Signs Of Greater Age (24)

1-thinking everything you see today
is expensive because yesteryears prices
made a far stronger impression on you
than how you recollect recent times.

2-going the the cinema on spec
but leaving more quickly than previous
when you find the violence more gratuitous
and unpleasant than you found comparable films
when younger. Forgetting that you, like others,
enjoyed depictions of violence because you were young.
But the money spent discovering  the sensitivity of maturity,
for leaving the cinema, is still money well spent.

Giftwrapped!

Our generosity to Mother Nature is infinite. With thank to here.

'Slaughter Your Darlings'

is a term editors use with journalists
and proffessional writers, when they
want the writer to remove those phrases
that believe their readers will find superflous,
that the writer has is attached to,
which is proof of weak writing.
Alas, I don't write enough to have that dilema
and as self editor I would be talking to myself
when I said them.
Writing for nothing is one form of insanity,
talking to myself would raise me
a few notches higher on the madness scale.

The phrase makes sense to me with food
-not every meal I make turns out well
and with the best meals there are always lefovers.
Historically, one point of keeping a dog
was not just as canine hot water bottles,
but lived on the leftovers of the humans
who 'owned' them thus leaving less to the vermin
households were prey to. Now with food
that is less than appetising that still I am
disinclined to waste I wish I could summon up
the grattitude of my inner dog, and slaughter
those darlings, and be grateful for the scraps
my inner human has left for me.
 

Towards A Life Beyond Time

Has there ever been a war that was genuinely 'just'?
I will wager that if there was
it was a war that was just because
it was stopped before it was started;
the argument behind it over land or power settled
at it's core before the blood of man and beast was shed.
I would be happy to celebrate such a non-war,
because I would be cheering what never started.
The only difficulty with such a celebration would be
finding the date for the celebration of a non-event.  

Pursuing The Best,

whilst knowing that we only ever see
how much we missed it by seems good to me.
The virtue is in seeing how much we miss by.
It tempers the jeaousy in the will to win
-an instinct it is impossible to extinguish.  

My Second New Year Card For 2014

Maynard Dixon, Shapes of Fear, 1930 from here

 

From One Of My Favourite Anti-Natalist bloggers....

'Two days ago I was obliged to enter the huge Apple store in central London. My god, what an experience. I don't think I've seen a more crowded shop in my life. What really struck me was that most people were interested in the trinkets and accessories that go with their iProducts. An extra bauble here, another there, and let's be picky about what colour it is. I've rarely felt more alienated from my own culture and was so relieved to get out of there.

I then came home and put on Al-Jazeera and watched a big report on the current slaughter in both the Sudan and the Central African Republic. Comparing the narcissism of the Apple store with the slaughter in Africa, and then reflecting on the west's savage imperialism and raping of that benighted continent, all I can say is that if the African countries ever got their act together and united to invade Europe in a revenge crusade, I could only say we'd get what we deserve. To quote the greatest chronicler of western decadence, Michel Houellebecq, on the mindset of those of those in the 'advanced' world: 'I know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism, and death'.'

  You can read his writings, going back several years, here.

Christianity Is In Decline,

both in depth of faith and numbers.
Whatever the hope and prayer
every reform hastens the churches
becoming more like the world
that they hoped to transform,
putting an end to with Heaven's arrival.
Decline is only right when through logic,
science and debit financing we have left behind
the history of martyrdom as the means to growth.
I think it was Tertulian, but I can't find the source,
who said 'Watching people in hell [and not being there]
is Heaven itself''. Whoever wrote it
did so after seeing a few too many Christians
become lion's lunches. Any respite there used to be
in the phrase has shrunk in the wash of history.

Why does the urge to gloat hide
inside every invitation to humility?

A Hunger

for modesty will help make
asking for less seem more like
asking for enough, and deepen
your delight in what you receive.

Leaving/Not Leaving

Paradise is somewhere we realise
we have been only after we regret
being expelled from it, Hell is a place
we understand best when we know
we want to leave but our exit is blocked. 

My First New Year Card Of 2014

and it looks next year will be as confusing as this year was.

The Hope Of Utopia

As a child I rarely expressed my belief
in the hope of Utopia, I rarely came across
reference to it except as the distant hope
of inept governments. But I knew what it was.
Mostly the idea came to me when I was in a car
at the will of all the grown ups around me,
and I was uneasy and not quite entirely passified.
I felt 'car sick', a symptom I now believe
was part of a wider anxiety that the grown ups
knowingly ignored. My Utopia arrived when
the adults acquiesced to my wanting to be let out
for some fresh air. Belief  in Utopia also surfaced
when not minding to be as quiet as my host wanted,
I asked my them 'Are we there yet?'.

For The Wealthy

their morals have always been tied
to the maintenance of their weatlh
'How else can we do good, except
through ownership?' they rhetorically ask
-equating their riches with good stewardship
as if relative poverty were proof of profligacy.
In London this self regard now extends
to buying second homes in the area where
they intend their children to go to school,
and buying into the religion who sponsors
it's ethos, whilst the (relatively) poor,
who's beliefs speak less vehemently
for their lack of wealth, pick through
the educational choices that are left over.
Caste systems that divide and separate
populations are as old as the oldest of hills,
if we in the U.K. are to be subject to one,
I would rather it be on theological grounds
than the self serving serving themselves
disguising their love of money as 'ethical'.  

The Best Charity Is Unsentimental

Often I feel ill at ease with the modern charity
within rich western countries, and for no clear
reason. If a cause is good, well what is wrong
with it? Nothing per se except the ambition
with which the cause is pursued. Modern charity
means turnovers of millions of pounds, a glossy
image, big buisiness values, and public relations
campaigns that are meant to hook in the tabloids.
As the charity seeks to hook in the public attention
they seem to wallow in a queazy mix of shock value
images mixed with verbal prurience and add  token
 upbeat stories in the name of 'good taste', and for optimism.
The more thorough the dickensian scapegoating of an illness
the greater the suffering of animals in laboratories, the more
sympathy I have for the animals the illness and other secondary
sufferers than the charity fighting it. Using the language of war
in the name of charity typifies what I mean-propaganda!
Charities to cure cancer are the clearest example.
So far the cancer recovery story I like the most
comes from the BBC and you can find it here.

What Am I Not Comprehending?

I have looked at many belief systems,
also many of the semantic declentions
of Western Unbelief. Continually what I fail
to appreciate from my research is how systems
focus on what they are not, and what they oppose
-more than what they are and what they consist of.
This happens with a consistency that reaches though
the verbal gymnastics, goes beyond the words
that give hardening unbelief it's grades and distinctions,
its currency as unbelievers would say, such as would put
The Pope and all his divisions to shame in their ways
of not saying what they mean in any langauge.
Still, I look for a unity in simplicity, where daily I aspire
to be what I appear to be and find in others a similar acceptance
-through a readable face and the good will of the moment.

A Moribund Vision

  I wanted to write about Adam Smith and his book 'The wealth of nations' (published 1776) but the more I thought about wealth, the nation state, and Smith's other catch phrase 'the invisible hand of the market', the more I realised whatever he wrote about money, goods and labour the more he was avoiding talking about power, who had it, how they got it, and why they kept it. What he wrote about was less Bread and Circuses, more turning the production of bread and other basics of life into a circus, making those who did the baking pay for doing through their performance, and measure of the daily takings for said circus was for the benefit of absentee managers of national profit and loss.

   The nation he wrote about was a constitutional monarchy with near absolute powers for the Royal Family, in which citizenship barely existed. The right to vote was something that the powerful bought from the few voters there were in the population, as if the voter and the voted for were both part of some exclusive club. If citizenship did exist then it was for men who owned extensive property in the form of buildings- they were citizens, and the fewer and smaller the buildings they owned the less of a citizen they were. Those who owned nothing were nothing beyond being names in the register of baptisms and burials in Parish Churches. They were nothings valued for their labour, and the status games their owners could play with them, with other status led citizen owners of nothings.

   The human chattels, children, wives, servants and prostitutes they used, bought, kept and discarded were not just not citizens, they would not have recognised citizenship if it wanted to hang them for stealing a stale crust. The invisible hand of the market was normally something that excited a rich man's man's groin, as if it was feeling him up, or it girded his loins sufficient for him to get aggressive towards other nations under license in the name of the state that granted him limited rights of citizenship.

  If the nation created the wealth then the wealth belonged to the nation. But in a country ruled by The House Of Lords and The King, all big land owners, the propertyless individual is more subject than citizen, worth only as much as their ability to preserve themselves with their savings and labour. If he could not be bought, then he was not worth having and better despised for being beyond purchase.

 Under the near absolute rule of George III that Smith wrote under, The King was citizen number 1 in his kingdom and everyone else's citizenship a fraction of the kings citizenship according the property they owned relative to his, and their ability to make other people chattels of even lesser citizens than themselves, thus reducing the chattel to an even greater non-citizenship. Even then such a system was relatively new and dated back to the 1530's, with the closure of the monastries.

 I gave up wanting to write when I was realised I was trying to write about a moribund vision that if it has been improved on since has been improved by being completely turned inside out, and in doing so it created modern consciousness and conscience free consumerism, a rather doubtful improvment on what went before.

Eating With Friends

is always a pleasure-from the preparation
of the fruit and veg prepared from scratch,
and the spices to be added, through to the course
by course presentation, which in the process
gives the host control of the table without them
being viewed 'in charge', to the shared humour
in the ease of eating. I like the washing up
that signals the end of the evening too.
But always the part that surprises me
is how much an elegant meal will make
pleasing leftovers which improve
in the quiet restfulness of the following day.   

For Older People,

and the tired of living, rediscovering sex
is the start of a slow dance with the ghost
within them, less out of being driven
and then divided by pro-creation,
more to refresh the simpler hope of gently feeling alive
through and with another, whilst the sense of touch
can still light up life, as it flickers through their frame.

As Ronald Reagan Showed

and did not need to say, dementia is when we act
the role but forget why the part was invented.

Signs Of Greater Age (23)

1-realising how absolutely pointless Christmas is,
and quite knowingly seeking a retreat from the event
through agreeable company that shares your dislike
and leaves more at ease with how they share with you.

2-finding the start of a new year a much more
substantial event, and still going to bed early
on the eve of the year ending, because the rest
gained is more valued than the staying awake
for what seems by yourself to be a non-event.

What Langauge

best describes a world where leadership disguises
wanting to telling everyone what to think as 'starting
a big conversation'? 'Doublethink' will do nicely,
thank you. The must notable aspect of the process
is how, when the language flips and flops on the lips
of politicians hogging the media, the unobservant think
that 'the issue has gone away', because they remain
disengaged about the issue. But with double mindedness
nothing is ever settled because nothing is thought out
beyond the needs of the demagogue of that hour speaking.

Small Minds Like Big Machines

and the more pointless the activity to do with them the better,
with thanks to http://erikjohanssonphoto.com/blog/ .

The Tool. The Product, The Waste

Man was not the first creature to make tools
to make labour and life more comfortable,
but of all the creatures under the sun he is
by far the most accomplished. He needs to be,
to compensate for a lack of senses.
It is such an accomplishment! The prowess that started
as three separate objectives-the intended product,
the tool for the work, and the waste produced
(which in the distant past was in quantities small enough
relative to the intended result to be naturally recycled
without him realising it), with complexity have multiplied
and become completely interchangeable.
With man as the centre of an greater self consuming wastefulness
than he could ever conceive himself as being.
The plan is now for a planet with a death wish,
which aims to kill itself and all it carries
through reverse engineering par excellence
by turning man the toolmaker for his survival
into man the tool for the extinction, of him and everything else;
The planet's chosen means of suicide.

When Did Taboo

conflate with darkness?
-find out here.

When I Am In France

I like shopping in the communal bins.
People throw away so many nice things,
for anyone to reuse, and they stack the items
with such elan that I can spend a long time looking.
How could anyone refuse such a time consuming habit?
The means of payment is equally stylish-whatever the item,
the question I have to answer 'Yes' to before carrying it away
is 'Do I have the right place to put it in?'

Unlike The Religions Of Old

scientists and scientific invention are not the measure
our days. The dates of scientific discoveries are not
the equivalent of Saints Days or celebrations of miracles,
with festivals and days on which to fast or use up fats,
which conflate with lay observations of the seasons.
The dates of scientific discoveries and when scientists
were born are just not celebrated.that way. As a discipline
science has a different, rather sparer and impersonal, narrative.
But if such a calendar were devised-adjusted to mesh
in with be other, older, calendars-what are the chances
that at the core of this calendar Lamark would be John the Baptist,
the forerunner, to the tabula rasa, Darwin who as scientist
was Science Incarnate and man to reset the calendar at zero?

Emotional Security Is Never What It Appears To Be

When I was young one of the more regular (g)hosts
who appeared on television, who made what came
through 'The Box' seem real to me was the presenter
of University Challenge, Mr Bamber Gasgoine.
He exuded a geeky cool seemingly without trying,
well before the term 'geek cool' was ever devised.
I was always impressed by how when he gave marks
for the answers the contestants gave he often had
three supplementary facts to give the viewing public.
But of course in real life such control and calm detachment
would be the last word in being extremely annoying
when repeated too often. In real relationships admitting
knowing less is what leads to better sharing, and a more
careful listening-what glues people together is being honest,
and self knowledge as to where they are likely to be weak.
Everything else is just an ongoing cover up.  

The Height Of Self Awareness

and when it is all I have to rely on, long may it be so.

Feminism

is the art of changing management
from irresponcibliity driven by testosterone
into drive-by-mothering without being seen
to do so. Most men recognise this only after
having lost their balls, finding there is no longer
the means of reversing the process. Little do they
realise that historically when men ran the lives
of women, and the distantly ruled the children
that women forcibly bore, the men saw them all
as tools and chattels, whilst talking merely of 'dependants',
but it was just as much making 'being kept a mono-culture'.

Progress Mostly Means Changing The Means Of Invisibility

Thirty years ago the height of intimacy for me
was sex was with strangers who withheld
their names but who gave their willies freely,
thinking that was all they had worth sharing.
Like me, they believed they were invisible
to all whilst in the public toilets in which
we all met. Now I have joined Facebook
and I am still invisible, but my vice-du-jour
is playing scrabble on line with people
I don't know and need never see. Visibility
is not an an issue if you know that hidden
or known you will be accounted for and credited
(or discredited) by your actions through rules that work.
The real gain from winning a game of scrabble
is how safely it rewards the use of my biggest organ,
the brain, for longer. And losing still gives me more to play for.

Hitting The Overload

It is only just more than a century since
the invention of the wrist watch, which was
originally a luxury item meant to assist the pilots
of early bi-planes, by freeing up that extra hand
for them to use whilst steering their primitive
but costly aircraft. It replaced the pocket watch.
This ticking time bomb on a strap that is forever
and slowly destroying our awareness, when combined
with the stick of corporate commerce, it's mate,
post modern banking, and the carrot of growth
through hyper processed advertising, is rending
the good will in the slow life practically obsolescent.

Housing Market Extends To New Possibilities

But home insurance may prove more expensive,
 and more profitable to insurance companies
than some may feel comfortable with.

I Want This Puppy For Christmas

because it seems the only way to preserve elephants for the future
is to cross them with Labrador dogs, to make them seem
tame and friendly enough to not leave us threatened....

 The only other choice of gift to myself re elephants was this
 which seemed way too anthropomorphic and self absorbed
for comfort, though the potential pain of the tattoo would
keep me a little more awake/aware.

At 95 Years Old

Nelson Mandela deserved the rest he now has
from illness, and from all else in life that irked him.
Most difficult of all for him to decline was the ill fitting
mantle of sainthood that the world's media thrust upon him.
The saints of The Early Church were martyrs
to whom unprovable acts of healing were attributed.
When The Church had power thrust upon it
these martyrs replaced the capricious cosmology
of the Greek and Roman deities acting out their soap opera.
The people on whom the charisma of sainthood rested
when they were alive were driven, difficult, and flinty
characters who's grit changed the world they lived in more
after they died cruel deaths than within their lifetime.
Nelson Mandela rightly rejected being compared with that.
He was charismatic and he used his life in prison to increase
his moral authority to help him find the better way to end
so called 'separate development' but not for him the false
posthumous extension of suffering to attempt to extend
The Glory Of Heaven. He was truly a humble man.

What Big Eyes You Have Darling

The Vampyroteuthis infernalis literally translates
 as 'the vampire squid from hell'. 

It was first described in 1903 and was thought to be an octopus
 with eight arms. Subsequent sightings showed it had two arms,
tucked into it's pockets. For more information read here. 

The biggest eyes proportionate to size of any creature alive 

Colour Blind Behaviour

When Bulls see rags being waved at them
what do they see? They see red, all right
but not because of the colour of the rag
or the the person irritating them, but
because of the red mist in their heads
which the human irritant, as unobservant
of the actualities of life for the aroused animal
as they are in language, are merely in the path of.

My Fifth Christmas Card Of 2013

Because those of us who dislike Christmas
understand good will better when
it is in a more abstract form.  

Making Unease More Memorable

Drinking to the recently dead
makes the living as disagreeable
with each other as they who are
being remembered via the sharing
of a more then a few drinks once were.
But for those who need to mask their
pretence of forgetting, by 'moving on'
through drink, then who can stop them?

The Short Guide To Easier Communication Skills

all these are words we need to apply to our mind as we speak
to those far away, enabled by technology which we should
consider the effects on us of, more than we generally do.   

Why I Write

is probably similar in motive to why other people write;
Totalitarianism and kindness have never combined well,
if they did life would indeed be Heavenly. For as long
as they do not combine 'The world is the case' we have
to live with. Explanation is all we have. Particularly when
the case is one of records of our deeds and misdeeds
being secretly kept, as if writing could purge us of ill motive
when mostly it purges us of the memories of our actions.

Nothing To Hide, Or Hide Behind

I first grew a beard at age 19 and have been clean
 shaven on only three times in 33 years, only to let it
regrow immediately. For decades I endured cheap
taunts like  'what is that beard hiding?' from my family
when their mirthless jokes hid far more from me than
I hid from them in my facial hirsutism. Now I now have
 a transparency they never did and share hearty laughs
 through my luscious lip locks.