"Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind." Jack HandeyRegular readers will understand the house shown on the left is the present reality inspiring the artwork All Things Must Pass. They will know this house was shoved aside by progress, the rails, bringing goods to an enlarging population regardless of what was in its way. They won't know the roof on the house next door was burned off and they might wonder why there is a fence on "our" house. I don't know either, but its likely there to keep out wandering livestock and vandals, although I've seen these fences to be useless at doing both. What progress thinks its doing and what it actually does are not the same things. I've been dwelling on the miracles of progress for awhile now and some might say I am against progress, which wouldn't be true exactly. For example, what would we do without our conveniences? How many of us remember the lives we led before we went online? The progress train just keeps a rollin' along with every breath we take. And with that train come new employments for the extra populations emerging out of every canyon and cranny before our very eyes, it happened before we knew what was happening. The stats on the US population are outdated every day. We know the stats on the global population are outdated even faster. And ten years from now? Can we keep this up another decade? Does it even matter anymore when you're shoving for a place in line, praying the lid won't fly off and suddenly its every man and woman for themselves? Where's Eckart Tolle then I ask you? Or Ayn Rand? Don't answer. I have no intention of bringing up these subjects here, they have nothing to do with this blog. In fact, after these last weeks of I think, therefore I am nonsense, I have decided to link to greater nonsense in reflection on the tsunami of Deep Thoughts currently pushing the philosophical envelope. Where is the truth?
The truth is elusive only because we wake up where we are and fulfill our day with our previous expectation of what the day ahead holds and proceed from that moment to achieve our expectations. Problems arise when our expectations fall short or vary from what was unconsciously anticipated. The mind underneath the mind has its own set of wants and needs. You might say we are all conflicted as well as overpopulated and I would agree. There are probably even a few more minds underneath those you can easily reach. The surface mind is the easy one to manipulate and satisfy. Its those others we have to watch, they tend to operate on a level we are not usually aware of, at least not yet. They find fanciful appeal in false gods and will work overtime to bring you, the person you think you are, into alignment.
Common sense tells us what is false, unless common sense is operating in tandem with what we've seen of progress as of late. This happens constantly, unfortunately, when progress swallows a people whole spitting out pregnant billions of beliefs and hopes. Progress has a tape loop for everything now. This is what happens in the profitable partnership of television and progress. You can see it any hour, any day with your remotes if you know how to work the remote. There are images of progressive humans telling you lies about things your common sense tells you cannot be real. We are on overload at the present, heading for greater overload, as perhaps a test of how much the Planet can tolerate?
The mind under the mind under the mind says this is but a dream. The planet was already swallowed by the Andromeda Galaxy and this is what it became.
42 comments:
Nina,
You are the best therapist a neurotic can have tonight.
Thanks...
Actually, I've been becoming less neurotic over the years, but perhaps more genuinely "disturbed" according to the mainstream.
James Hillman is amazing... he wrote somewhere (Blue Fire?) that depression is useful... more on that later. It makes the overly "dry" or unemotional person more "wet" or emotive. It dries out the overly weepy, emotional person...
He says a lot of great things. I really recommend his recent book on aging and character. Title eludes me. More on that later. Unless later eludes me.
Later eludes many people. It happens around here all the time. I'm sure there is a wikipedia page for why that is. I should look it up, and might get around to it later.
What James Hillman is saying makes sense.
Ran recently mentioned that when we say what we are going to do, it usually doesn't get done because the act of saying it - to our minds on a certain level, is the same as having completed whatever task we claimed we were going to do.
VW = deduckt
And, I meant to say and am getting around to it right here and now, thank you.
James Hillman on aging and more: "The Force of Character."
Other good books of his:
Pale Fire
The Soul's Code (highly recommend)
OooooWeeeee I'm not going to say what I'm going to do, but its good. Thanks.
American junk near me
Amazing, the detritus of a failing civilization!
i am reminded of sarah conner (in terminator 2) telling the know it all psychotherapist that all this shit (holds up stuff from publius' craigslist link) you think matters? its gone!
that old house makes me hate stucco even more than i already did. and vinyl. and homeowners associations. jet skis. leaf blowers....gone are the days when fall came you would hear a rake against sidewalk now and then. you were fine to do a days labor on a crisp day now some guys come by with a blower on their back and earplugs...and blow it in the street where cars blast by, driving the leaves right back where they were. seems a fitting metaphor for the futility of all this phony ass busy that people do instead of being
still
long enough to pay attention to the alarms in the buried deep brain
Holy Moly! Too many clocks, too many dolls, too many dishes. These people were either running an orphanage/bar or they were just crazy. Well, if they were running such a thing, that would be crazy too.
Chickory, its my understanding following leaf blowing, the illegal is to take the leaf pile and place it into the specially colored green trash bin and leave at the curb for the garbage men on Tuesday nights to dump on the sidewalk where Wednesday morning traffic will blow it back into your yard. :O
I love you people.
Laughter is so mysterious and healing... it will never be explained by neuroscience and other modern necromancy.
I had a panic attack tonight, almost. I was thinking about the proposed "health care reform," and how it will likely impose an "individual mandate" to purchase an acceptable health care plan, or you will be fined. The IRS will be given the ability to dig around in your underwear drawer to enforce this. I felt as though all our escape routes are being systematically closed off. I felt claustrophobic, trapped.
I'm sure it will pass. Everything does, even nonsensical modes of organizing human society...
One can always play Huck Finn and light out for the territories, and fake one's own death, and disappear....
Aha! You got your newsletter today didn't you.
I think we're supposed to be frozen in place to receive our injections and probably have to pay for them too. Besides, if we are stuck in place, we won't mess up the geographic merchandise consumer unit charts.
Just keep on preparing your Plan B. Things are going a lot better for you than they were when you first came here.
Yeah too many dishes and dolls at that estate sale P. put up link to.
But imagine the tens of millions of houses in america filled w/ even more of this kitsch! & the manses in the gated & guarded places with material of 'real value.' Crazy? Yes, and it is beyond comprehension, all this 'stuff' and clutter. Let alone the pyroclastic flows of chinese crap since imported not portrayed in the craigslist junque sale, cos they're in the landfills.
I stared a bit too long at the craigslist link making sure I only counted 13 clocks. I actually began to smell mold. The color of the dolls skin really says it all too well.
Ahhh the miracles of progress
It is a lot of stuff. It tells us antique stores don't want it and those side street junk shops don't want it either. It tells us by its presence on Craig's List they're getting creative on how to dump everything for cash. The next level down are the pawn shops, last ditch will be the front yard.
When you read though the list at the bottom, it also tells you estate sale or not, these sellers have disgusting taste. Nothing goes together, its a mishmash. Tiffany & Co. Crystal & sterling pitcher, Michelob hanging Oil lamp, Shark vacuum, Viking snuff metal dispenser, English luncheon plates... you have to wonder what they decided to keep.
Maybe this "estate sale" is really exposing hoarders forced to downsize immediately. Behind wrought iron gates and foyers lie years upon years of fear of letting anything go lest it bring on the anxiety of being out of control.
The carved wooden ducks and fish bother me the most, for some reason, although the ghoulishly empty yet malevolent eyes of some of those dolls do the trick, too!
I've had the unfortunate experience of cleaning out the homes of several relatives who died. Believe me; most of what you own is crap to anybody but yourself.
I once had the idea that we could end all this Afghan conflict business by packing everything in U.S. storage units onto pallets and dropping the pallets at random locations in Afghanistan. Once the people finished sorting out all the Playboys, useless exercise equipment, rusty tools, old bicycles, knick-knacks and high school yearbooks they would be destroyed and demoralized as a culture. Like we are.
v-word: toennu
That's the general plan behind all war. Make someone over into yourself. They are wrong, evil, backwards enemies if they are not you. When they are you, its victory.
This is why there aren't a lot of victories to show for the effort. It never lasts, as soon as you move on, the person becomes themselves again because they never were you.
Ding! newsletter #4 just in, swine flu, martial law, and all those cheery things! Shush, it's a holiday & the sheeple are toting in their beer for Monday Night Football! (But I'm holding out for Tom DeLay on Dancing with the Stars!)
word ver.: Kethe (shd be Lethe)
what newsletter?!
(uh oh already braking my new rule)
there is NO mystery or meaning to my word veri btw. or is there? i leave it to the experts
"ovitw"
nope. nothing.
breaking!
PIMF! (preview is my friend)
"That's the general plan behind all war. Make someone over into yourself. They are wrong, evil, backwards enemies if they are not you. When they are you, its victory.
This is why there aren't a lot of victories to show for the effort. It never lasts, as soon as you move on, the person becomes themselves again because they never were you."
Now that's just not fair. It would take me 2,000 words to stumble around the same concept even if I were ever smart enough to think it. If I were smart enough to read it and then quote it I would somehow screw it up.
Hmm, Douglas Adams has it....Upon first witnessing the glory and splendor of the Universe, they casually, whimsically, decided to destroy it, remarking, "It'll have to go."-LtU&E
I think that might be our problem.
v-word: mentsm, after preview, "tiesten"
AI is on a roll today.
Heh, yes Pango, I thought you might like that. But I shouldn't have to remind YOU of your extreme intelligence.
If you are ever going to quote it remember you are speaking of all war from one-on-one arguments to imperialistic hegemony. The trick is to work it into a pan-statement.
Now Chickory, you did break your new rule, but what are rules anyway but to be broken.
Besides, there is often some interesting stylistic use of typography in WVs, sometimes even challenging, but a challenge in typography is nothing to us. There is beauty in challenge. You did not really get PIMF did you? That would be very pointed. Maybe as pointed as BURPAZ which is what one poster got recently causing me great chuckles because he is an admitted, talented belcher.
For anyone interested: About the Survival Acres Newsletter Blog, you can sign up for it right here or at the Survival Acres link on my bloglist. It requires your email address and comes to you in your mailbox. Easy.
Nina et all... Greetings.
i have come out of the wood work to let you all know that i visit here frequently - albeit in a lurking sort of way- to catch a breath of fresh air, to enjoy the wonderful conversations, look at the great art work, see the caring and detail of lives being well lived... Thank you all for that!
Publius made me laugh with his "Unless later eludes me." statement...
It makes me feel less crazy to read Chickory's rant about leaf blowers... kinda like 'oh good, i am not the only one...' syndrome.
If only my command of the language was better... and quicker... and if frogs had wings eh? i too would be able to write as cleverly as you all do. It is such a pleasure to me to read your blog(s) and i wanted you to know that.
Regards,
Katja
v-word realu
Looks like LV saw something real
nasty on planet K. Truthseeker
and WRH again down Tues. a.m.
Katja:
Your thoughts and writing would be most welcome. Most people who end up being writers think that their prose and ideas are not worthy of being read or seen. Not true!
In fact, you become a writer and thinker by doing it: just start thinking and writing. The rest follows.
And don't ever worry about being "profound." Most writers whose goal is profundity just spew out claptrap. Some of the most profound and wonderful words come from modest, humble people who undervalue their abilities.
So lurk if you wish, but don't be afraid of posting your thoughts and experiences. Your life and experiences are different from everyone else's... that uniqueness is of value in and of itself.
We had a little BBQ type gathering last night. I used my portable rocket stove for the first time. Just boiled water for coffee with it. It was fast and efficient! I also used it to just have a little fire after the sun went down and most people had left. My friend John threw a crisp one dollar bill into it. Some kind of grand gesture. He was gonna do another, but I told him to save it for his organic milk purchase.
This friend is in rough shape: he's recently had a pulmonary embolism: one of the few people to survive such a thing. His powerful heart, though, pushed the clot right threw the pulmonary artery and into the lungs. So now he has diminished lung capacity. He had had a clot in his leg from an injury. Turns out he's got a bit too much clotting factor. He also found out recently, through self-diagnosis, that he is way hypothyroid. Which explains his complete lack of energy most of his life, and his propensity to weight gain. He's on the thyroxin, but I was surprised to see that his initial weight loss after getting the hormone has reversed: he seems to have lost hope and gained weight. He seemed very down. He had had more than a week off from his high-stress high-tech software designer job, and was now dreading going back to work.
I had told him we were planning on moving up north, where we would do whatever we could to subsist up there... log-cabin building, computer repair, fishing, blah blah blah. John hoped that we would be able to do it.
John lamented that he so seldom gets to do tasks that are ends in themselves. He wants to buy a rocket stove, and fantasized living in a tent city with an old Volvo station wagan, iPhone for connectivity, and rocket stove.
He's one of the most crazily smart and philosophical friends I have. We argue a lot, because I find his philosophy and politics to be too abstract and prone to Marxist dogma, but he's a good guy. I fear for his survival if he doesn't pull up on the stick.
Watched "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" tonight... great film by John Huston, with Humphrey Bogart.
The USA as a nation is like the Bogart character - willing to murder his own friends to chase false prosperity. The old prospector, who becomes a medicine man in the end, laughs at the loss of all the gold. The other survivor, the young guy, says that when the worst happens, it's not as bad as you thought. Wisdom that is sorely lacking today. Who of our fellow Americans will think that way when the worst happens?
The majority will go down like Bogart - greedy, whiny, and whimpering. Or maybe I'm wrong. I hope so...
Excerpt from the War Street Journal:
"Americans borrowed less for the sixth consecutive month in July, fueling concerns that strained consumers will stall an economic recovery."
Notice complete lack of concern for the "strained consumers," who are not doing their duty to save the economy. The values of the nation are self-evident.
Headlines from the Illusion. Nonstop tickers. If you examine them, they really mean nothing. Are they lovable? Are they loving you n me? There isn't even a decent trade-off. Its like an old transistor radio that just can't tune into humanity.
"Americans borrowed less for the sixth consecutive month in July, fueling concerns that strained consumers will stall an economic recovery."
Let's take this apart: To begin with who are these "Americans"? Are these US citizens in America that report to a statistics bureau every now and then, or are these American citizens from a statistics bureau's imagination? What happened to the melting pot and does this include illegals, visitors to this country and immigrants, US citizens from the Fortune 500 or known welfare recipients?
They, whomever they are or are not, "borrowed less". That's because the banks aren't lending bubba. Can't get blood from a stone.
And just what is this "sixth consecutive month" anyway? What happened to the Great September 2008 crashola that was in reality evident in 2007? Couldn't the imagineer-journalist-faux statistician just have said from the start of 2009? Not enough terror twisties however. "Fueled" being a common anger/terror twisty as in winds fueled the flames, less, concern and strained also operate with similar negative subliminal suggestion.
The word stall in context with the word economy tells the reader something fuzzy is not moving, but not exactly dead, its almost hopeful giving the false impression you, the merchandise consuming unit, have a part in the fuzzy something wherein you, too, can save the patient should you be negatively motivated.
But it isn't actually possible to do anything, because (back to basics) the banks are not lending.
No amount of negative reinforcement produces a positive, especially when the positive has no basis in reality either.
The act of stringing words together to come up with a story to please an editor is an employment. A position within the service sector not really different from, say, a fry cook.
Nina said: "The act of stringing words together to come up with a story to please an editor is an employment. A position within the service sector not really different from, say, a fry cook."
Au contraire, Nina - writing what you're told is a much different job than fry cook - fry cooks feed people. Compare that to the gossamer fog concocted by stringing words together to please editors - an undeniably corrupting process that provides nothing worth anything to anyone when the subtext is Power.
Which is most of the time, doanchathink - Power being the sub-text of almost every conversation we have with each other?
So go easy on the poor fry cooks of our generation. Geez!(wink) Their work has value, unlike the sacks of poo who are faithfully and doggedly following the precepts set down by Joseph Goebbels, Reichsminister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, as a means of improving their future professional and financial prospects, are they?
Where'd that "aren't they?" come from? ...Stuck on at the end like that?
Aliens or maybe werewolves or bad-ass vampires must have inserted that incoherent twist when I wasn't looking.
I think you lie in wait for these moments, rather you force us to wait until you are good and ready to pounce. Maybe its true, he who laughs last laughs best.
About the "are they" business, it does make you wonder what on Earth is going on with technology. Again, as you note, the subtext IS power, power through fear by supposing some force is acting against us. Where is the line between coincidence and intentional activity?
Nina, you have an artist's spirit but the mind of a shark... I'd hate to be the object of your analysis. Beautifully done, dissecting the banality of what passes for discourse and reporting.
There's something honest and basic about being a frycook, or any job that is mainly "physical" (if anything is only physical - I doubt it).
Personally, I would prefer to build things or work with my hands all the time, and use my mind for my avocations, hobbies and loves.
Publius, I prefer to use my mind always.
Nina asked: "Where is the line between coincidence and intentional activity?"
I thought this might be a fascinating subject for a future thread, ms. nina... It's a brilliant question that deserves a thoughtful answer from someone with your skill sets.
ohhhhh...&btw, I'm not self-conscious or calculating in any way, Nina, with the way I type comments. It's simple for me - I respond to your threads and the comments they engender when I have something to add. I don't wait for the drummer's "be dah be Dump....tssssshhhhhhhh" before I deliver the punch line. Hell, I wouldn't recognize a punch line if it jumped up and bit me in the ass. A lounge lizard I'm not!
So please stop struggling trying to tag my motivations - they're benign. Honest!
(smile)
Arthurdecco:
aha!
What my meaning was did not quite come out:
a lot of the work I do, and many people do these days uses the "mind," but the more mechanical, repetitive side: computer programming, system administration, management processes, and all the highly abstract yet strangely soul-quenching work that the professional/mandarin classes do.
I would prefer to do manual labor and let my mind rest during the workday, rather than this type of mentally draining yet un-fulfilling work.
Better yet would be to use the mind/spirit/body in one's vocation all the time: for example, as a birch-bark canoe builder, my dream job in the future (among others).
unlaya
Fitting, I come home from the Zendo and everyone is talking about 'mind.'
I'm curious as to how you manage to 'let your mind rest' while doing physical labor. Mine chatters, and clatters like nag of blue jays. It's quite content to natter on about the quality of the horseshit I'm shoveling, the roofing shingle I'm lining up, every person who walks into view and every cloud, breeze, smell, ant or itch.
If anybody knows where the mute switch is I'm eager for detailed instructions. The best I can get is lining it up with the "flow" of the work at hand so that it burbles like a slow stream. Lucky day when I get that.
v-word: imerwrac (say it phonetically)
Publius: Thank you for your response...
My feeling is that lurking can only go so far and i really needed to come out and tell you all how this blog is a real bright space no matter the subject at hand ...hence my almost daily visits.
regards,
katja
v-curtshe
Publius said: "I would prefer to do manual labor and let my mind rest during the workday, rather than this type of mentally draining yet un-fulfilling work."
I have done (and continue to do) both types of paid work. I can assure you the "mind work" that goes with physical exertion is as demanding and can be as exhausting as any other kind of thinking.
If POA is lurking, he can back me up on that.
You're fooling yourself if you think turning to manual labor, trades or crafts will excuse you from thinking. If anything, unless its something as uncomplicated as digging a shallow hole or wheelbarrowing garbage to the street, the thinking involved in physical acts of building, planting and/or growing things is every bit as challenging as any other kind of activity, if not more so.
I hope I’m not coming across as berating in any way - I only mention these things because 25 years ago I think I thought as you do now.
word verification: crate
AD:
I think I said that my real wish is to do work with my hands that also uses my mind.
I have built a boat from scratch... that was the ideal type of work that I'm talking about. It was physical, but not exhausting. It was liberating to use my mind and my hands at the same time. It was an act of creation and was quite exhilarating. I still have and use the boat... my son loves it. When I built it, he wasn't even a glimmer in my eye.
I have also worked harsh manual/menial labor on a floating fish factory in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, living on that prison-like boat for three months. A guy from Cuba couldn't take it, and was helicoptered off... a two-ton rack of frozen fish almost fell on my foot once... I pulled my foot out just in time. It grazed my big toe, and the toe-nail fell off a few weeks later.
Many men went nuts: the line manager who went through coke withdrawal and started chasing someone around with a baseball bat.
The laundry woman whom I discovered crawling around on the floor of my bunkroom room one night, trying to take dirty clothes from the floor. Turns out she was stealing our clothes, laundering them, and selling them to fishermen. She went psychotic and was flown off in the mini-copter to a mainland hospital. The captain was fired for being on pot or drugs while driving - he was having affairs left and right with those "dumb college girls" (as he referred to them). On and on. There was a young college girl on the boat who was kind of a friend of mine. Her real name was "Tacy Lamb," but her nickname among the crew was "Tasty Lamb."
Anyway, that was a horror show, but in a strange way, more human than the corporate jobs I've worked.
I gotcha now, Publius. We're on the same page.
It sounds like there might be a Carl Hiasson-style book buried somewhere in your Alaskan experience. heh heh
word verification: hergat
lmao!
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