Nothing. My philosophy is that if I need technology to function flawlessly every second to keep me alive, I don’t need to be in that place.
PROMPT: Moon
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Tag Archives: living
The End of the World as We Know It [Free Verse]
Humans have been hunters,
gatherers,
farmers,
machines,
thinkers,
and creators,
And have no idea what we'll next be.
I think that people will next be
-- simply --
Human Beings,
Full-time Human Beings --
More Human,
More Being...
And many will fail spectacularly.
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PROMPT: High School
A psychology teacher taught us about what he called “the gestalt of expectations.” It’s when one builds an alternative reality in one’s mind (typically a worst-case scenario) and then one acts as though it is a reality, when – in fact – it is not. (Though sometimes it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy situation, which — of course — triggers selection bias in people of the unexamined life.)
It was my introduction to what I would come to know as the most fundamental insight of human existence — i.e. that one’s experience of the world is not the world itself, and while one has minimal influence over the latter, one can have tremendous influence over the former. One can even train oneself to perceive difficulties and sorrows as learning and growth opportunities.
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“Conscientious Objector” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall, die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.
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How Worldly Are You? Take My Quiz and Find Out
I see so many of these life experience quizzes, and – mostly – they all seem the same. So, I decided to go bigger for all those souls who are maxxed out on the questionnaires that deal in questions like: “Have you ever been married?” and “Have you ever ridden a horse?”
So, give yourself one point for each yes answer (or partial points as described) tally up your points, and be sure to see the scoring guide at the bottom. Best of luck! [Also, please do NOT post your score in the comments section. I do not want any legal / moral hassles.]
[WARNING: Maybe distressing to: a.) those who’ve suffered trauma; or b.) those who are easily traumatized.]
1.) Have you ever plotted a coup? [Give yourself ½ point if it was only a workplace coup – unless your workplace is / was a military (or another part of the national security complex,) then it’s definitely a full point.]
2.) Has anyone ever died while having sex with you? [Give yourself a ½ point if you were a tertiary participant in an orgy or ménage à trois at the time.]
3.) Have you ever hired an expert in the removal of bloodstains?
4.) Have you ever been mauled by a bear or any other mammal heavier than a badger?
5.) Have you ever poisoned anyone? [Give yourself ½ point if it was entirely by accident.]
6.) Have you ever been hunted for sport? [Note: that does NOT say “been hunting” – i.e. have you ever been chased around by one or more armed persons who intended you harm?]
7.) Have you ever eaten human flesh? [Give yourself a full point even if you were not aware of what you were eating beforehand.]
8.) Have you ever participated in a mutiny? [A full point for mutiny both on the high sea and on the low sea, but only a ½ point if it was on a cruise ship.]
9.) Have you ever been on a private island that took full advantage of the fact that no national laws applied there?
10.) Have you ever forgotten the name of someone you are related to by blood or marriage for more than two minutes? [If you have dementia or Alzheimer’s, you should not be completing this survey.]
11.) Have you ever helped someone dispose of a package that you have reason to believe was once a human body? [Give yourself a 1/2 point if you were completely oblivious to the possibility until after the fact – e.g. you really and truly believed you were dumping some rolled up carpets until you saw the news story about the disappearance of your best friend’s nemesis. FYI – If your best friend has someone in his or her life who can legitimately be called a “nemesis,” you should be less gullible – and should reevaluate your friendships.]
12.) Have you ever woken up in a country where you didn’t speak the language, having no recollection of how you got there?
13.) Have you ever had a scare whereby you thought one or more of your organs had been harvested?
14.) Have you ever thought you were abducted by aliens, only to piece together what truly happened from memory scraps and witness testimony over subsequent days, and then earnestly wished you had been abducted by aliens?
15.) Have you ever been trapped under rubble?
16.) Have you ever engaged in a bare-knuckle cage fight in which there was neither a cage nor protective equipment of any kind? [Zero points for light sparring at local gym or dojo.]
17.) Have you ever fallen through a portal to another dimension only to later realize you consumed (or licked) something that was not safe for human consumption?
18.) Have you ever slid or fallen down a mountain into a tree or rock devoid of a sled, skis, a snowboard, a bobsled, or any other means of downhill conveyance?
19.) Have you ever been a hostage? [Zero points if other people would call it an “intervention” or being institutionalized for not being of sound mind. On second thought, give yourself a 1/2 point for being institutionalized for not being of sound mind.]
20.) Have you ever unwittingly joined a cult?
SCORING GUIDE:
15 – 20 points: Congratulations, you may have lived one of the most interesting – not to mention, luck-filled – lives of any living human. You should definitely sell your memiors to Random House. Alternatively, you are a compulsive liar and should seek therapy. Also, if you are not a compulsive liar, seek therapy anyway. [Your advance will more than cover it.]
10 – 14 points: Congratulations, you have made — oh so — many poor life decisions and lived to tell the tale. If you are not institutionalized, you soon will be.
5 – 9 points: You, too, have made a number of poor life choices, but not necessarily with the nine lives of a cat or the people with scores above you. Be careful, you probably occupy the most dangerous scoring segment.
1 – 4 point(s): I’m going to take a wild swing and say that you slipped and fell down (or off) a mountain, or you nodded “yes” and briefly ended up in a cult — but you got away before they extracted all your worldly possessions [or maybe both of the above.] Your memory may be slipping, and quite possibly your definition of a mountain is in question, but you’re probably going to be okay.
0 points: Congratulations on a nice safe life… but maybe you should get out more?
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“Happy the Man” by Horace; Translated by John Dryden [w/ Audio]
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul, or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself, upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
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PROMPT: Daily Habits
The only optional activities I do every day are: reading, writing poetry, overhead hanging, and handstanding.
[Obviously, there are non-optional transport, hygienic, homeostatic, and metabolic maintenance activities: e.g. the breathing, peeing, pooping, walking, eating, toothbrushing, washing, etc.]
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The Most Important Lesson in All of Human Living [DAILY PROMPT]
Describe something you learned in high school.
A Psych teacher told us a story of what he called “a gestalt of expectations.” A man from a city in the East is driving out West, and he passes a gas station – despite being low on fuel. (He’s used to gas stations being everywhere.) Anyhow, he runs out of fuel. He can’t see anything around except desolate desert bisected by a line of asphalt. He decides to walk back to the gas station he passed ten miles back. There is no one traveling on this remote stretch of desert road. As he’s walking in the intense heat, it comes to his mind that the employee at the service station is really going to gouge him on the price of gas and a jerry can. As he walks and walks, skin prickling with the heat, he keeps thinking about how he’s going to get screwed by the gas station attendant and also how he’ll be chided and ridiculed for running out of gas in the middle of the desert. He imagines it in great detail. Finally, bedraggled and with heaving breaths, he arrives at the station. The gas station attendant rushes out to help this poor man, and the man punches the attendant square in the nose (for all the offenses taking place solely in the man’s mind.)
In a broader formulation, I think this is the most important lesson any human can learn. Our personal perception of what we experience is not equal to what it is that we experience (the exterior world.) This is why some people dealt a crappy hand can turn it into a wonderful life, and also why some people who seem to have it all commit suicide in the prime of life.
I could be angered or dismayed that the single most important lesson I learned in secondary school was via off-curriculum ramblings during an elective class, but I choose not to. Instead, I’ve been trying all my life to make that bit of knowledge into wisdom.
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BOOK REVIEW: The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction by Terry Eagleton
The Meaning of Life by Terry EagletonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
“What is the meaning of life?” This is the question thrown at anyone accused of being a philosopher – professional or lay – though mostly in jest. In the present day, that is. In centuries past, large portions of the population took for granted that it was a question that had a knowable answer (one dictated by religion.) But as that answer became decreasingly satisfying to an increasing portion of the populace, people began to see the question as both fundamentally unanswerable and as a means to chide / test individuals who claimed wisdom or had the claim thrust upon them.
In this concise guide, Eagleton takes on the question, beginning with consideration of whether it is even a sound question. (Or, is it a question like: “What is the meaning of cabbage?” or “What color is a hypothesis?”) After considering many of the problems with the question, from the meaning of “meaning” to the presumptions about what a life has (and what it is) the book also considers some of the post-Nietzschean answers to the question and the challenges that confront them. [One that I hadn’t thought much about criticizes that many of these recent attempts are individualist (i.e. find your own meaning, one consistent with the peculiarities of your own unique life.) Is it reasonable to think that the question can only be answered at the level of granularity of the individual? Maybe, it can only be, but I did appreciate that it gave me something to think about.]
It should be pointed out that Eagleton doesn’t consider himself a philosopher. He’s primarily a critic and English literature professor. This had its advantages. First, Eagleton drew upon works of literature that explore the question, which both made for some interesting insights while also breaking up dense tangles of philosophizing. Second, much of the book deals with linguistic issues. Are the words and grammar of the question, “What is the meaning of life?” useful, and – if so – how do we understand the nature and limits of the question?
I found this book intriguing and provocative. It does have thickets of dense language, but also has its fun moments as well.
View all my reviews
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City Sonnet
A million lives are packed in this city, and each one struggles to be its own self: the starving, rotund, ugly, and pretty -- the tailored and those who buy off-the-shelf. And everyone fails, yet they all succeed in being different, while being alike. And they all heal, while they also all bleed, and almost all would survive a first strike. Everyone knows someone - just not neighbors. They love to remain enigmatic at home, while transparent with those who share labors -- though some want everyone to leave them alone. A city is a strange place full of strangers, and those who choose it thrive on its dangers.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 