" prompt-- because I did all of the ones that I had.  Please give me a moment to produce a writer's prompt...

Oh yeah, before I go off on a wild lemur chase, I was planning on talking about the book that I got recently at the recommendation of one of my colleagues from the writing group I've been attending at Stanford.  It's called "Am I Bipolar or Waking Up?" by Sean Blackwell, and I'm itching to get started.  Yet another book to start.  Maybe I should try and finish one sometime soon.  Here's my list of recently (sort of) started but as yet to finish books:

1.  "On Writing" by Steven King
2.  "The Man Behind the Microchip" by Leslie Berlin
3.  "Finding Our Way" by Barry W. Holtz
4.  "Finding Your Bipolar Muse" by Lana R. Castle
5.  "Henry Miller on Writing," edited by Thomas H. Moore
6.  "Food Not Lawns" by H.C. Flores
7.  "Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World" by Paul Stamets

I'm sure I have more starts among my shelves, but these are the most recent ones I've tried to embark upon but haven't had the follow-through tenacity to get any of them "done."  Although, really, I read most of the actual reading material in the Stamets book, and just didn't read the field/identification guide page by page.  So maybe that one shouldn't be on this list.

 I read about two fifths of the bipolar book before I had to return it to the library.  I like it and have since purchased my own copy, but I haven't been reading much and it is just sitting there.  My mom read it, however, and really liked it-- filled it with sticky notes and bought me a new copy so she could keep it for herself, along with her notes.  My copy was used, but she bought me a new spanking one.  Brand spanking new, that is, just so there's no confusion.  It's been years since she spanked me.  At least a couple.

I've also put in some time with "Food Not Lawns," and it's been inspiring, if not daunting and overwhelming.  I would love to enlist the principles it cites and get my yards producing food for me and my family and community, instead of just sucking money from my bank account, watering a lawn that is primarily for looks only.  But, I'm handcuffed by my idealism, and my wife is not real patient with me and my half- to less-than-half- started projects.  And who can blame her?  Everything I do seems to come about out of process, and that process is ongoing.  I only try to approach mastery, I never seem to attain it.

"The Man Behind the Microchip" is a book I gave to my dad for Christmas in 2005.  It's about Robert Noyce, a man that connects my dad and I through Noyce's life and accomplishments.  My dad met Noyce as an employee at Intel in the early days of its inception.  I'm connected to Noyce because he was from Grinnell and is quite a presence at the college that I attended there.  Noyce and I are alumni.  But my dad met him, and worked for him.  Dad read the book and recommended that I read it, and even though I have wanted to, I just haven't made the time and effort to get it done.  Such is life.  Maybe as the weather changes to cooler and/or rainy I'll find myself with more time to just read.  But then again...  I guess we'll just have to see.