Soren & I

I always knew that I shared something with
the existentialist philosopher Soren Keirkegaard.
Now I know what it is, and it is not having a family
who are worth disowning, nor a shared appreciation
of the power of doubt, with all that follows on from that,
or the disbelief in the possibility of companionable marraige- 
strong ideas though they all are-it is that he was caffine addict!  

Heaven For Cleptomaniacs

would be a place where they defined themselves
by their needs and as a matter of course they stole
to have them met, but unbeknownst to them they were
acting in the safest way for all to live;
For in such a Heaven forgiveness after the (f)act
would always be easier to find, and more enduring,
than any of the permissions granted to seek property
rights and ownership that could be sought beforehand. 

Minority Report

It should be no surprise that sceptics
are unscientific about climate change-
sceptics are unscientific about everything
except their own scepticism-which they like
to think is scientific. But for what the planet is worth
the weight of proof of global warming is now sufficient
for many to believe. Those who most readily accept it as fact
are mostly the consumers of goods from the manufacturers
who cause it, who can't see how to reduce their dependence.
As oceans laden with human detritous rise and heat up
whilst being overfished, it is proof enough for fishermen
of every nation state to wage war with each other over
shrinking fish stocks. The ice caps melting is proof of the need
to stop,  not a reason to drill for oil in the arctic, which is
the furthest yet we have got to science as alchemy in reverse.

Another Question I Have Avoided

Because whatever the answer there is little to be done about it. 

One Habit Of Happiness

that keeps me younger than I would otherwise be
is how I say 'Hello little laptop' every morning
as my laptop flickers into life, likewise in the evening
as I close it down, I wave and say 'Bye bye' to it.
These small actions leave me in some way less closed down,
and more prepared for another day. But why I cannot say. 

Proof Of Life

But ruined nerves are better than no nerves and no life. 

Knowing Life

is not worth living
is what keeps me alive.

Where God Gathers What The Fallen Spill

and as long as there is more life spilled
 than saved then there is always more
 to save in the future.

A Dog

in a graveyard
sniffs plastic flowers;
life is the search for sensation.

For Better Manhood

'Let your 'Yes' and your 'No' mean no'-Mathew 5 vs 37 

Freedom Of Choice Has Always Been Relative

What was the difference between english post war rationing,
1945-57 and peace time consumer choice, 1964-the present day?
One measure is how much minor sexual deviancy was material
for blackmail. Alan Turing is now as famous for poisoning himself
after being arrested for the crime of  'indecent exposure' in 1951,
as he was obscure back then as a mathematican.
Back then anyone who sought life beyond the (f)utility of marriage
would be unwillingly hoisted aloft on their nightmares.
The money from entrapment for extramarital 'gay sex'
that could supplement a weekly ration would make blackmail
seem both moral and profitable.
Which young man would not pay to hide their shame?
Young women paid in life and trauma as much as money
for a backstreet abortion. The 1970's were an advance,
marriage was still seen to be utilitarian, and with increased wealth
blackmail was no longer for money. Since married men who drank
to escape the sense of (f)utility secretly thought 'gay sex isn't adultery'
then coralling the weak young men into giving them oral sex was justified.
I remember well the immurement of my sexuality within the walls
of public toilets, though I will never understood the secrecy I was coerced by.
The peace time choice of freedom still comes from the words
that classify us, unawares, but let us not get into how advertisers
slice and dice us into units for their consumption, and then call it choice.

A Restful Picture

Albrecht Durer, 1471-1528 Six Pillows (undated).

Putting The 'Less' Into Hope

To humans love may have no end,
but who so ever is inclined
to accept such infinity will find
that such endlessness cannot be kind.  

The Way Out Of The Recession

But make sure your financial first aid kit
is strong enough first,.

The High Life

Smoking cannibis is no more likely
to lead to taking harder drugs
than hard work will automatically lead
to a well paid high status job.
But accepting duress will reinforce
the reduction of choice.

Life After Breakfast?

I could relate to my breakfast
I was fried I was scrambled
I felt rather freshly squeezed
and once digested I might well
find the will to get through the day.

I Approve

of the modern campaign for 'a dignified death'
for as many as can find the means for it,
one where stress is reduced to a minimum.
May I gently request that we extend the idea,
to greater dignity for the whole of life before then?

The Distance Between Forming A Queue

and making a hierarchy

is always shorter

than ever we like

to believe possible.

Practice Makes Perfect

In my twenties, I was a practising Christian.
Every week, before communion, I made my confession.
The numbness that followed the bread and wine
was a time of rest in a world that ground me down.
I was also a practising homosexual.
Every day I traded my secret shame in public toilets
where anonymous others did the same,
to maintain my guilt, for my unforgiving family to exploit.
They had to keep their grip on me somehow.
Since I seemed to be a born hypocrite,
I had to disallow myself understanding.

In my thirties I reduced my dependence on family
and church, and most of all tried to cut out the secrecy
I had been made to keep about my homosexuality.
The latter was very persistent. I tried to replace them all
with a self renewing non-breeder relationship
which over the decades has shown me that deep down
I was, and I always had been, more asexual and agnostic
than I had accepted. In a world built on drive and thrust
my lack of lust gives me a better class of hypocrisy.

Use Sparingly

with thanks to http://www.streetagainst.com/

The Measure Of A Recession

should not be the cost of a house today,
versus it's inflated value during the last boom,
but the proportion by which beggars outnumber
buskers on the streets of the worlds richest cities.

The Unknown Unknown

I like the most is the number of times
that circumstance has kept me from disasters
that I could not see coming which would have
destroyed me, crises which were safe for me
to recognise only with the most distant hindsight.
 .

A Question I Have Avoided

because even being offered a minimum wage
 was too difficult for me.

Empowerment Through Having Less

When ever I applied myself to 'hard work' to 'earn money',
the money I worked for always worked harder and had more fun
going in other directions, than ever it had being my servant.
The mastery I found after was how thrift became my vocation.

Deference Is Us

I knew that parenting
was more about control
than it was about charity
every time my elders ordered
'Let the dog see the rabbit'
in lieu of asking for clarity.

Envy

will always haunt Ambition
more often than Humour
will be at ease with Power.

The Father Of Reinvention

In the 1890's Sigmund Freud invented psychoanalysis
 through his extended/inverted reflections on Greek myth.
Thirty years later he sent his collected oeuvre to America
for his nephew, Edward Bernays to translate from German
into English for far wider consumption, and increased profit.
How was he to predict that his nephew would subvert
the purpose of the material-healing through privacy-to reinvent
an unwholesome public deference towards authority, and corrupt
subsistence ideas of supply and demand by making the media
an ever expanding dream? All so that Capitalism and Democracy
could be turned into The United States of Bread and Circuses?

When Oliver Sacks

first wrote, his focus was not on
unusual mental health conditions,
but old fashioned male sexism,
hence the original title of his first book
-like it's content tweaked well before
it was finally published-
.

The Weakness Of The Flesh

is something that the popular press
have always played on, how else
would they pursue increasing sales
through cliches and bad news in lieu of reality?
But what should we call it when newpapers
tell us of how our leaders use their voice
to trumpet the consensus behind them,
to disguise how they don't want to know
what is going on, and even more need to hide
how they don't want to get us out of it?
My new collective pronoun for a congregation
of politicians and leaders, of whatever conviction,
where ever they meet, is going to be 'A weakness of ... '
and by this I will know to not follow them closely.

Some Truth From Betty White, Actress

What ever we have we are better off making it both tough and tender.

Enduring Lessons In Passivity

At the leadership course I was sent on
I tried to follow the lecturers' attempts at making
holding court with a crowd sound philosophical, home spun and personal.
It was as if their every word and pause deserved my attention.
But however hard I tried to feel welcomed, their court
was not my home. All the time I was there I was only ever
a follower who was there to be lectured to on what to believe.
The worst part was how for so many years after
I was disallowed from seeing myself as passive-
until my lecturers were long dead voices in my head.