ALONENESS
February 10, 2021 12:18am
Many nights, while preparing for bed, I first stand at a little round window in our bathroom. I’m surrounded by darkness and I look out at the field behind the house. Sometimes when the moon is bright it is easy to see details: the trees, bushes, the pond. And, if I stand at just the right angle, I see no sign of civilization – just trees and grass. So I like to imagine that the house is actually located in a wilderness far from anyone or anything and I stand at this window for a long time enjoying this sensation of being very alone which seems like a familiar and natural state of being. I don’t know exactly why I like this feeling but I do know that in the end we are all completely alone and there is nothing you can do with this except embrace it.
THE INITIAL INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING
February 10, 2021 9:23am
We had some snow/ice last night and it has been sleeting this morning. The winter weather advisory remains in effect for another 48 hours. So I’m reading emails and news online and in the margin, there is a picture of a dark-haired beauty who is supposedly the CEO of some company approaching an IPO. I look at the perfect face and long hair and wonder at the ways we find to sell things. Since life began, two things have dominated our thoughts and actions (1) survival and (2) reproduction – so there’s a lot of back story to the response evoked by the picture of an attractive person. A lot of it is genetic/instinctual – coded in our DNA as it has revised and edited itself over billions of iterations. Some of it we bring from our own limited experiences during our brief turn on the carousel. And so we look into the eyes of beauty with a mysterious mixture of feeling to which we assign all kinds of cultural and evolutionary meaning but which, in the end, is simply the oldest and unquestionably the original Initial Public Offering, “Look at me, I’m the best you can do to insure your genes get passed on to one more generation – let’s copulate!” And that, in it’s foundational form, is why we invented love and Valentine’s Day. In a less pessimistic vein, I say in all honesty, enjoy your romance – it is one of the few pleasant diversions in this life.
PESSOA
February 11, 2021 11:43pm
The ice was about ¼ inch think on everything this morning. We cleaned house as we’ve done every Thursday for 36 years and then I went out to clean off the ice….meaning I shoveled a ¾ inch layer of snow off the ice, then spread salt on the ice. I used a heat gun to melt ice from my car which was frozen shut. Got the door open, started the car and let it run for 40 minutes while I cleared the partially melted ice off the drive.
Richard Zenith says this about Pessoa regarding the Book of Disquiet:…”he was simply etching on paper, his mind and soul. Disquiet, for Pessoa, was no longer an uncertain quantity, no longer a skittish feeling of anguish, not an intellectual trouble, not even a psychological dis-ease. It was the author’s unforgettable awareness of his life that had passed, or was passing, or would pass. It was the strange fact of consciousness that makes death thinkable, or, more accurately, the consciousness of that consciousness.” – Richard Zenith, editor and translator of “The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa”
This observation describes my internal life with eerie accuracy. I often find myself drifting in my thoughts only to marvel at the fact that in endless space and endless time – in which the weary old universe has recreated itself quadrillions of times – a frail being appeared on the scene to suffer, during his brief life, with an inability to determine any purpose for anything. A suffering that threatened to consume him with its complete and utter domination of his entire existence.
BINDU
February 16, 2021 11:12pm
It snowed about 4 inches last night so I got the snow blower out and cleaned off the driveway today. It is now 7 degrees and more snow is predicted for tomorrow night.
I’ve written several times about my belief that the universe has gone through endless cycles of creation and destruction. Hindus postulated a similar idea in the Rigveda which was written perhaps as early as the 15th c. BC. They believed a Brahmanda (Cosmic Egg) expands from a single point called a Bindu and then collapses again. This cycle is infinite. Buddhists have a similar creation story. Although space may be infinite, we must not assume that matter expands to fill it. If it did, the cycle of creation and destruction could not happen. Maybe space/time is subsumed in the singularity along with matter so that nothing exists. Can that happen? In the absence of space-time, what is left?
(Ed. note – Bindu has several meanings. The sanskrit means point, drop, or dot. In metaphysics, the point at which creation began, it is also a symbol of the unmanifested state of the cosmos. The BINDI is the dot worn by Hindus on the center of the forehead to symbolize the same. Bindu appears in the Hymn of creation or Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda, the earliest known Sanskrit text.
DIALOG
February 19, 2021 9:40pm
I have been writing a story called “The Convergence” just to practice writing dialog. It (so far) has no real point or goal. It is very difficult to write dialog and keep the sequence of events straight – plus I fear that all the characters sound the same.
The joints in my left hand are still sore months after I worked on the trees with the chain saw. I was never aware of an injury but ever since, I’ve had some pain….like arthritis, which makes it difficult to play guitar.
I look back now and I think I was somewhat distracted by the things we all believe are important at a younger age. Now, nothing seems very important. The things that formerly occupied my mind look very trivial.
What you now think you must share with the world because understanding will change the course of history is only the soiled diaper of an infant. It will be discarded with all the rest of the cultural waste of this profligate civilization. No one will bother to try to grasp anything and the world will continue on its predetermined course regardless of your efforts.
SEPARATION OF POWERS
February 22, 2021 12:01am
The idea of separation of powers in government came primarily from Montesquieu and his book, “The Spirit of the Law” (1748) which had a great influence on the founders of the US and especially James Madison, the author of the Constitution. Montesquieu saw world events, history, as the result of principal movements and not caused by individuals or isolated events. He is also credited with the development of anthropology – especially as it relates to the development of polities in different cultures.
Anyway, this is all interesting but I am left asking the question: what is the point? We are advanced animals that give themselves airs with our made up morality and our Gods. We do exactly what all other living creatures do – yet we see ourselves as beings with some special place in the universe with a destiny that we must fulfill. It is all an illusion yet we still must decide how to live and the only rational decision is to strive for that spirituality we so devoutly desire that we invented it.
I am slowly consumed by the circular reasoning that these thoughts lead to and I’m reminded of a quote by Emil Cioran: “No man concerned with his equilibrium may exceed a certain degree of lucidity and analysis.” Nietzsche failed to maintain this required equilibrium. It is easy to get lost on this trail. I do not have any idea what inspires any of us to continue to want this life. It is so futile. What difference does it make if you fight the good fight when all ends in darkness for a trillion trillion trillion years and then the same meaningless existence begins again for organisms that eventually achieve the consciousness required to question and eventually reject before the cycle repeats over and over and over. This is a carousel from which none may exit. You WILL dance on the end of your marionette strings until the end of time….which will never end but just repeat. And, with this understanding, it does become difficult to subject oneself to this chamber of horrors…..perhaps too difficult.
11:50 am
Nil Admirari – Let Nothing Astonish You – Emil Cioran
Cioran again: “What are the occupations of the sage? He resigns himself to seeing , to eating, etc…he accepts in spite of himself this ‘wound with nine openings’, which is what the Bhagavad-Gita calls the body. Wisdom to undergo with dignity the humiliation inflicted upon us by our holes”
Matrix
February 23, 2021 9:11pm
I think there is truly a matrix that is unseen by many- and I am loathe to count myself among those that are able to see it – but it is there and while it is not an artificial life existing only in the digital world, it is just as profound. I think many people get glimpses of this alternate existence but they do not live in it. Those who dwell there are poets, writers, artists, and musicians whose abilities to see this world have been honed to a keen edge over many years. I suspect that most of them became aware at a relatively early age and, once seeing the truth, were unable to look away. For some it became an obsession, for others the path to self-destruction. Much of what you see – the quotidian requirements of life, are delusions promoted by those who are unaware of this alternate reality and who therefore focus on aggression, self-love, and greed – believing that they will win the game in the end.
I am intrigued by the visions/revelations of people like Pascal, Shlomo Kalo, and Eugene Ionesca, whose childhood experience affected his perception of the world. A biographer described it thusly: “Walking in summer sunshine in a white-washed provincial village under an intense blue sky, Ionesca was profoundly affected by the light. He was struck very suddenly with a feeling of intense luminosity, the feeling of floating off the ground and an overwhelming feeling of well-being.”
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I’m listening to an orthodox Christian chant and watching a Christmas ritual in an Eastern Orthodox Church. The people are part of a community overseen by a mitred priest who could pass for one of the three kings who came to see the Christ child. The singing is beautiful and the people are in traditional costume and are surrounded by Christmas decorations. It produces a calm in me and a feeling of brotherly fellowship to know there are others who, however imperfectly, seek something beyond this world. If only it were true! I am saddened to think that all these believers might not find God. But no, it is alright, They will only sleep in peace before being roused again in the next universe to play the same or another part. Ad infinitum.
Patterns in the Dark
February 24, 2021 11:33pm
Sometimes, when I close my eyes very tightly, I see patterns in the blackness. I try to focus on them, trying to make out the shapes that appear there. I wonder – do I think that these mysterious patterns hold the answers I seek but cannot find? The harder I look, the more difficult it is to discern anything and I realize it is not the face of God I see but just random patterns – probably determined by the Mandelbrot set in another manifestation of the chaos that Yahweh set upon the world to hide his evidence from the jury of his injured creations. Instilling in them the ultimate doubt of their place in the universe and their relationship with the eternal. So, this darkness of the eyes becomes deeper, and layered, and peering even more intently, I realize that I see nothing but the absence of all light, the absence of the material world, the absence of spirit and of love. And all that is left is the awareness of ….. nothing.
Mortises and Money
February 26, 2021 11:54am
The gate that I’m building for a historic site is much more involved than I originally anticipated. In part, it is the size of the material….the four vertical pieces are Black Locust 3 x 8’s 60 inches long and I elected to use a mortise and tenon construction. Black Locust is one of the hardest woods in North America and it is very resistant to rot so we used it as fence posts on the farm when possible. So, anyway, trying to cut mortises in this stuff is tedious and I have to do 16 of them, each 3/4 x 4 x 3 inches deep. So I’m drilling five holes with a 3/4 inch spade bit and then chipping out the rest with a hammer and chisel. I know, you’re thinking, “why didn’t he find a chain mortise?” I called all over this town and there’s nary a chain mortise to be had. So it is slow work and then there are the tenons to cut out and shape on the horizontal boards.
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I am reading about the value of the dollar, the yield on the 10y Treasury, and the fears that US debt is likely to impact our economic future. I feel weakness seeping through my body as I read. I am aware that I am subject to things I cannot control and do not fully understand. I feel nausea.