The Damage Done

Lies can create both physical and psychic damage.

It's easy at first, then the worry and stress comes. Then the skipping heart appears. Then the nervous arm shaking. Then the restlessness. Then pacing. Then...

The Final Frontier

In the spirit of wonderful spring days and sticking to the easy-going and space related them from yesterday, do yourself a favour and check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. It is inspiring and awesome in the truest sense of the word (not the de-clawed way use it today).

OMG - I'm Deanna Troi !?*&$%!!!

Lighten up and enjoy the day.

This is a fun quiz.

Which Star Trek character are you?

Lies My Father Told Me

Maturity means:

Take it like a man.
Don't complain.
Don't cry.
Be a man.
Be tough.

That's All Right

Parts of me are well and parts are not well. Sometimes those parts that were well become not well and vice versa. If I could make all the parts be well at the same time you might find me under a plum tree. But generally, today, the majority of parts are well. Perhaps that's all right too.

Boxscore

It's official. I no longer care anything whatsoever about baseball. I found myself reading the morning paper and skipping all the baseball related stories. It's done. Move on. Nothing to see here folks.

Addicted To Blogger

These technical difficulties are driving me crazy.

Blog Life

Life is getting in the way of writing this blog so I'll be out for a bit...of the blog that is, not life.

Another Day, Another Dollar.

I've always hated this saying.

Because it's not enough.

And I don't mean monetarily.

The Love Of Many Things

"It must be a good thing to die conscious of having performed some real good, and to know that by this work one will live, at least in the memory of some, and will have left a good example to those that come after. A work that is good - it may not be eternal, but the thought expressed in it is, and the work itself will certainly remain in existence for a long, long time; and if afterwards others arise, they can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and do their work in the same way."

Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo. From the book: Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh edited by Irving Stone. A good biography of Van Gogh is by David Sweetman.

The need to express oneself, one's feelings and hopes and loves, to impart to others one's viewpoint nakedly, unadulterated, unaltered, true...The mathematician comes close but the artist comes closer.

In Another Key

There is a storyof a first century rabbi who was asked by a pagan to explain the whole of the Torah while standing on one leg and if he could achieve this, the pagan would convert to judaism. The rabbi stood on one leg and replied, "Do not do unto others as you would not have done to you. That is the whole of the Law; go and learn it".

Compassion yet again.

So simple yet so difficult to achieve.

Today's listening pleasure: Damageby Sylvian & Fripp.

Faith

Fun times mixed with a little bit of seriousness.

This site has an interesting quiz called what's your spiritual type.

Little did I know that I have more in common with Neo-Pagans and Liberal Quakers than my own born faith (Eastern Orthodox)!

Today's listening pleasure: Supertramp's Even In the Quietest Moments.

The Key

Communication is a key to compassion.

The more we talk to each other, get to know each other, taste each other's food, listen to each other's music and stories, stare into each other's eyes, experience each other's cultures, the harder it is to de-humanize each other and we can end the waste.

Video Killed the Radio Star

I enjoy music and so read a few online forums dedicated to different kinds of sounds.

One thing that always puzzles me and frightens me at the same time is the absolute worship and attachment we have to artists.

It seems to me that by exalting a fellow human being who happens to play an instrument better you or me only diminishes both the artist and the fan.

Maybe, by exploring our common humanity, the music or any other art would actually be more meaningful to us and speak to us on a deeper level.

Today's listening pleasure: Yes.

Dream - 5

Change - pain - scream - metamorphosis - fear - experience - instructerless - loss

Expectation Is A Prison

Pre-conception, pre-judgeing, predeliction, expectation, assuming:

Went to a fund-rasing hockey game for my son's school the other day. Walking into the arena I noticed the sweet* smell of marijuana; automatically assumed the kids were smoking...but what if it's the parents?

* By sweet, I meant the actual smell seemed sweet. I'm not attempting to use lingo from a younger generation.

What did I say above...Pre-conception, pre-judgeing, predeliction, expectation, assuming.

What Am I Doing Here?

Thesiger: A review.

There are passages in Wilfred Thesiger's book, My Life & Travels, An Anthology, where I often wondered what I would do in his position. Whether facing wild animals with a single bullet left, or travelling with companions in unsafe regions, who were revealed to be outlaws; what would I do?

The answer is simple. I wouldn't have been there in the first place.

And that is also the one simple reason to read this anthology of Thesiger's travel writings. He has travelled like the great explorers of the 19th century, mostly on his own two feet, in inhospitable yet breathtaking lands and written about both the discomfort and beauty in the same upper-class, British, dry, understated way that by implication gets your heart racing.

His meticulous and dreary counting of bedbugs (there were sixty) while in Iraq show a perverse, and dare I say it, mad dogs and englishmen sort of stiff upper lip that both attracts and repulses at the same time. The reader thinks, why didn't he just go sleep somewhere else? Well, because then he might not have an amusing and strange event to write about.

His non-chalant recounting of a beating he received in Africa makes one wonder if he isn't going too far in recounting obviously painful memories. He writes about the violence that "it is not something to be repeated". Unless you're at the club old chap.

Although the dry writing can be off-putting, the decription of lands now forever changed by the inhabitants and other invaders and the toils made to get there are enough of an invitation to get the reader going.

The Enemy Is Us

OK, so I used the word "they" a number of times in yesterday's post.

Yes, it occurs to me that an understanding of oneself is needed before understanding anyone else, but I don't want to the navel-gazing to get in the way of knowing your enemy.

Shit, I did it again.

Back to the awareness board.

Us and Them - Part 2

Wandering around the blogoshpere you can't help but notice how many people identify themselves as christian, republican and conservative, not neccesarily in that order, but taking each of those words and using them as if they meant the same thing.

They've really taken a shine to the ease of this self-publishing world, my guess is because they don't have to deal with the questions and criticism that participating in a forum might produce.

They proudly proclaim their ignorance of history and the worthiness of their faith based system of reason (if that is even possible) while complaining that the enemy dopes the same.

They fall back to literal, fundamentalist preachings because they can't make sense of the reality around them and then accuse the other side of being narrow-minded and doing the same.

They cast the enemy as insane lunatics, bent on the destruction of a certain way of life because of their mis-interpretation of a holy book yet believe literaly in their own holy book which presumably means they also believe in the last judgement and the end of this world.

They forget that words can have different meanings to different people based on education, up-bringing, regionality and a host of other reasons. I might be a christian but if I'm not their kind of christian, well, there goes the neighbourhood.

There is a division in america. And because america is the greatest, strongest power in the world today, you're with us or against us is a dangerous statement.

I'm more and more convinced that communication is the key not sloganeering and monologues, not demonstrations in the streets but demonstrations on the netwaves.

The one uncertainty I have is: what if even communication is not enough?

Social Lubricant

St Patrick's day and me feeling out of place at a local watering hole. Fish out of water feeling. From childhood to now, it doesn't go away.

But after a few beers, we're all nameless friends.

Today's listening pleasure (of course): Van the Man