Find me on FaceBook and reference your interest in this blog. I'll friend you, much to our mutual regret I'm sure. FaceBook is the proper repository of the trivial data of our lives. This site is an intimate opportunity to be your 'true self'. You know, Polonius' favorite state? As far as being false to another, I'll fake sincerity with real conviction.
The crimes of youth are crimes of guileless passion, too hot for reason’s cool. Torrid desires lead to wreck and riot, wild Dionysian days. Fresh throated joy and folly lost to hard abandon, while all the while, loud decrying soft bounds of an ancient world’s constraint.
Trespasses of these innocent left light impressions upon the sands of time, while their fresh blood is swallowed whole by the dragons of oblivion. No mark of distinction, no cairn of stone mark the subtle passage of the too soon dead. A blithe balloon of spirit lifts gently toward the heavens, when souls of weak attachment decide to die. Timeless oceans wash clean all wayward ways, dowsing passion’s fire. Swirling gusts of air, in windy measure, blow unsoiled ashes in wafting torrents into azure cloudless skies.
A stone thrown upon the pylon of memorial in the temple of our grateful dead, this ode of grace is cast upon the heap of remembrance. A pebble bearing silent witness to the truth of holy suppositions in a godless world of fear and pain.
We all danced and swayed to the rhythms of our time, living life as if there was no tomorrow. We live today, waiting on the day when at last our turn will turn our joys away from worldly care. Prepare the youthful heart, refresh the lonely soul with thoughts of fine young friends who met untimely ends. Forget the fear, restrain the tear, live life as if there was no sorrow. Rejoice the time to come, when souls well met, will reunite upon the eternal morrow.
The first word of all works of personal expression is usually I. Even in bold relief, this central symbolic tenant of psychology and religion slithers its way into to the consciousness. A minimalist vertical presence in the ‘alpha-beta’; if turned to the side, it would appear to disappear. As a symbolic tenant, it is the tentpole of our language. Like the tree in the Garden of Eden, it is one of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom that mediate the space between the material and eternal.
What’s the big deal with a damn letter; I can hear you say! If that is your abiding reaction, please move on………………………..!
If you are patient, curious, literate, and fun loving this locus of learning may suit you. Yes, this is an exercise in good tailoring! If you want to be a ‘cut above’ you have to pay meticulous care to the quality of the stitching. Learning is the ‘suit’ we don, it is the ‘clothes that make the Man’. Humanity donned the skins of its victims, for it was the most fragile and naked of Creation’s creatures. Of all the affectations that our cultures demand, a precision of ‘stitching’, a taut connectivity of separate realities has been the unique assignment of human genius. Tailoring, the first and most noble profession.
I am a hoary tailor. I address you, that I may dress you. My words are the ‘cut of cloth’ that I drape over your nakedness. I clothe you in culture and finely join the rough edges of your understanding. Call me a guru or teacher, but I fancy myself a Master Tailor.
Tailoring is an art. Art is pure reactivity to the experienced experience, and tailoring raised to its highest form is ‘haute couture’. The art of the guru is a ‘seamless’ integration of seemingly separate realities. I look good in public, only when you do. You are the pluperfect perfection of my profession. Please, take my art and wear it proudly. If I have done my work well, you will do justice to the passion you now possess.
TREPIDATION: The hesitation one experiences in the face of unfamiliar realities. The place of the ‘gut check’; that place beyond which commitment begins.
MOTIVATION: The urge toward movement. Whether progressive or retrograde we are always in motion. Time does not stand still; neither can we! Motivation implies conscious direction; chosen for specific aims and purposes. You can never choose not to choose. Indecision only invites the universe to choose for you. By consciously choosing not to choose, you have chosen. Live with it!
VIRTUE: The dictionary claims this word to be from the Latin ‘virtutis’ with the ‘vir’ meaning ‘man’. The ‘tutis’ part of the word they claim comes from the Latin concept of ‘tutela’; meaning ‘to watch over’. If one takes this simple etymological reasoning at face value; ‘virtue’ is the guardian, the watchman, the tutor, the protector, the shepherd(sheep herder) of humanity.
As the classic ballad ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ pleads for the virtue of a loving friend, lover, and guardian to embrace the responsibility of protection of the tender, innocent, and helpless; an expanded appreciation of the word magically appears.
The dictionary concept of ‘vir’ as ‘man’ seems quite to simplistic to capture the total scope of such an important word in our culture. Other words that stem from this concept are ‘various’, verdant, voracious, virulent, vortex, virago, Virgo, vermin, variety, etc.,etc., etc…….
The real root of this concept can be found in the V/R consonant combination that the Indo/Aryan/European language group established as the brackets to an interchangeable vowel group. In Sanskrit, the word ‘varna’ mean color, or class. In other words, color was the determinant of class in the Indo/Aryan mind. This is the source code concept behind racial and class distinction.
V/R words become mere descriptives of this sorting process.
Think about it! The color receptors in the mammalian brain are a primal source of distinction. Our brains sort by shape, smell, color, touch, taste, and hearing. Our very senses are the culprits in our personal and class pre-judgments, our prejudices.
Our virtues are our powers of distinction. Our discriminating senses, according to Aristotle, are the source data of our rationality. Our rationality is reflective of our proportionality; our ability to weigh one value against another. Value is the product choice. Choice, for the rational being, reflects a considered valuation of alternative opportunities. Freedom is the option of choice, based on perceived self-interest. Perception is the slave of the senses.
I think, therefore I am a slave to the Chaos or the Creator. One way or the other, I am a slave to a process. Does the process reflect ‘pure’ genius or utter madness? You decide, but remember your decision was fore ordained by your biology.
First steps on long journeys are always the hardest; for they must be the point of decision. Decision is not a comfortable experience for those who are unprepared for it. Decision requires a degree of certitude that overcomes the anxious condition of ‘not knowing’.
The ancient Greeks had a whole philosophical dialogue addressed to this state of indecision; which they termed ‘ agnoia’. Agnoia did not suggest a state of ignorance; rather it created a place of possibility, wherein new experience might enter in. This pause, set against the instinctual and overwhelming desire for climax, created a painful anxiety born of inaction. This ‘pregnant’ pause, filled with trepidation, is the space of greatest agony and tension.
Every agony can be followed by an ecstasy, if we ‘get off the dime’ and quit ‘dancing on the razor’s edge’. Not taking that step, not ‘going with the flow’ of life, is the first act of defiance against the gods, or an indifferent chaos. Compelled along an immutable line of existence, those that resist change, commit the sin of “hubris’. This Greek philosophical concept points to a human failure of self questioning. Humanity’s limited consciousness allowed for ‘arms to short to box with God’; while at the same time, produced an intellect sufficient to ‘wrestle with the better angels of our nature’.
Angelic voices are neither spiritual, nor material; but rather, nagging ambassadors of our intuitions. These still small voices stir consciences, as well as inexplicable sensations. Intuitions, thus inspire inspirations. We breath the very nature of the ‘ordered universe’ when we meditate on the grander plan of any thing.
A simple pause from the rushing processes of life relieves us of the need for gurus, swamis, and prophets. Breath in, and simply listen to the ‘chatter’ of a million life times. The ghosts, the disembodied realities of past and future are broadcasting to our zoasphere in every moment. Like radio/TV receivers we are but passive receptacles of the the ‘wisdom of ages’, and of sages long gone.
If you love to hear the words you speak, and yearn to see them strewn across the printed page; you are probably what psychologist tell us is a ‘high verbal’. Simply put, you live to sling the BS! Utilizing the Creator’s gifts, in an intelligent and responsible manner, is not necessarily an odious assault on the rest of humanity; unless you have nothing worth saying.
There are plenty of facile opportunists who sell their ‘yada-yada’s’ daily. The sophists only serve in service of their need for fame, fortune, or force. If you have a face good enough for TV, your reach could be universal. Who needs to listen to the content of your presentation, if you have a winning smile? If you don’t believe me, go to any dentist office in America. Getting your teeth pulled, seems to go so much easier with a ‘sweet young thing’ lending charm to the tortuous proceedings.
If on the other hand, your jowls are dragging against your clavicle or the bald spot on your pate has grown too large for a discrete ‘comb-over’: what then? If looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror reveals an unwanted stranger standing in your place; you had better sharpen up your wit, as well, as your wisdom. Just a wink and a shy grin, won’t get you a seat at the table, any longer.
When you are past your Primetime, and bold enough to own that; the real opportunity for quality wordsmithing presents itself. Past pragmatic practice yields the rhetorical perfection needed to inspire productive thought. Yet, who do you really desire to communicate with; your Self or the Other? The wise man bows to his audience, those ‘tyrants the cheap seats’; the groundlings. They paid a farthing for a good belly laugh, not tormented soliloquies.
Who really ever heard Hamlet? With all the ‘hub bub’ down front, what outrageous fortune befell Shakespeare’s insights into human nature? Shakespeare didn’t become “The Bard” until his script, became the printed ‘First Folio’. There, on the permanent page, magic happens! Printed words became the ‘gold standard’ of worthy verbiage. Martin Luther’s printed commentaries on Johann Gutenberg’s printed Bible made the words they chose eternal; not simply ‘post a notes’ stuck to the refrigerator door.
The printed Word, had one very important thing going for it; it had to be good enough to be commercial. Until, the advent of the ‘penny dreadfuls’, ‘dime novels’, and the ‘mass media’; the quality of the written word and good reviews, assured longevity. What persisted in perfecting has existed for centuries. Value, came through endurance; while quality was a judgment left to the individual beholder.
The saying: ‘there’s no accounting for bad taste’, is a subtle ‘double entendre’. Works done in bad taste, like ‘cheap thrills’ have a very short ‘shelf life’. Fads, rages, pop cultural successes are but ‘whispers on the wind’. Fads are popular, for the very reason, that they don’t strain the senses. These ‘little ditties’ of the common, vulgar, vernaculars of all cultures are seen in the songs we sing, the entertainments we watch, the food that we taste, and the fashions we obsess over. These light-hearted indulgences of ‘the people’ are its temporal voice, the ‘vox populi’. Fads by definition are here today, but never attain the morrow?
Why bother with profundity, quality or the eternally sacred? These terms presuppose an enduring commitment, an ennobling struggle to perfect a product of priceless value. Great ideas, expressed eloquently are ‘pearls of great price’. The price culture pays to sustain these sacred ideals, is of no trivial concern. We reach for ideals, for the same reasons we climb the highest peaks. Extreme ascendant effort yields the widest worldly perspective. We go to the mountaintop so we might return with insights to truly live by. Chiseled in stone, or ‘written on the wind’; the words we choose speak volumes about our characters.
The character of characters reveals the character of our Being. Words, not eyes, are the real ‘windows of the Soul’. Each letter of the ‘alpha-beta’ is a perfected symbol of meaning. Every letter is a stitch in a seamless suit of understanding. What in the World is the Word, that was its Beginning? This is the question I wish to examine!