Cartoons tell us that "the spirit" is a transluscent white image of your body that rises from the body when it dies. Some versions have the evil become black shapes that fall from the body.
The spirit - that is, you, for example, or I -- the spirit has no form, but we insist on trying to REPRESENT it as an ethereal woman, a dove, a mountain, a white sheet with eye-holes, etc., for it is unreal to us that what we are can feel such pain, yet not be touched, see such suffering, yet not be seen.
Life taxes the spirit, and we oppose taxation without representation.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Tabulating a Life
I'm dead now, in Heaven, I think, though it could be hell--they don't say. I have lots of time - I guess it's still called time time - to review my life and develop a statistical breakdown: Time spent saying "How are you" and "Fine, thank you" or listening to the news or brushing teeth or wondering if I shouldn't be doing something about the yard or having sex, eating, tasting, talking, saying something - anything you can think of, very impressive, all these records at my disposal, reams of figures, everything I did measurable.
Truly, I have lived.
Truly, I have lived.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Protesting Protest Songs
It's like "The butler did it!", these protest songs where, whatever bad thing happens to poor folks, surprise! surprise!--the rich folks did it and also the politicians, and maybe all of us
(either because we didn't know it was happening or because we did, but didn't prevent it or even because, on a day when, somewhere, children were starving , we were on a picnic, enjoying sunshine, beer, egg salad sandwiches and one another).
Such songs should begin, "I suppose you're wondering why I've asked you all here...".
I say these things, and yet, I'm glad to be reminded from time to time of all that cannot simply be left to "the experts" and that I am part of a world that includes much misery. Apart from their glibness, there are only two things wrong with protest songs:
1. If it is wrong to take pleasure in sunsets, food, love, etc., while others elsewhere are suffering, then, since always somewhere someone suffers, it is wrong ever to enjoy oneself, in which case, what's the point? Why feed the starving children, for example, if life is to be a gray miasma of self-conscious sympathy.
2. It is important to point out abuses, but no group (poor, blacks, women, etc.) ever rises above its miseries solely by blaming others for them. Why promote the cult of the victim? It is very tempting to victims -- it's so easy to be a victim, so much easier than looking to see what part of one's condition one can improve and how one's own decisions and actions have contributed to it. But the road out of traps always involves increased responsibility -- on the part of both individuals and groups.
At this point someone says, "But surely a starving infant in sub-Saharan Africa can't be said to have contributed to his own misery!" There are answers to that, answers that address its substance, but really, the question is irrelevant, since our protest songs don't persuade the children they are victims. The songs persuade those who weep over the children (parents, for example) that they are victims, that it's their role in life to weep and supplicate, and our role to feel guilty or send money.
It's probably true that the best thing to do with a starving child is feed and educate him/her, not talk about responsibility. That's called coping.
It's also true that we do not get stronger by blaming others for our conditions in life. We may get paid damages by a court and you we may get vengeance, but we do not get stronger. We end up wedded to the weaknesses that have served us so well.
A little protest goes a long way.
(either because we didn't know it was happening or because we did, but didn't prevent it or even because, on a day when, somewhere, children were starving , we were on a picnic, enjoying sunshine, beer, egg salad sandwiches and one another).
Such songs should begin, "I suppose you're wondering why I've asked you all here...".
I say these things, and yet, I'm glad to be reminded from time to time of all that cannot simply be left to "the experts" and that I am part of a world that includes much misery. Apart from their glibness, there are only two things wrong with protest songs:
1. If it is wrong to take pleasure in sunsets, food, love, etc., while others elsewhere are suffering, then, since always somewhere someone suffers, it is wrong ever to enjoy oneself, in which case, what's the point? Why feed the starving children, for example, if life is to be a gray miasma of self-conscious sympathy.
2. It is important to point out abuses, but no group (poor, blacks, women, etc.) ever rises above its miseries solely by blaming others for them. Why promote the cult of the victim? It is very tempting to victims -- it's so easy to be a victim, so much easier than looking to see what part of one's condition one can improve and how one's own decisions and actions have contributed to it. But the road out of traps always involves increased responsibility -- on the part of both individuals and groups.
At this point someone says, "But surely a starving infant in sub-Saharan Africa can't be said to have contributed to his own misery!" There are answers to that, answers that address its substance, but really, the question is irrelevant, since our protest songs don't persuade the children they are victims. The songs persuade those who weep over the children (parents, for example) that they are victims, that it's their role in life to weep and supplicate, and our role to feel guilty or send money.
It's probably true that the best thing to do with a starving child is feed and educate him/her, not talk about responsibility. That's called coping.
It's also true that we do not get stronger by blaming others for our conditions in life. We may get paid damages by a court and you we may get vengeance, but we do not get stronger. We end up wedded to the weaknesses that have served us so well.
A little protest goes a long way.
A Needy God
Definition of God: That entity which is perfect, complete, unlimited, utterly above our onception, and, according to those who claim to know Him intimately, in urgent need of our agreement that He is.
[That's a smart-assed definition, since many tell us that it is we who need to know His presence. But certainly the impression given by many of the faithful is that the God they worship insists on being acknowledged. Odd how exactly the God each person professes resembles in temperament the person professing Him.
The God I chat with likes to play.]
[That's a smart-assed definition, since many tell us that it is we who need to know His presence. But certainly the impression given by many of the faithful is that the God they worship insists on being acknowledged. Odd how exactly the God each person professes resembles in temperament the person professing Him.
The God I chat with likes to play.]
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Critics and Monkeys
It has not yet been determined that any number of monkeys left in a room full of typewriters would, in any length of time, produce a single great work of literature.
It has, however, been proven that a generation of literary critics, left in a room with the production of said monkeys would, in a few years, produce a significant mass of critical literature, analyzing and debating the merits of the monkeys' work.
It has, however, been proven that a generation of literary critics, left in a room with the production of said monkeys would, in a few years, produce a significant mass of critical literature, analyzing and debating the merits of the monkeys' work.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Having to Have an Opinion
Odd how we are expected to have opinions, how eagerly we seize upon them even where they can lead to no choice of action (SHOULD the Post Office have raised the price of postage, WAS the 1926 Yankee team better than any since, DID Lennon write better songs than McCartney?...).
Odd how, hearing of a game between two distant teams, we feel we must have a favorite - we're like gambling adicts who, seeing two ants on the sidewalk, will bet on which will reach the next crack first.
How is it so few of us have learned the exquisite relief of not having to have an opinion?
Odd how, hearing of a game between two distant teams, we feel we must have a favorite - we're like gambling adicts who, seeing two ants on the sidewalk, will bet on which will reach the next crack first.
How is it so few of us have learned the exquisite relief of not having to have an opinion?
Monday, January 09, 2006
A Proud and Free People
"I come from a proud and free people."
Everyone does. All the disgraced slaves come from proud free people and don't know how to go back, but they say this ("I come from a proud and free people") as if it matters, so maybe it does:
Maybe only the free can be enslaved, only the proud can be abased, and maybe we'd have no hope of getting there if we didn't know we'd already been there.
Everyone does. All the disgraced slaves come from proud free people and don't know how to go back, but they say this ("I come from a proud and free people") as if it matters, so maybe it does:
Maybe only the free can be enslaved, only the proud can be abased, and maybe we'd have no hope of getting there if we didn't know we'd already been there.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
TeenScream
New studies show that if you talk to children about suicide and ask them repeatedly if they've ever considered hurting themselves or thought of suicide as an option, those children do begin to think about suicide and notice that it's an option.
This is what the drug companies call "suicidal ideation" which is why psychiatrists want to screen kids: So that the kids can be put on medications -- as part of their meducation -- that include among their effects, causing suicidal ideation. That way the drugs can keep the suicide rates up (creating a demand for psychiatrists), so that the psychiatrists won't have to spend their days asking questions that cause suicidal ideation.
Then the psychiatrists can get back to their most valuable work: Redefining picking loose eyelashes out of your eye when there's no eyelash there as Phantom Cilia Disorder, redefining picking your nose as the digital phase of Snotophobia (which is not a phobia?), redefining pressing the down button again after it's already lit up as Obsessive Elevator Impatience Dysfunction, etc.
For some reason, no one asks the kids, "Have you ever considered harming a psychiatrist?" Perhaps we should spread the word that children are, increasingly, a danger to psychiatrists. We might recommend that they be screened to detect urges to maim or kill psychiatrists. (I think that's what the shrinks call "Defiance Disorder".)
For more data on the purposes and products of those who advocate screening all children (or all people) for "mental illness", check out this site.
This is what the drug companies call "suicidal ideation" which is why psychiatrists want to screen kids: So that the kids can be put on medications -- as part of their meducation -- that include among their effects, causing suicidal ideation. That way the drugs can keep the suicide rates up (creating a demand for psychiatrists), so that the psychiatrists won't have to spend their days asking questions that cause suicidal ideation.
Then the psychiatrists can get back to their most valuable work: Redefining picking loose eyelashes out of your eye when there's no eyelash there as Phantom Cilia Disorder, redefining picking your nose as the digital phase of Snotophobia (which is not a phobia?), redefining pressing the down button again after it's already lit up as Obsessive Elevator Impatience Dysfunction, etc.
For some reason, no one asks the kids, "Have you ever considered harming a psychiatrist?" Perhaps we should spread the word that children are, increasingly, a danger to psychiatrists. We might recommend that they be screened to detect urges to maim or kill psychiatrists. (I think that's what the shrinks call "Defiance Disorder".)
For more data on the purposes and products of those who advocate screening all children (or all people) for "mental illness", check out this site.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Immortals Are Least To Be Feared
If you can talk to earth and sky and have them answer, you will never be lonely on earth, nor will deaths greatly diminish you; but despite this lack of sympathy for the preoccupations we call "human", you will not be tempted to waste people: Violence is how we compel an answer or at least a hearing when gentler means fail. Even death is a kind of hearing, the one who ignores your words receiving blade or bullet and dropping everything -- he GETS it. But why should you compel human attention when earth and sky listen to you?
You're In Good Hands With Monsanto and ADM
We're in good hands: On a planet where nations starve, farmers can't make a living (I wonder who pays off the politicians to keep food cheap "for us"), so have to sell out to giant food cartels.
When a few gigantic corporations hold all our food-producing land, they'll hold much more; in fact, we will be spared the expense of Jockey shorts.
When a few gigantic corporations hold all our food-producing land, they'll hold much more; in fact, we will be spared the expense of Jockey shorts.
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