Introspection

2013 02 11

It comes clear to me this morning that my calling (if I have such a thing) is to encourage people to think, perhaps even to teach them “how to think, not what to think” as The Prosperos slogan announced. And not just my circle of friends, who listen because they know and love me, but a broader audience.

The Ponderings is a format for broadcasting instigative observations and suggestions. A more defined presentation in a lecture format would be something to think about. In the old days the adage was “hire a hall and print some flyers”. I wonder if some version of that might still work. Or, more likely some employment of the internet/Facebook/Twitter reality would be more efficacious.

I now perecive that it has been misguided to take advantage of my friends by expecting them to help me attain a sense of fulfillment or accomplishment by their listening and encouragement.

But, upon what would I lecture?? I have no system of thought, no belief myth to supplant the current one, I don't offer hope (now that I clearly perceive the inevitability of collapse). The “mitigation of human suffering” is pretty thin fare for the common man. [indirection? Go to Contrarian and review; cf “sly man”; Nasrudin]

 2012 09 10

Because we have many powers, including imagination it becomes easy for us to fantasize having even more, even including those for which there exists no credible, repeatable empirical evidence, nuch as ESP, and the ability to transcend death.

   2012 04 21

All writing is a striving to transcend the implacable aloneness of self, to share a piece of me with someone, even anyone, else. Poetry is perhaps the most profound manifesting of this in its brevity and dedication to the rhythms that permeate matter and life.

 2012 04 19

I was about 12 years old when I realized that if I wanted to preserve my sanity I would have to ration my compassion so to speak. I simply did not have enough headroom or tears to accommodate every tragedy that came to my attention.

 musing about when I knew some things –

opposition to capital punishment in 10^th grade, the execution of Aaron Mitchell;

atheism, certainly fully formed by 11^th grade ala Petterson;

Big Bang as a local phenomenon in 1974, long before Piers Anthony;

travel at the speed of thought, no date but before I read Scott Card;

 2012 08 11

I no longer enjoy sports, specifically the Olympic Games, because I cannot divorce myself from the desolation of the losers; made the more profoundly poignant by our society's “must win” imperative.

 2012 02 14

Among the other amenities associated with living here in Oregon is the view out of my windows. It is very soothing to gaze out at the dark green conifers whose cousins populated the landscapes of my youth. From our northern exposures we have a nice shot of the arch of the Yaquina Bay bridge, picturesquely framed by tall spruec and fir trees. Captured in the foreground against a typical backdrop of gently grey Pacific Northwest cloudcover , it makes for a comfortable niche in the imagination.

 2012 03 23

I don't fear death (except on the deep, lizard-brain reactive level that all living entities instinctually exhibit). I can date and place the moment when it shifted for me. In my apartment on Leavenworth, August 1974. I was in the doorway between my kitchen and the "bedroom", facing west into a setting sun when I was overcome with the certain and sure knowledge that one day the sun would rise and I wouldn't be here to see it. Words will never serve to extract from my mind and experience the completeness of the moment, the implacability of its so-ness. It was neither terrifying or sad, just pervasive and ineluctable.