Breathing It Away

To breathe

And in that breath

To blur

The bounding lines

Of our cleverness

Of our imagination

That is the breathe

To begin

All other breaths

To end

Fictitious isolation

Fictitious limitation

Always remember

To breathe

And when you do

Breathe well

Rebels, Rebels Everywhere

Sure it's been literally years since I posted anything, but that doesn't mean that the toad has stopped frothing...

The Wisdom of Col. Klink

All those damn gurus.  They weren't being facetious or clever or humble.  Talk about hiding it in plain sight...  You can talk about it all you want, as loud or quiet as you want, wherever you want, and to whomever you want - and there is no possible way to express it such that anyone else will ever understand unless they already realize.

Pffftt!!  There.  A bicycle.

So Much To Remember, So Little Time

Still more things for which I need constant reminding: 

1. Do not continue to push, but never stop trying.
2. Let the world come to you.
3. Strive for fairness amongst others, but don't take it to an extreme.
4. Don't take bad things personally.
5. Find something beautiful around you.
6. Collect experiences, not things.
7. Focus on the here and now.
8. Insert levity wherever it would not be harmful.
9. Avoid extremes, except occasionally.
10. Accept yourself in totality, including failure, but strive to improve.
11. Don't get hung up on mistakes.
12. Have fun.
13. Accept love and kindness wherever possible.
14. Freely give love and kindness when they would not cause offense.
15. Do not treat or judge people based on small subsets of their nature.
16. Take what you need, not what you want.  Leave those as gifts to be received.
17. Don't stress out over paradoxes and mutually exclusive paths – simply take them both anyway.
18. Do not get overly hung up on choices – make decisions and move on.

A Message For Those Others

I have friends who are very dear to me.  For some of them it is socially permissible to tell them how much I appreciate their presence in my life, but for others it is not.  So here, cloaked in the shadows of anonymity, uncertainty, and plausible deniability do I hereby indulge my inner sappiness to tell those others:

Thank you for being my friend.  My life is a better one because of you.

Why Is This So Hard To Remember?

Each day is a new game, but do not strive to win. There is no winning, because there is no scoring.

Ignorance = Bliss

Every now and then I think to myself, "Theater is such a blast, I wonder if I should have made that a career."  Then I see myself on video and think, "Nope - made the right choice."

Nobody should be subjected to watching themselves.  If we were meant to see ourselves as others see us, we would simply have been born as someone else.

...
...

Hmmm.  What if I was born as someone else?  Now I have no idea who I should be embarrassed to watch on video...

Losing My Regret

She is like water to me
Clear yet misleading in depth
The source of life
The threat of death
She is like water to me

She is like earth to me
Solid with hidden structure
The tool of progress
The form of impediment
She is like earth to me

She is like fire to me
Beaconing insubstantially
Warmth against the night
The consuming predator
She is like fire to me

She is like wind to me
Driving eternal change
A gift of refreshing hope
Stealing away the moment
She is like wind to me

No, I was right the first time

She is like water to me
In a form I pretend is absolute
But if my needful cup were gone
Would I still recognize Her?
And do I really want to know?

For Whom The Kewpie Doll Tolls

If I seek to see beyond the horizon and I climb a tall tree and gaze out, have I achieved that miracle on my own?

If I wish to lift a weight so great that my arms cannot bear it and I use a stout lever to raise it up, have I achieved that miracle on my own?

If I want to go fast, and I build a machine that can let me race across the land at speeds far greater than my legs alone can carry me, have I achieved that miracle on my own?

If I desire to change myself and I ask a friend to help me, have I achieved that miracle on my own?

Overflowing

The volume of Life that is available to fill us each day is constant.  It is ironic, therefore, that we push and push ourselves to cram in as much as absolutely possible, an activity whose sole result is to distract us into missing so much of the Life that is already there.

When everything is over, and I look back at all that I have done... what will I really remember?  What do I remember now?

And More Music

Well, no one commented on the music front.  I have no idea what that means.  But since I actually wrote a song yesterday after I-don't-even-know-how-many years, I am musically inspired to post another one (this is not the song I wrote yesterday, however, as that would be far too linear).

Occam's Razor Meets Experimental Philosophy

So to follow up on that, if perfection is harmony between action and belief, it seems a strong motivator for reducing one's moral code to a bare minimum.  Complex codes, and especially poorly thought-out morality, become an impediment to perfection.  Moral codes containing internal confliction and contradiction, therefore, would be severely damaging to the self, for they prevent perfection by their very nature (at least in the context of those inconsistencies).

And yet, how many people can honestly say that they follow a simple moral code?  For that matter, how many people can claim that they follow a single moral code?  How many people can claim that all dimensions of the self - all the individuals that are packed into a single "body" - really value the same things?  Do the work face and fun face smile at the same jokes?  Does the tired body long for the same activities as the rested one, or the over-tired one?  Does the heart seek the same relationships as the hormones?

Were we to exist in the environment in which we developed, I think things would be simpler.  Why does my dog enjoy a degree of harmony and self-confidence that I lack?  Human beings no longer exist in the world that built us.  The rules of copulation are not the same as when our lives were threatened on a constant basis by creatures who were stronger and faster than us.  Our native attitudes towards food are not designed with supermarkets in mind.  We have placed ourselves into a foreign environment for which we are not designed (and an environment that changes far too fast for evolution to support).

So where could the support come from?  Can we refine down our moral core to something simple enough to survive?  Is there a set of ethics and morality without internal contradition, and that is not in direct conflict with our nature as animals - a nature that we can at best resist but not deny?

I try to picture a life where one can not feel embarrassed or ashamed when snapping at someone who did not deserve it, simply because circumstances made them appear to be a threat.  Or where it is okay to acknowledge physical attraction to someone with whom there is no intention to enter into a encounter/relationship. 

Society does not permit these things.  Why?  Because it leads to people feeling uncomfortable, people feeling uncertain, feeling insecure.  Perhaps because there is no clear way to reconcile such things to our current set of moral standards.

What would a simple moral code look like?  I am thinking this might be a reasonable one:

1)  Have fun and try to learn.
2)  Spread laughter and happiness when possible.
3)  Embrace love.
4)  Support other people's best interests as you understand them wherever they do not conflict with your own.

P.S. That last one will annoy some people, who will argue that it should be "Support other people's best interests, even if it interferes with your own" - but I maintain that that defies the survival instinct, and as such is in direct conflict with our animal nature, i.e. unsupportable.

P.P.S. I struggled for a while about whether there should be something in there about supporting one's family/offspring, but in the end I decided that it is already accounted for in 3 and 4.

The Value of Insecurity

I have a hypothesis that the root of insecurity lies in imperfection.  So in a universe with no external standards of absolute truth, what is imperfection?  It is, of course, relative - in the sense that a thing is deemed imperfect if one's recollection of it does not conform to, or match up with, one's own personal standards.

There are two branches to this line of thought.  First, for those people who define themselves by the constructs, opinions, and moral codes of others (whether "others" represents parents, society, religion, etc.), perfection becomes a question of what matches those standards, i.e. one is insecure about those things that do not conform to those external expectations.  I should not be fat, and so I am insecure in my weight.  I should not leave my earwax on the doorhandle, I hope no one noticed.

For people who rely upon an internally-driven moral code, insecurity derives from there.  Whether one is pseudo-aware (you know, the people who define their moral code by some function (usually an inverse) applied to the societal norm - "I will wear my pants around my knees specifically because I am not supposed to") or deliberately independent ("I will decide for myself what kind of clothing to wear and how to wear it, and any relation to societal norms is through deliberate consideration of how they will or will not serve my needs"), insecurity comes from the recognition that what one has done is not in alignment with what should be.

What makes this tricky (at least in the latter case) is that it is hard to distinguish between imperfection resulting from lack of adherence to one's own moral code, and imperfection resulting from a lack of faith in the legitimacy of one's own moral code (after all, if you have a code you don't fully believe is correct, following it still leads to the same uncertainty/insecurity).

So what is perfection?  Harmony between action and belief.  When acting in harmony with one's beliefs, there is no place or need for insecurity.

Which, like so many things, brings one back to the Path of the Warrior.  Or to say it another way, insecurity can be a signpost letting you know that you have strayed from that Path.

Of the Dangers of Showering In a Hotel Bathroom

Okay, time for a new career.  I want to be the person who comes up with shampoo descriptions.  Balancing shampoo?  Is there a second tier of products you can buy once you are prepared, like tightrope-walking shampoo?  Or what if you are not really into balance?  Can I buy extremizing shampoo (for radical, infuriating hair - available in atheist and ecumenical variants)?

Yes, Yes, I'm Vocally Challenged

So why restrict myself to posting just words, I ask.  No reason, I suppose.  While the music is mine, I should note that the artwork is not.  Thanks, A, for your never-ending supply of amazing drawings!

I am still up in the air on the whole idea of posting my music online, so if you have any thoughts on the matter, do share.

Out For a Beerwalk

Kopo was big for his age.  At nearly a centimeter in height, he was amongst the tallest of the Zwerschmig, and with a year left before his Tzermonbier, it would not surprise anyone if he spiked up another millimeter, or perhaps even two.  It was not unheard of.

Earlier in the day, Kopo had been resting after a rousing game of zlauff with his friends, when his mind began to wander.  He remembered staring at the curved wall of his family's stein, his thoughts on nothing in particular, and then it happened. Just behind the smooth, glassy ceramic he saw a passageway, fading in, fading out.  Idly, he wondered if this was what his parents did during anfuirbier, but that just wasn't possible - it tooks months of training to transport between steins.  It simple wasn't possible to learn on your own.

Though someone had to learn it on his own, right?  The first Zweschmig to beerwalk obviously could not have been taught by anyone else.  He must have figured it out.

Kopo had stood and shuffled to stand in front of the vurmloche.  Beyond the solid wall - for he reached out and touched it to be sure - it was like watching the scenery through a train window, not that he had ever done that.  Blink, and there was a tall stein sporting dragons.  Blink, a squat scyphus with satyrs entwined around the shank.  But there were other scenes too, strange and foreign, for which he knew no words.

Kopo rapped upon the wall of the stein once more, comforted by its solidity and grainy fragrance.  Tired from so many bouts of zlauff, he turned his back to the edge once again and slid down to sit upon the bottom of the mug.  Again his mind went blank, and that was when he fell back into another world.

Martina's Infallible Goat, Part 2.7

"Will there be anything else?" asked the greasy-haired store clerk from behind the register.

Sven glanced at the running total on the receipt before turning to the others.  "That accounts for $4,182.  How much do we have?"

Martina flipped open her notepad.  "$4,700 even."

Oliver pointed to the emulsion turbine housing.  "How much for that?"

"$500," replied the clerk.

"We'll take it!" Oliver pronounced before anyone could question him.  And then, as if he suddently felt an obligation to explain, he turned back to his team, shrugged, and observed "sometime just having the box is enough to convince an orangutan that you've got what's inside."

It was clear from her expression that Martina did not find the argument compelling, but her brother had a way of seeing things that was unique - like he lived in a world that was just slightly askew from everyone else's.  Besides, he hadn't said anything about her purchasing the musical duct tape, and her reasons for wanting that were no more defensible.

"Okay," said Sven, turning back to the clerk.  "Is there anything we can get for the remaining $18?"

The man thought for a moment, and then rumaged in a bin behind the counter.  After a minute he stood and presented a strange device, vaguely gun-shaped, but with a thin needle at the front and a strange bladder below the grip.  "I have this refurbished Pleuronectidae deflater.  Over $200 new, and only been used a few times.  It's a little sticky around the trigger, and there is a glob of something green still stuck to the barrel.  Not toxic, though.  They assure me it isn't toxic.  I suppose I could let you have this for $18."

The group shared glances, most of them saying 'I am far too tired to care at this point'.

"Sure," replied Sven.  "We'll take it."

The Fallacy of Normality

For the extremes of humanity
Are we drawn and repelled
Enamored and disgusted

Placing icons on pedestals
To study, admire, inspire, despise
Like guideposts, living and dead

But inside our own selves, our own lives
All those extremes boil and roil and bubble
Hiding in our personal mists and shadows
Displayed in our storefront window displays
And disguised as moderation

Bedtime Thoughts

Not normally one to get all sentimental, but I can think of no better way to slide into the new year than with the laughter of friends.

P.S.  The only way that the words "too" and "chocolate" fit together in a sentence is in the opposite order, such as in "yes, I would like some chocolate too, thank you."

The Most Important Things Are Simple

How silly of me.  It is not about finding it, it is about picking it up.