So Little, So Few
July 1, 2022 11:59 pm
In an infinite universe, in eternity of time, is it so little to ask for a moment’s reprieve, an admission of loneliness, a dream foretold? Can you not be the thing desired, the wish come true; it is so brief a respite. You can be that sacrifice. The blood-drenched sacrifice to the Goddess of desire. Desire of virtue and not of lust. Goddess of wanton virtue, unseen behind veils of hubris. Behind veils of time and animal instinct. Walk into the future and be the true singularity.
Day Length
July 3, 2022 9:19pm
I sit outside reading Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (the Nabokov translation) and feeling some connection to Eugene. He also reminds me of Werther which is, ironically, mentioned in the book. The sky is a clear blue. The humidity is low though we have been warned of heat and humidity for the foreseeable future. Awash in ale and Onegin, I try to call a friend from university days. The number is disconnected. It’s been, what…. 10 years? Is he dead? I call another friend from high school and we chat about family, his work, and a visit from another classmate this past week. It’s good to have a connection to one’s past.
I have been measuring and planning for the stone cottage but have not yet laid one brick or stone. Tuesday, I will talk to the county building inspector and make sure my plans will meet his standards. I thought about just going ahead with the project since I already submitted a plan and swore on the Bible that I would not be living in the cottage. This structure will have no electricity or water so it’s not exactly a candidate for Air BNB. No, just a 12 x 12 cottage in which a Rev War reenactor can live out a few fantasies and cook an occasional pot of beans on the hearth.
I note the failing sunlight and check my planetary motion site to see that we’ve already lost a fair amount of light since the solstice a couple of weeks ago. In the beginning, it changes only a second or two. Now, it is decreasing by more than 30 seconds each day and we’ve lost about two minutes of day length. The changes will accelerate until the equinox, then slow again as we approach the winter solstice. I don’t know why this occupies my mind, but it is another obsession that has crept up on me with age. Changing seasons, changing paradigms. I feel them now. As a youth, there were other pressing obsessions…. all gone now. All I see are the slanting yellow rays of evening, the yellow river of light…. the river of Oblivion. Lethe. Time for a swim!
Houston, We Have a Problem
July 5, 2022 9:56am
My grandfather was born on this day in 1892. I often wonder how old he was when he saw his first airplane. He was in central Kentucky so he could well have been 30 or more. His generation went from horse back to moon landing. He died in 1974.
The United States has a problem all right. It goes beyond any single political position or even violence. No, there’s something more fundamental at the root. What this is, I’m not sure and I don’t read anything about the loss of basic human decency or its cause. Why are so many angry, frustrated, and isolated to the point that they want to destroy – everything? Do these people feel trapped and powerless? Does the declining belief in a spiritual component to life contribute to the malaise of society?
When and where did we go off the rails – ARE WE OFF, or is this just some sort of “present bias” that makes us think our own time is different from all others that came before us?
Poor humans – aspire to be more than they are.
Life is all about expectations and their fulfillment or failure. Success and happiness are correlated with expectations and satisfaction is simply a measure of how close we get to those initial expectations.
Eirinn’s Envy
July 8, 2022 9:19pm
A brown beer bottle versus a skull – who blinks first? The glass is thick, the calcium fragile. Let us calculate the mass and acceleration to determine the force. Is there data on the thickness of the calcium dome? How many years did it require to lay down that substrate? How much milk? Time and patience are the measures of growth and the flower of manhood that led to this conflict. Is it a territorial imperative in a barroom brawl? Or a dispute over a woman? Red-haired Colleen, Erin’s offspring, flaming hair, fiery green eyes, the instigator of meaningless masculine battles. Was it worth it in the end?
The bottle victorious and the victim in the hospital to spend days contemplating the wisdom of his chivalry over a woman unworthy.
Bastille Day
July 14, 2022 10:50 pm
Bastille Day. Forty-Four years ago, I was wandering around Paris unsure of why there was so much activity. Upon realizing that it was Bastille Day, we headed toward Mont St. Michele just to get away from the crowds and the costs.
Mortality is a difficult subject. What is the best age to die? Is it 66? 87? 90? Do you get to choose? Regardless, it is never the right time. I cannot grasp the destruction of consciousness. We are here, alive, aware – but death takes all that we were. It takes all. Minutes after friends and family learn of our passing, they are working in the new paradigm. We are but a distant memory. Time to dispose of our possessions and commit our lives to the grave. They bury our body along with all the details of a life that interests no one any longer. Death really occurs when memories of us disappear. Within a generation or two, no one alive remembers us or anything about us. you might as well never have existed.
We are now in the season of the ‘buck moon,” and it is a big moon! It’s the time that the stags begin to grow the antlers necessary to protect their harem from challengers.
We humans still operate on the old reproductive imperatives though we think we are more evolved than the deer. We hear the clash of antlers and obey the same hormonal laws that have governed our behavior since the dawn of time. The difference is….the deer don’t worry about erectile dysfunction or taking viagra. They would understand that when it’s over – it’s over.
Onegin
July17, 2022 7:20pm
I just finished Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” and can recommend it. A novel in verse, it is proclaimed a classic of Russian literature. Pushkin was the grandson of Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a black slave traded to Peter the Great and educated in the court as his Godson. Gannibal’s natural intelligence led to his position as a military engineer, general, and a noble. He served as a prominent member of the court of Peter’s daughter, Elizabeth.
“Eugene Onegin” is the story of a St. Petersburg noble bored with life and excess. He spurns the love of a plain rural girl, pursues her sister, kills the sister’s fiance in a duel, and years later meets the country girl who is now a princess. Smitten with the transformation of this beautiful woman, he realizes his mistake and expresses his love too late – she still loves him but rejects his advances and honors her marital vows.
We never know what we want until it’s too late.
Rain has come to the rescue of my Black Cherry tomato suckers. I cut them two weeks ago, put them in water, and when the roots began developing, put them in potting soil for a few days. When rain was imminent, I put them in the garden; the cloudy day and limited rain will assist their growth.
I clipped suckers of the Faribo Gold Heart tomatoes that I grew for the first time. We only had one plant and these orange tomatoes are so good and meaty that they will be a staple going forward! The suckers are in water now and will be transplanted to the garden a few days after they develop roots (usually about two weeks after clipping).
I’m waiting for a good day to start the stone house. I continue to find useful tools; I got a six-foot level for $12.50 at an estate sale and will try to return the 78″ level I bought new for about $70.
Still trying to figure out the problem on the 2000 Avalon. The scanner I bought says there are no DTC codes! Nevertheless, it will crank but not start. The fuel rails have gas in them but I’m not sure the fuel injectors are working. It is a slow process to work through all the possible failure points of a modern engine. i should have done more research before replacing the fuel pump….it was probably OK.
The Deontology of I. Kant
July 19, 2022 12:17am
I wrestle with the ability of philosophy to provide a system of ethics superior to the 10 commandments. Great minds have suggested many approaches to humanistic ethics, but none are as simple, concise, or useful as the old rules for living. Kant thought so too.
Even those who never believed in a superior being may use them and teach them to children to foster a stable character and a stable society.
The first four commandments will be difficult for an unbeliever, but one could interpret them to mean that we should not denigrate the idea of goodness, nor put material things in the place of virtue.
Whether or not we have a formal system of ethics, we all rise each day and make decisions that impact the rest of humankind…. those decisions are our lived ethics.
Re: 2000 Avalon – my cheap scanner said the Throttle Position Sensor was bad and after a little testing (which really was inconclusive), I decided to replace the sensor….no luck. So where am I on this now. On parts and tools, I’m down an easy $200. Car still won’t start but I have learned a lot and am kinda enjoying the detective work. Thank goodness for YOUTUBE! I’m just going to stay with it and get whatever tools I need. I also have a 2007 Accord that is going to need some TLC very soon….it throws about five codes with the scanner.
Perspective of Scale
July 22, 2022 11:16pm
Eleven billion years ago, our Milky Way galaxy merged with a large galaxy called the Kraken. Six and a half billion years later, our sun formed and 100 million years after that, the earth appeared on the scene. Four billion years from now the Milky Way may collide with the Andromeda Galaxy and a billion years after that our sun will burn out, eliminating any possibility of life continuing on Earth.
Now, juxtaposed with colliding galaxies, the creation and destruction of stars, and eternity, we have one human life among one-hundred billion since man stepped onto the stage. What meaning this man attributes to his particular experiences! – awareness, seeking God, reproducing, dying. What arrogance does it require to believe yourself to be of any importance against the backdrop of eternity, astronomical scale, and merging galaxies? Our consciousness is so small, and the universe is so large! All of recorded human history is laid down in forty-six hundred brief years. And men who believe themselves to be at the center of existence? What of them? Insignificant inhabitants of a dust mote drifting toward annihilation! Walk like a king on your mote – never seeing the truth or…… bow to the reality of the universe (or your God) and beg forgiveness for your hubris.
The Painted Veil
July 31, 2022 6:07pm
A comment to a writer acquaintance led to a recommendation of Somerset Maugham’s “The Painted Veil.” I have not read it but did see the movie. Maugham was displeased with the film adaptation and resolved to avoid subsequent interpretations of his work. The title of the book comes from the Percy Shelley “Sonnet” which begins thusly:
“Lift not the painted veil which those who live call life:
though unreal shapes be pictured there.”
and ends with this…..
“Upon this gloomy scene, a spirit that strove for truth,
and like the Preacher found it not.”
Shelley, the ardent atheist, got in the last blow.
Anyway, the writer acquaintance mentioned Plato too, so I assume a connection to the allegory of the cave.
Maugham, Shelley, and Plato each tell us that our experiences are only shadows of reality – illusions for the willingly deceived! Let us dispense with one more and question why inanimate matter should run rough-shod over us – forcing upon us a consciousness we might have refused. Is this elevation of matter to consciousness baked into the fabric of the universe? Is it the natural evolution of the “stuff” of the cosmos?
Perhaps the last sentient resident of the universe can tell us right before the lights go out! I’m not holding my breath.