Now We Are Sixty

It is official; I am now 'a pensioner',
and my life has improved immeasurably;
now what is expected of me is limited
to being a cogent and grateful consumer,
as if I was not one before,
when it mattered more.   

The Landscape Of Earthy Delights

This is the most sensual and yet tasteful
film poster I have ever seen. I saw the film
'In the realm of the senses'  in 1992, when the
British film censors, the BBFC, relented
to release it with nearly no edits for sex
or violence. When it was first presented
to the BBFC in 1976 was all but banned,
they refused to give the film a certificate,
 though it was still seen and seen unedited.
 The censors encouraged it to be shown
but in private cinema clubs only.... 

 

Other Catch 22's Are Available

Pity the older amateur artist
who enjoys his creative work,
and yet when he tries to share it
in a commercial environment
he finds himself knocked back.

He has to put a price on it
that is more than it is worth
knowing it unlikely to sell
at any price hr puts on it,
and yet for it to be shown
it has to have a price on it,
when it's proper price,
and real value,
are in it's appreciation. 

Inequality Is Us

As George Orwell might have observed
'some families are more equal than others'*
which is to say that 'the family' is as likely
a means of corruption, deceit, or even virtue,
as any other organ or mechanism within society.

That family is the organ of society without which
there would not be a society does not make it
matter more that family be seen as virtuous.

On the contrary, where virtue is apt to fail
it matters more that forgiveness be there
to soften the sense of failure, as used by the survivors 
particularly where the failure of the failed
includes being blind to exactly how they failed.

This forgiveness from survivors,
in spite of the family that failed them,
is an important marker of the difference
between lives lived only in the past tense,
stewing old feuds, reliving old wounds,
and making sense of life afresh in the present. 

*The original quote was of course
'All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others',
referring to the rise and rise of Napoleon the pig as leader,
and later the corruptor, of the equality on 'Animal Farm'.     

Diet And Temperament

And give me them with the foods that I enjoy
so that the solids absorb the liquids
in ways that make I can change
and what I can't have to leave seem natural.

 

Upstairs/Downstairs

God lives upstairs
God does not exist
God is Love; this proves
how real love is to many.

Upstairs is real to everyone,
but without going there
it is hard to prove
who or what lives there
and it seems like
too long a long journey.

So few want to find out
what they actually believe
that it is hard to believe
that they believe in anything
-even in the existence of 'upstairs'.  

Ars Longa Vita Brevis

Because with these paintings

being up to 35,000 years old

 

neither the humans them 

nor the animals depicted

kneww the longevity of theimage they left behind.