These Are The End Times

and the end of all measurement of time.
Even our debaucheries are so banal,
for being so alike due to post-modern living.
We are that banal that nobody is prepared
to give their evil nature the depth of character
that would openly mark them out as different.

The evil in 'being normal' is grace sufficient for all
in this age of soul-less machine led consumerism.  

Cheap Epiphanies

The low lights and easy amusements of life
can detain us with their ease for a very long time.
But ultimately we must all dig a little deeper
to find the more trustworthy reasons to be alive.

Reward Yourself

If responsibility towards other people
is about apt rewards for good deeds
that are conceived and born good will,
then what does the removal of reward,
as happens to so many who are well meaning, mean?

More responsibility? Even to the point
of rewarding yourself because nobody else will?

Hypocrisy Modernized (2)

Every adult wants a job
because it is the means
to owning their own home,
and one of best filters in life
is having your own front door.

Everyone knows
that as jobs get more automated
so so work loses its character
and sense of reward. Submission
to a computer system can never be fun.

But consumers marvel at the ease
and cheapness by which they live,
little knowing how what they have
is paid for in human stress.

So we all want the office job
that another can't have,
to make sure we get the house
that we can fill on future debt,
which if the money goes right for us
means we can forget that misery
is the foundation we have built upon.

Language And Science

How much do folks realize
that the word 'realize'
has two distinct meanings?

1- 'to make happen', or causation.

2- 'to become aware of', to observe.

If one accepts genetic explanations
for the cause of homosexuality
then both parent and child will realize,
in different ways, that the child cared for
will stray from what has gone before.

The parents are the first to realize
the potential in the child,
through parental causation.

The child will realize, as they observe,
the emotional inheritance that becomes theirs
as they discover the flaws in their parents ambitions.

History has spilled a lot of ink
on the subject of ambitious parents
who were plain wrong about their children.

In this world all parenting is errant,
and we should all be more observant.

,

The Giver And The Gift

Sometimes I give,
often, with due notice, I receive.

But my generosity shrinks
when I feel the ground taken
from beneath my feet,
along with the gift I have given.  

Class Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

'The difference between a flower girl
and a lady is not how they behave,
it is in how they are seen' - George Bernard Shaw. 

I Am Not Ashamed Of Being

But I would probably be far more assured about life
if I were something, or someone, else.
Preferably someone with four legs, fur and a tail...

Against The Light

When God made the angels
they turned out as pale imitations of himself
-light from light, inside to out
who shone in front and from behind.
And they shone through a universe
in which they were scary servants
with (as yet) nobody there to scare.

Then God made the earth,
and divided the light, to create
what became 'day' and 'night'.
The sun gave strength, defining day.
And the moon gave rest, making it night.

Did God see how keen the angel Satan was?
Satan surely saw how the the sun gave life
and thought nothing of the respite of the dark,
nor did he see how Gods omniscience
was behind and inside everything.
Nobody, now, can learn how
Satan made his own light directional
-after the manner of the sun-nor how he inspired
the many anonymous angels followed his example.

But even as Satan imitated the sun to give strength,
the rest he offered through his darkness
created unending torment,
as he quenched God's light within him.

To this day this unease still divides nature.

True That....

And clocks never measure entropy, the true measure of life...

Telling Stories

is an ingrained habit for humans
who like to detain each other
at length with expanding narratives.

Technology has vastly extended
the means by which we do this.

The problem is that as our stories
get retold they travel far less well,
and they become far more repetitive
than the teller likes to think;
the less personal the means
of the telling the further the story gets;
the more tightly the script
needs to be edited for the story to travel.

In our deathly self absorption
we continue to insist we are 'entertaining'.
God save you all from my boredom with myself.

Paradox Drive

The emptier the rhetoric, the further it travels
and the less it means, until it becomes 'post modern'.
Or fake news for the careless and unenlightened.

Fame Is Not What It Is Said To Be

When Andy Warhol said  'In the future
everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes'
he had thought through what fame meant.

He saw celebrity through the lens of the films
he made of everyone who came to his studio, 'The Factory'.

Without exception, they all faced a running movie camera
with nobody behind it looking into a clearly fake set.
Whilst Andy said 'I'm busy, just look into this.
This will be your portrait. I'll be back in five minutes'.
They became known as his screen tests.

Because nobody can hold an expression
of reaction without someone to react to
then the any fixed expression on the face of his guests
soon started to slip, until even the waxed moustache
on that most disciplined self publicist, Salavador Dali,
drooped for the camera like it only did in private.

So there it is; fifteen minutes of celebrity
is about the smile slowly dissolving from the faces
of those who most consistently seek the camera's lens.

My Fourth Christmas Card of 2016

For a more candy house sort of Christmas....

From Rigged Elections To New Year,

Christmas, and other times of fake cheer
introverts will see themselves as off-message,
unable to accept how the times they live in
are described-on terms that the majority accept.

But the on-line life turns the limited acceptance
of the majority inside out, and refashions their cliches
through a choice of minority, more niche, virtues.

In everyday speech this would be seen
as saying the opposite of what you mean.

The popular media calls the internet
'a post-truth world', as if they are the truth,
or at least 'the way' and 'the light'
that we can't do without.
Then it joins in -as if it could not let any world exist
without wanting to rule it. So the cycle continues.......  

Offering Deference

to people who abuse the respect
of those they receive it from
will always make the givers ill
and the receivers morally bankrupt.

Unease Is Us

Especially when 'here' means Christmas, they will recognize each other
 by their discomfort before excluding themselves from the event.

When Choice Changes Nothing

the impetus could be well meant,
but it is most likely
that the presentation behind it
was either advertising in disguise,
political spin,
or someone pretending to be wise
-the easier to fool the unwary. 

My Third Christmas Card of 2016

'White Band No 2'-Mark Rothko

The Science Of Disproving Vanity (2)

Two hundred years after he lived
Thomas Malthus is still quoted,
where ever anyone worries in public
that there too many human beings
on their part of the planet for comfort.

His theory ran that when populations
grow far faster than food supplies can meet,
then mass tragedy will be the net result.
Better for the poorest (whose labour is cheap)
to breed far far less, lest 'the market for death'
claim the best part of them before they were done.

Never mind the loss of future
of the value of their labour
to an economy that keeps the few in wealth
by supporting mass poverty in the first place.

I can't mind him theorizing from a position
of wealth, as long as nobody calls it morality.
But as a C of E clergyman should he have been
more interested in how Want and Grinding Poverty
would increase personal immorality exponentially?
   

My Second Christmas Card Of 2016

Stag from the savernake horn-a handsomely decorated 12th century hunting horn,
 See more the many decorations on the horn here.

The Science Of Disproving Vanity

It is common to say 'I believe in science'.

How much science would it take,
to find the percentage of those
who in all humility actually believe
in the science process,
with all its equivocation and doubt,
vs the rest who simply like feeling right,
whilst believing that everyone is wrong?

What can we do with the folks
who only want science
to (ap)prove of their vanity?  

Blanket Coverage

We put more faith in blankets 
to protect is from monsters
than we put in the walls, doors 
and locks of our houses.

History Is A Palimpsest

of false divisions and distinctions
that different human beings
have written, randomly, over each other.

As one layer of writing succeeds another
it is no wonder
that we can't understand each other
or where we have come from. 

When Choice Changes Nothing What Is It Worth?

Changing our moods through medication
in lieu of changing the world has a long ignoble history,
from the earliest (assumed) use of psychotropics on;
In the 21st century we can't believe how brutal and inept
medical treatment was in even the very recent past.

Many treatments were prescribed by one person,
and forced upon others with no right of refusal.
In eugenics women were sterilized by  the thousand
because the intelligence tests devised for them
 approved of patriarchal hubris
more than permitted women intelligence.

Now, in the worlds richest countries
we have a commercial/medicated state
where the masses buy into the values
of an anti-depressants culture
rather than alter the depressive aspects
of the culture.

Only in their most private realms
can folks wonder why nothing ever changes...

Notes From Underground

Blaise Pascal and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referenced in one neat phrase.

My First Christmas Card of 2016

'The Thought Which  Sees' (1965)- Rene Magritte.

New Definitions

Democracy-the misrepresentation
of the great mass of the people
by the countries wealthiest citizens,
to publicly prove that nobody cares
about the decline in the quality
of the life for the poorest to nothing. 

Popular Malapropisms With Bertie Ahern.

Bertie Ahern was the Prime Minister/Taoiseach of Ireland
from 1997-2007 and has been involved politics since 1977.

His powers of speech had a unique way of leavening political debate,
by making people smile in spite of the serious matters
that he has had to deal with. 

Please accept the following as a sample....



"With hindsight, we all have 50-50 vision."

"We shouldn't upset the apple tart."

"We're not going to hang anyone on the guillotine."

"The cynics may point to the past but we live in the future."

"The grassroots or the rank and file are now made from Fibre optics."

"Charles J. Haughey wanted to transform Temple Bar into Ireland's West bank."

"I could certainly drink a fair few pints of Bass and be capable of driving."

"At present, I have my hand in whole lot of dykes, 
trying to keep them in and keep people together."

A Grief Observed

Twelve years to the week
since my canine spirit guide
left my best friend and I
we still seek out his traces
the better to make life seem fuller.

We were his third carers,
and he disappeared, probably died,
he was never apt to leave behind
anything as common as 'a body'.

Whatever we try to be
we are still only a fraction
of the person that he was.

Malcolm (left) , Oscar D. Tail (right) probably circa 2003.

  

Selective Viewing

The gift I most admire
in successful people
is their ability to disguise
their failures as after-thoughts,
or ideas that were never meant
to get anywhere near fruition.  

Memo To My Teenage Self

Not only is the brain
the biggest sex organ in the human body,
but when it is not processing sex
it can process many other tasks too.
Many of which can be processed
at the rate of more than one at a time.

When sex is the pursuit
it is often only partial engagement
with another live human being.

And still very little happens.
. 

A Cheap Sign

For a problem that was always bigger than we think.

Farewell Fidel

Bye bye Fidel Castro, who did for State Socialism in Cuba
what Mother Theresa of Calcutta did for Christianity
and the care of the dying in the poorest parts of the world;
he made his brand of Politics the fullest experience possible
for as many as possible, where previously the masses
had suffered under the yoke of imperial first world abuse.

In both India and Cuba the world was slow to report
and quick to forget the abuse the poor had suffered.
And first world news was rather prompt to condemn
the lack of choice that Fidel and Theresa offered.

But them the first world was always apt to rewrite
it's own history, and turn it inside out,
forgetting it's roles in creating poverty for others.

In the worlds of Fidel and Theresa's there was never
going to be thirty different brands of baked beans
on supermarket shelves that audibly groaned
under the weight of choice of their consumers.

Nor would they give the people they cared for
1000 channels of television, all supported
by advertising, fraudulent political campaigns
and state sponsored debt which was disguised
by complicated hypocrisies as 'the new financial probity'.

Fidel helped far more people survive better
than ever he made to suffer under his rules.

In Tough Times

you will rediscover
you have centres of feeling,
in your head, heart, and gut
and there will be no 'But...  '
about it.

Gloating For Profit

Something I resist,
with varying degrees of success,
is being cajoled by the popular press.
I find their search for the worst
in human life bad enough in itself.
But it is far worse than that.

I don't want to imagine the profits
that the national press aspire make
out of advertisers who support them
on the back of their reporting disasters.

There used to be rural traditions
of paying mourners in some beliefs.
The moneys were small and stayed local.

What happens when the national press
gets to work is worse than being paid to gloat.

The Joy Of Existentialist Gardening

Where nature remains alive whilst man remains fearful of being spiritually dead.

Sporting Metaphors

I used to loathe school sport,
And because I read the red top press
-the only press allowed into the house-
and I tried to pay attention, I thought
that I vaguely 'understood' Party Politics,
at least I got some of the appeals for fairness.

Forty years on I realize that I understood
much less than I thought back then.
The politics used to leave me angry.
There was always a strange buzz of fear
on behalf of those I thought might go without,
and their forced sacrifice go unacknowledged.

I could not see how the arguments in the press
echoed some of the sharper words between my parents.
Both shouted incoherently about fidelity and finance,
for which, for my owning so little, I had no frame of reference.

And a few years later I could never work out
why I was being told to lie by instructors
who's job it was to teach me how to make a C.V.
They wanted me to say 'I am good at sports',
whilst I made up something up the sport
that in reality I was barefacedly lying about.

What I understand now about school sport
is that as long as it looked like mentoring,
But individual attention was only given
when public punishments were afoot,
then the schools could do their real work-
grading children by who their parents were
and where their fathers worked and drank,
whilst flattering them as so called 'adults'.

Community and society depended
on children being graded and stamped,
and their social mobility constricted.

But Party Politics still works like school sports,

1-The pupil with the richest parents will be team leader.

2-S/he will choose their team from the elect of their followers,

3-Anyone else the leader wants to butter up they will choose later,
from their team rejects; they exist to praise their team's progress.

4-Anyone who is not on their side and not following them
they will systematically say they disbelieve, and publicly discredit,

5-Leaders will steal as many good ideas from their enemy team
as they can, whilst discrediting where the ideas came from.

6-The teams operate as binaries, excluding any third party
/broader consideration of consensus 'for simplicity's sake'.

7-First past the post 'works' in the sense that
it is always the shortest route to the cheapest triumph.

I understand now what was systematically hidden back then;
I, and 99.99 percent of those I knew, never stood a chance,
But we had to go through the system of 'being educated'
and wait until near retirement to prove this always was the case.

The Hidden Hoarder

People who prefer to live well day to day
and dislike special dates, like birthdays
and religious rest days often still imagine
that they are in some way ascetic.
But they will still be far more tempted
to hoard than they they would like to think.

Home

is a place that is more,
much more, than the sum of it's parts,
which becomes so drab when we take it apart,
which we sometimes have to, the better to resettle....

Hypocrisy Modernized (1)

We all think, whether we say it or not,
'I am a collector, my friend is a hoarder,
and our neighbours should live well
on far less than either of us....  '

The Disunited States

In the 1920's Weimar Republic,
during the time of gross inflation,
cocaine and morphine were legal
and high on the list of major exports.

In the Germany of the third Reich
the civil population were dependent
on amphetamines which were put
in everyday foods like chocolate.

Hitler himself was said to avoid caffeine,
along with women, and other 'impurities',
whilst being dependent on injections
of animal proteins and a relative of heroin.

When Germany lost the war, the symptoms
of drug withdrawal must have made the contrition
that the population were forced to show
seem far worse than the allied powers realized.

Now we have another genius off-the-cuff speaker
who is far less puritanical as the new leader
in that old first world power; America.
And we have the same rhetoric too,
'My country first, now and forever!'
and the country is more divided than ever

If the populous wants to resist
it does not know what to do,
Like the Germans of the 1930's
they are on more drugs than they know
what to do with, whilst pharma firms
create an unbeatable dependency
between the effects of their wares
and their adverts in every branch of media.

I hope for everyone's sake that the U.S.A.
keeps its gerrymandered divisions.
If Americans were ever to wean themselves
off 1-television 2-prescription drugs
or 3-extreme political partisanship
who knows how safe the world will be?

The Existential Hotline

You can't ring out on it and if it rings you don't know who will be on the other end...

Old Vices

never die-they merely reinvent themselves
in more acceptable terms to later generations.

The Logic Of Sleep

Other forms of inactivity are also very popular among the bored. 

Light Entertainment

When St Paul wrote 'For now we see through a glass darkly'
I am quite sure he was not thinking of television,
any empty empire would have stood in for that darkness.
But television is a medium
which conveys so little useful information
at such great cost that it renders people passive.

He could have been been thinking that far forward..... 

Cheap Illusions Are The Easiest To Sustain

"[In America] the illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
-Frank Zappa

Art For Armistice Day

'What War Means' by Ben Wiseman. To me war means separation,
 division and dislocation for those live through it, death for the rest,
Along with tombstones for hearts, to record the dead, in the 'the winners'.

Agency

Everyone 'has talent'. Anyone-
when well coaxed, in the right space,
with the full choice of materials,
paint, paper and clay-can 'be creative',

But the talent to create a mass of material
under consistent pressure, and survive
the hardness of 'networking' and commerce
via an agent, is a gift open to very few.

Future Presidential Reading

The voters who chose these Walter Mitty types can find their own version.    

The Unknown State

With true diversity
there is no tokenism
nor is there dishonesty.

Such a state is mostly theory,
and practically unknown.

Repeating The Stillness

It might be said of much of what I write here
that 'It has all been said before, and much better.'.
Quality will always vary. And what is wrong
with being hitched to old band wagons that stop?
They always seem quite stable...  

Autumnal Thoughts

In Autumn in Southern France the figs ripen on the trees. 

In time they lose their plumpness and look like old men's testicles

Like old men's genitalia they lose their cover and ooze
 and leak bit too readily. But they still taste good.....

Keeping A Close Watch On Life

Nowadays timepieces are cheap
and often sold second hand.
With their last owners they work
for relatively short periods of time.
This has often happens to me;
I then keep them for the straps
which may yet find further use.

The first watch I ever had
was given to me by parents,
at age fourteen when adult fares
were charged on buses.
Without supervision
I had to know when to travel
and what bus to catch,
tmy parents still handed out
the bus fare money, and slowly at that.

The watch was given to me to encourage
my sense of 'being a grown up',
and for six months it told the time.
After that it was right only twice a day,
I knew how it felt. When it stopped
my long hoped for sense of adulthood
stalled with it. I was not given another
and by myself could not afford one, either.

The symbols for 'being a grown up'
that would last would have to be set
around less mechanical and financial
objectives and objects, things prone
to entropy; I had to invest in things
that would not break down.

The times before such signs
as I could believe in arrived
were a very long in coming.

The Follies Of Followership

The more absolute the world leader,
 whether they are royalty, a dictator
a democrat, an oligarch, whatever,
the more the leaders get the led
to fake their sincerity for them,
as part of learning how to follow.

Simple Rules For A Better Life

1-Live within your means.
2-Promptly return everything you borrow.
3-Don't blame other people
(until they really did ill by you).
4-When you make a mistake admit it.
5-Give unworn clothing to charity
(bin clothing too worn to sell).
6-Listen more, talk less, use reason in speech.
7-Do good things naturally and discreetly,
(be modest but open about having done them).
8-Minimize your need for secrecy.
9-Walk 30 mins every day.
10-Strive for excellence, forget perfection.
11-Be punctual.
12-Don't make excuses to yourself  (other people
will see through them faster than you will).
13-If you need to argue, both be calm and use logic.
14-Be organized.
15-Be kind to unkind people
(whilst stopping them be cruel to you).
16-Take time to be alone.
17-Let people cut into queues ahead of you
when you have the time and they don't.
18-Cultivate good manners
(swear if you must but without anger).
19- Accept that life will not always be fair.
20-Go as many days as you can without criticizing people.
21-Know when to say less and make it sound enough.
22-Learn from the past, plan for the future, live in the present.
23-The small stuff is the small stuff, don't stress on it.

If you can do any or all of the above
without resorting to fear, defensiveness,
or a pietism that makes you seem falsely genteel,
then you will have gone beyond 'being an achiever'.

   

Oneupmanship

I find those who excuse thoughtless speech
by saying 'It was only a joke!',
or 'I was only saying!!' to be very odd.
What such comments seem to mean
is that 'It is only a punchline'
and the 'only' is meant to reduce
the sense of offence caused.
What such people are really saying
is 'You will be my verbal punchbag',
and 'You look better for receiving my insults
than I would; I'm too thin skinned'.
These 'humourists' seem to need a straight man
so much, to sharpen their one-up-man-ship.
The very least they should do is find one
who is genuine and willing whom they respect.   

On 'Hate Figures'

We all have them, people
-mostly public figures-who's
every word and action we loathe.
We can be hate figures for others too,
and all without us ever realizing it.
But think on this; emetics will produce bile
-that is their function. And human emetics
exist to help us understand our hatreds better
and help us be less laden with bile, more phlegmatic.   

Brexit-The Metaphor

Because nation states can flush themselves into history, all too easily,
 if they try too hard to relive pasts glories that are faded, and rotten even. 

Three Positive Measures

for the utility and civility of any given society.

1-loners and oddballs should be able
to find the physical space to live in
where they can be themselves,
meet their needs on their own terms,
and not feel threatened, or harassed.

2-both a good dental service and national diet,
the better to stop the rot of  everyone's teeth
due to poor oral hygiene and malnutrition.

3-leaders of the country accept the mistrust
of the population because it is based on wisdom,
not cynicism, the grander the leaders plans
the greater their temptation to to folly.

How many countries do you know that combine all three?
The smaller the population and land mass to be governed,
the more likely these conditions are to be met
though natural melancholia may be the result.   

How 'The Fall' Actually Happened

Eve was at her ease in the garden.
Mistaking her rest for boredom,
the snake quietly whispered to her
'Cheer up, Love. It may never happen'.
and in that very instance 'it' did.
Her curiosity was piqued,
she wanted to know what 'it' meant.
Adam wanted to be obedient
and so he avoided all her questions.
Being made in the image of God,
there was never anything he might ask
to which he did not already know the answer.

Eventually God-who was plural, infinite,
and unified had to act. Because He knew all,
and was in all had to stop her curiosity.
He gave Adam and Eve notice to leave,
to settle their, and their descendants,
curiosities for themselves.

Since then we can only look back
at a state we can never return to.

In The Realm Of The Senses (1)

McDonalds fries 5 mins after you buy them:

These are great! Salty, tasty, hot, so good!

McDonalds fries 7 mins after you buy them: 

If I just eat enough of them at once 

their collective residual warmth makes them just about okay.

McDonalds fries 8 mins after you buy them: 

They taste like cold salt flavoured cardboard.

Why is it midnight? And why did I buy them?

Laguepie, Chestnut Fair

was where I was last weekend. It was fun.
There were crowds gently surging past stalls
where chestnuts and pumpkins. Other vegetables,
were sold too, still with the dirt from the ground
they were dug from on them. The live brass band,
drew admiration, as did the fresh bread, pottery,
jewelry and wicker work stalls. The apple press
with the handle for turning was most impressive.

The crowds moved slowly enough around the stalls
that dogs were free to walk without being lead around
by their owners. No child seemed threatened or lost.

Alas nearly none of my photos came out the way I hoped.
how I wanted, but taking them in hope was enough at the time.
Finally, drinking my morning coffee from a new bowl
which was a work of art that astonished me, given it's price,
will be my chief reward until I go the next time.

Bon Appetit, until next year....   Photo credit; Anthony Weir.

Nietzsche Revised

Beyond The Binaries

that inform sexual behavior - jealousy,
possessiveness and other irrationalities -
lives asexuality, a foreign land to most males.

It is a place of being
where touch is natural,
cool, and yet still sensual.
There arousal confines itself
to the mind, and the body
knows the folly of it's actions.

It is oasis I wish I stay in
-and have a fuller life.

But alas.... ....at age 13
I was serially sexually assaulted.
The matter was efficiently buried,
particularly by me. Incoherence,
was a given, given what happened.
How I misunderstood life at the time
was used against me for decades,
in ways I could not understand.

Ten years ago the memory/event resurfaced,
clean and raw. If my life were a desert
then that event was like Cain seeking rest
he could not find. And I was divided
from who I could be when being myself 
was meant most to be a repeatable epiphany.

What price/value finding that wholesome
and sensual place? Discovering acceptance?

The More Things Change....

....the more they stay the same. It was the 1.6 percent in 1860 who were slave owners
 who decided for the 98.4 percent of the population of The American South whether
 to go into a civil war against the The North to defend the source of wealth of the
 1.6 percent. Now the richest (and most educated) 1 percent of the world's richest
 population choose from their own who should lead the 99 percent whilst disguising

 their contempt. A lot of the wealth of the 1 percent comes from owning the means

 of telling the 99 percent how to live and who to vote for.    

The Eternity Of Words

Novels are anecdote,
informed the shaggy-dog logic
of 'modern psychology'.

That is not to say
that novels are bad;
many are more reliable
than the human friendships
through which we exchange,
and pass on, values and materials.

For as much as they remain,
in print, and read, novels do offer
an eternity through language
that we can only try to understand.

Farmers, Hunters,

zookeepers and naturalists etc
all act like they are God's Gift
to a planet that is shrinking and in pain.
The rest of us look on
at our self appointed experts
not knowing who - or what -
to be appalled at most, ourselves
for accepting our representatives?
Or those who claim to represent us?

Education Is Anecdote

rendered in concrete,
the better to normalize us
into living in sarcophagi
of being well misinformed.

The Homeless And Poor

I most admire are those who disguise what they lack
in bricks and mortar with good basic daily hygiene,
great tailoring, and a personal charm
that can be lethally distant when they need to it to be.

Alas, in the mania for rendering everything/everyone property
they make up all too few of those forced to live without houses.

Unsticky Bonds

Introverts are said to have difficulty meeting people,
but that is not quite the case. They will still they will try,
but having met once, the difficulty comes in continuity.

Introverts find it harder to keep in touch
when after having met by chance
further meeting have to be worked at.

In other words introverts have difficulties
the forming firm bonds that they want to hold them.

Preserved By The Cracks

Hearts are like homes, both are fragile
both will break with sufficient stress.
With patience both will repair and renew.
But only as long as we accept the cracks
that lend them a new flexible vitality.

The Death Of 'Religion'

comes to an individual
when they become bored
with the idea of being ashamed
and they forget the rules
by which guilt is maintained.

Flexible Agreements

People agree with each other every day.
On the easy subjects this is okay.
But the best agreements are those
between people who have had to work
harder at how to accept each other,
the more to renew each other's separate spaces.

The harder the work to successfully agree,
the greater the flexibility in the relationship
the deeper the sense of mutual credit.

The Perils Of Philosophy

Now this is a helpline I really would volunteer to man....

'It Is Not Us, It Is You...'

One of the symptoms of depression
that is harder to unravel than folks realize
is that how other people
will make you feel mean and cheap.

Particularly when they say
 'We always do our best for you'
and other cliched responses.

They will make it seem
that all attempts at getting rid of bad feeling
are purely a reflection of ones' self.

Proper Politics

is Party Political Leaders
using the wealth of their abilities
to flatter those unconverted
to their cause, and do much more
than weakly feign interest
in representing all their constituents
-particularly those who did not vote for them.

Today's Reading Matters

Just the cover is nutritious enough, you can browse it in the newsagents....

Relative Citizenship

Representative Democracy
is a system of self selecting feedback
apparently based purely on votes,
which is actually based on the self esteem,
derived from their wealth and social status,
of the individuals doing the voting.

The votes of all populations
are there to be bought with promises.
The emptier the promise
the sweeter it sounds
and more it will be promoted
by the wealthy, for poorer
voting cannon fodder to vote for.

On Patriotism

Charity begins at home
and usually does not travel far
before it loses all generosity.

When 'Good Manners' Mask False Relations

I have never understood
the kind of people who think
that pushing others to be alone
will cure them of wanting company
less often in future,
as if sociability is the acme of life.

Be alone if you wish, enjoy company too.
But choose your company-just your own
or other people's by open agreement.
Let other people choose for themselves.

From Charles Darwin to Monsanto In A Few Easy Steps

'The Survival of the fittest'
was a phrase coined by Francis Galton,
who was a cousin of Charles Darwin,
initially to summarize Darwin's ideas
in one reductive and effective phrase.
Like many such phrases it missed the point
-fitness for life is proved much more
by adaption where what you rely upon
survives than it does by mere proclamation.

Words are like wars, proof of egotism beyond belief.
If you need proof for this, consider how Francis Galton's
rhetoric helped found the eugenics movement.
Galton started by mis-breeding cattle, then dogs
and more, until his words mis-bred with each other.

Capitalists sure see those whose energies they abuse
as sub-human the way Francis Galton once did.
Genetically Modified Capitalism anyone?

The Impossibility Of Mass Altruism

So what if youths mine their unconscious,
in a society where mind altering drugs
and drink are cheap this is to be expected.
I wish I'd done more myself in that regard.

But when their mining reveals an ever deeper
chasm of self centred consumerism,
which advances the cult of individual,
it surely reveals that society is badly shafted.

Us - Them = Rest?

The currency of life is money and time.
Before the invention of debt it was just time
which with few time pieces was highly flexible.

When money and time are well invested
they create a sense of rewarding longevity.
When they were used to disinvest in others
then other people become soldiers
in an undeclared war, and all life is devalued
-because war devalues everything it touches.

We like to pretend that employers
are people, people who contract
to exchange their money
for their employees time and labour;
But whatever employers project,
most of their money is debt.
People have to think for themselves
if their lives are not to shrink
from shrunken means of bargaining
for over-inflated opportunities.

The Age Of Responcibility

Having finally reached the age
where I feel nearly comfortable
about my mistakes, because I see
that some of them are correctable
-though many errors are permanent.
I am even happier to let other folks
find their mistakes in their own time
and let them correct themselves.

We Should Not Mind

our lawmakers passing laws that are over prescriptive
in the cause of trying to make us better citizens.
Particularly when they create weak supervision
and ineffective penalties for breaking said laws,
and then expect us to comply for no apparent cause.

Ever Felt Watched?

Not that him being bored will stop him knowing more than you realize...

The Future Is In The Balance

I look forward to the day when reverse psychology
(the exposure to something unattractive
to proves it's uglyness) is brought to bear
upon the varying degrees of contrarianism
which plumb the depths of human hypocrisy.

Positively Rare...

Perhaps it is only with food,
food that is personally prepared
for a few, that praise, appreciation,
and honesty are combined
- and all three seem equal.

No Rest From The Wicked

Good and Evil work seven days out of seven,
in their perpetual war against each other,
their battlefield being all that has life on earth.
So when faiths set rules about days of rest
you can be sure their laws have enough
holes in them that the war which they deny
through man-made regulation will continue.....

You decide whose side their laws favour...

Commercial Ownership Take A New Turn

Popular ownership makes it's less worthy consumers even more disposable, and more popular....

When Satisfaction Is Something To Be Bought

Young men who live in cities
live as if they own those places,
but they never have and never will.
They are little boys in bodies
that are enlarged by appetite and choice.
Their vanity is a given.
With enough money they can have a sex drive
to match, and the consequent thirst for property
(something that is more difficult to secure).

But they will also have
a shrunken attention span
for the gentler detail of life.

The Work Ethic Never Stops....

Particularly not for those who are ill or disabled, as millions know....

The Old Infinity

The love of money is as infinite
as the supply that feeds it
and the hunger it feeds upon.

Signs Of Greater Age (39)

1-preferring to talk to people
face to face, or at worst on the phone,
rather than deal with a matter on-line;
The matter dealt with remains the same
but the eye contact and/or tone of voice
which you employed to deal with it
should show that you still have charm
along with self control and reason.

2-preferring sex to happen by appointment,
this gives you more time to prepare for it
and give you the small but frequent buzz
of anticipation, if not reliving a few memories.
These add to the sense of reward before the event.

3-for spontaneous release jokes and laughter
take less effort than sex does, and if the jokes are old
(they usually have to be to be told well) it is proof
that, like you, they have worn well and still work.

The Limits Of Competitiveness

Wanting to be the best will never make anyone the best.
Wanting to be the best will never everyone be the best.
The Best are who they are for being the version of themselves
that they could aspire to be at that point in their life
-as recognized by other equals and betters.

For as long as the best, and the rest, remain alive
then other times for excellence remain available for all.

Death-The T-Shirt

There are far more enlivening uses for 700 gallons of water than merely making one T shirt....

Drugs For Everyone?

As a youth I shared the callow idea,
recycled from from who-knows-where,
about putting hallucinogenic drugs
into the national water supply,
'to set us all free from responcibility'.

At the time I neither paid water rates
nor took drugs. I horrified my elders,
who without reason I felt better than.

Imagine my surprise upon reading
over thirty years later that in 1930s Germany
The National Socialists actually did
what I had once briefly joked about.

Who knew that for most of his adult life
Adolf Hitler secretly took more drugs,
and drugs more toxic to his health,
than my long time hero Jerry Garcia
could ever have dreamt of taking?

Telling Stories

is an ingrained habit for humans,
who like to detain each other
at length with expansive narratives.

Technology has vastly expanded
the means by which we do this.

The problem is that as our stories
get retold they travel far less well
than the teller likes to think;
the less personal the means
of the telling the further the story gets;
the more constantly the script
needs to be refreshed to keep travelling .

But in our deathly self absorption
we continue to insist we are 'entertaining'.

God save you all from my boredom with myself.

Monologues For The Inattentive

Charismatic people often become public speakers,
little realising that one of the effects of their charisma
is that whilst it draws large audiences towards them,
it gets in the way of their words being listened to, closely.

The draw of the charisma destroys the possibility
of the content their speech of being remembered,
and reduces what they have said to a few sound-bites .

Distant Sensuality

Recently I walked down the street
in the small town near where I live.

Two youths in school uniforms passed me.
I overheard one say, to his friend...

'I would love to nestle my head in that beard...  '.

We rarely know how we are seen in public. 

Natural Intelligence

The media is full of comment
on the intelligence and playfulness,
not to mention sensitivity, of animals.
To the point where when folks listen
and recall what they heard before
they would surely see animal intelligence
as a given - nearly as much they assume
that with the ways media repeats stories
about discovering  animal intelligence
that human beings are highly inattentive.     

Abandon All Hope

Ye who enter the world this way. The way is fine, the desination is not worth it...

Reversing Into The Future

Wanting to be both popular and right
has always the height of hypocrisy-
the words of world leaders prove this.

That is why I accept belief in God;
his inconsistencies are everyone's
-writ large enough to be recognisable
but too large to be commonly understood;

Omniscience, Omnipresence and Omnipotence
have always been impossible to balance with each other
and even harder to sustain with goodwill in faith.

I live for insight;
let my errors be curable for being visible,
and let me know, beyond seeing,
that there is a life in the world to come.

Today

We make the currency of life money and time.
But before the invention of debt it was just time
which was then best measured by the seasons.

The good samaritan had to be in no hurry
to see the injured man at the edge of the road.
Time was what allowed him to see the man,
and then told him 'be free with your money,
you have enough to right a wrong and live well'.

Every season is a season of good will.
 

The (not so) Secret News

If newscasters said this they need only say it once. But they would soon be unemployed...

Wither Altruism?

Employers have for a long time used the logic
of 'survival of the fittest' with each other
to create a market for long term instability
in employment, the easier to make rejection
seem 'natural' for 'the unfit' who can't help being what they are.

Such competition increase the stress on those in work,
and reduces the overall fitness of the population.
So when we hear of 'Opportunities for advancement',
then we should ask ourselves 'Advancement for whom?
The person applying? The person being applied to?
Or the alternative employer who is his opposition?'.

Appetite Vs Insight

Young men who live in cities
live as if they own the place,
little realising the place own them.
They are little boys in big bodies,
bodies enlarged by appetite.

When their money is matched
by their testosterone and adrenalin
then they will have the sex drive
of their choice, and then have
the thirst for owning property.
Each allowing them autonomy.

But they will realise all too late
how their eye for the gentler detail of life
shrank without them realising it.

The Easier Way To Get Your Words Wrong

Because our minds often retreat when they do find the right words.

The Blue Plaque Society (Revised)

Were I ever to be publicly celebrated,
say, for my services to blogging,
then much of my life would remain
unexplained, for being  far too boring.

As death approaches to take me
I would refuse to have a grave stone;
instead I would insist on a blue plaque
which bears the following inscription
'Here is where Malcolm stopped living.'.
and the date eternal rest added after.

Let the rest be mis-remembered.....

Size Matters

When folks in Northern ireland
greet a singular adult male
they say 'Hello big man'.

When it is said to me
I am always surprised.
'Me? Big?' is my first thought.

To myself I am always a child
and the part of me I'd like to be
of greatest significance and size
is my open-ness and curiosity.

Putting The Gr Into Attitude

The busier people are
the more passive they get
to what they are consumed by;
the more self absorbed they become.

Any quiet onlooker would ask
'Who is consuming who here?'.

But the consumed are too busy
being consumed by being consumers
to be intact enough to concider the question.....

The Less We Know

the less we know what to fear,
but we still need to know
what it takes to be sincere.

Crime Scene

No trees have come forward to prove witness to this singular death, they were too far away and rooted to the spot.