Turn On, Tune In, Fade Out....

As I ate out last night I marveled at the couples.
At how whilst waiting between courses
they detatched from where they were,
and from each other, with such ease.
They both looked into their blackberries
to see what news the world had sent them,
as if it had changed since they had last turned them off,
Or more likely set them to 'silent'.
It certainly set the couples to silence.

When I was young I knew the level of disdain
my father had for whoever knocked at the door,
whilst he was watching television.
If the caller had no call on him,
say they were my social worker
or Jehovah's Witnesses he would lean against
the door and brusquely slur 'Not Today Thanks'.
As if another day he might have regard for them-
as if he could say which day he might be recieving.
If it was money was owed he would let people in,
but the television sound would be reluctantly turned down.
But never off. E.g. for people like assurance agents.
But for his family who were in all the time,
and his for the owning, the television was there
to screen us out of his existence.
He turned off the set for his brothers
as we were shoo-ed out of the house,
the better for them to share bitter nothings.

On seeing these unknown couples tuning out
of each other via mobile phones I wondered
at the ease of detachment in 'liberal democracy'.   

My Fifth Christmas Card of 2012

Ferdinand Hodler, Lake Thun 1905, Geneva Museum of Art.

In Light Entertainment

there is no pain, and ultimately no pleasure.
The scale of audience to performer dictates
that all the life in the presented act stops at the recording.
In our media saturated age the entertainers
become 'legends', almost minor secular saints,
through the repetition and distribution of their faces.
Real people know each other by sharing their foibles,
in the process of ageing, but actors, dancers and presenters
only live after their death, when their foibles can be picked over.
Because their lives are dedicated to the art of freezing
pleasing media moments that will live forever,
in moments that empty with repetition.
These entertainers in light become pale ghosts
who whiten with age, just like their audience, for watching them.

Long Sightedness....

....means accepting unhappiness as the gift above all gifts.

For The Best Relief Of Executive Stress

And the best of it all is that in depressions it works even better
 at benefiting the few, and disadvantaging the many. 

The Good News

is that poverty is highly survivable
if you have the right neighbours.

In God We Rust

The paradox of the apocalypse is
that whilst it once appeared to be widely believed,
because it was central to the churches
message of healing and respite, it did not happen.
Not because it could not, or would not-
it still could happen if we could be genuinely
indifferent enough towards each other.
It did not occour because whilst the churches
saw the mote of Hell blinding it's enemies sight
in an eternal suffering they could not stop,
they missed how the beam in their own eye
obscured their view of the true light of Heaven.
When the blind lead one another both will fall into the pit.
A millennium later, and the pitfall we are in is our plans
for the planet, in which our unawareness
is the seed, the greedy weed of contrariness,
in the mix. Ours is the iron will to be 'free',
by destroying all contentment..