Campfires of Reason

November 1, 2022 11:30pm

This past Friday night, I sat at a campfire watching a faint sliver of moon traverse the sky. The autumn trees silent on the hills all around. A whisper in my ear told of the folly of those easily led astray by the pipers of the new way. No, the Gods of the Copybook Headings will have their day when reason returns to humankind. These lessons are best learned in cold and hunger at the end of a hard-fought fray. It is heartrending to see such youth succumb to the illusory temptations of the times.

Anniversary of Existence

November 5, 2022 11:14pm

My parents 68th anniversary. He is 90, she is 87. I called mother and later spoke with my sister after a lot of football and bourbon. We talk very little and she was at work anyway..

It was very warm today; high in the 70’s and the forecast called for rain but we got very little. I bought a 9″ angle grinder to replace the $15 used one I bought at an estate sale. I found the used tool invaluable, so when the bearings went out after only an hour’s use. I got the new one today. It is cheap but it gets very good reviews; we’ll see how long it lasts.

Once again, I find it impossible to believe that I really exist. The generations of mankind are few, yet it seems dreamlike that we are here at all. How does a weak and stupid organism manage to survive – much less achieve consciousness? God certainly has a great sense of humor!

The Arbor Society sent 10 Blue Spruces even though we didn’t join this year. I spent hours planting them yesterday and watering them today before the rain. They are on the southeast side of the property line, along the drainage from the pond, in case anyone still exists who cares!

Troubling Times

November 11, 2022 9:33am

Veterans Day. Millions have served in the armed forces making personal sacrifices that cannot be overestimated. Let us remember them and their service in the pristine halls of idealism and not in leadership’s grimy back alleys of greed, desire for power, and political ambition.

Musk warns that Twitter may face bankruptcy, Facebook is laying off thousands, crypto on the rocks. What can go wrong? Do I look too much to the past to see the future? Probably. I used to think I was smarter than others and that was arrant nonsense. I’m still reeling from a good financial decision in late 2007 that convinced me that I was a prophet. Live and learn. I wait for the next dip. Diversity (for diversity’s sake) is well-intentioned casuistry; in investing it is golden.

Quantum Dust

November 14, 2022 8:30am

I am awake at 6:07 watching the new day creeping stealthily, revealing blurred casements, furniture, and recesses. Reviewing the status of my personal little world, I think to seek supplication for the infirmity and affliction all around. But no, it seems futile and makes me feel like a needy maggot feeding on the mortal wounds of a reluctant savior; his cup full and wishing to avoid further blood sacrifice. Leave this saint alone in his suffering – as we will be alone in ours. He taught enough to carry us through and now we must bear our own burdens.

So, we rise in faint light, ready to battle flailing blades again. But the mills of the Gods grind all to cosmic quantum dust, saving no portion for saints or sinners.

Wittgenstein on Deception

November 15, 2022 7:43am

Here’s the thing about life…. it’s painful. Awareness forces upon us recognition of the suffering of all who understand the true nature of our existence. Granted that these souls lean to pessimism, seeing the myriad ways that we fail. These failures are exacerbated in those whose expectations, of themselves and of life, were unrealistic from the beginning.

“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving ourselves.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Christmas Scene

November 19, 2022 7:27pm

It is 25 degrees and dark when I decide to go for a walk in the woods. It is cloudy so there is little light. A sharp wind is blowing from the west; I heard it in the evergreen boughs overhead and it is accompanied by the crunch of pinecones underfoot. I saw a young buck trailing a doe earlier and am wary of walking up on the buck in his present state; it’s certainly possible that he will run me through with an antler. Further on, I pass under the sycamores whose fallen leaves are the size of dinner plates. In their desiccated state, the crashing and crunching echoes through the dark, still woods.

I hear footsteps in the dark and am startled to finally happen upon several deer bedded down in the dark field. They snort and scare me as much as I’ve scared them. I see them silhouetted on the ridge before they finally run away.

Toward the house I go, having spied the new Christmas lights upon the basement mantle. Peering through the door, there is a Christmas tree with ancient symbols in a darkened room lit only by the lights on the mantle. Below the mantle, the faint illumination of the stone fireplace and above it, the warm glow of the lights reflected off the hewn logs. On the mantle is an old heavy doorstop, a carriage with a light behind its window, and pulled by a team of horses. A garland of pine boughs surrounds the carriage…. the promise of new life in a new year. We have a new granddaughter who will be too young to enjoy this little Christmas scene, but I hope that in years to come, she will see the wonder of the Christmas miracle…. you know, the one about Peace on Earth, good will toward men.

Writerly Defects

November 21, 2022 6:38pm

While reading E.M Cioran’s “The Trouble With Being Born,” I ran upon this gem:

“For a writer, progress toward detachment and deliverance is an unprecedented disaster. He, more than anyone else needs his defects; if he triumphs over them, he is lost. He must be careful, then, not to improve, for if he succeeds, he will regret it bitterly.” – E.M. Cioran

Somewhere in these pages, I have written about controlling angst like a drug to be meted out sparingly so that you can see the other side but do not succumb to it. Too little and you lose your muse…. too much and you kill yourself. No, the right dose preserves the host for further torment. The hope being that someone will benefit from the revelations. The reality being that no one reads any of the foolishness.

Bobble Head

November 26, 2022 10:44pm

Thanksgiving is over. The family has all left. The great-grandparents, the great grandchild, daughters, husbands, boyfriends. We alone remain. The day is sunny; we do nothing. Relaxation after frenetic activity, meals, cleaning. Thirty plus years since I’ve held an infant. Bobbling head bumps my face, the beard? drawing a howl of despair. Wide-eyed at the faces I make. How did humans ever survive? A chimp mother separated from her child for two days gathers the tiny baby in a youtube video. Evidence of maternal instinct. We are all products of our genetically-induced behavior; what was the intent? What the goal?

No matter, the sweet child settles to sleep on my chest. Another generation in the story of mankind.

Chomsky on Education

November 28, 2022 7:28pm

Today I laid a few more fire bricks in the fireplace for the stone cottage. It was about 45 degrees, and the mortar behaves very differently in the cold.

Noam Chomsky defines education as the ability to inquire and to create independently. Many of us pride ourselves on documents that hang on our walls that are supposed to prove to others that we are indeed smart. I too have these papers, four to be exact, but I have lately begun to realize that I am only an inept observer in an insane asylum who is, in reality, just another common inmate borrowing the words of others.