Key to the Highway
A lot going on it seems, but being able to pay attention to it is another matter.
Is it because so much of what is apparently going on makes you wish nothing was going on?
Or should we take the mystical point of view: Nothing ever really happens. It's only the illusion of things going on.
Which is the beauty of mysticism. Assume the mystical viewpoint and you never again have to worry about what may or may not be going on.
Or is this simply dressed-down narcissism?
The only things going on are the things I care about.
Forget the fact that I no longer care about anything.
Either way, it's all in our heads.
If only our memories weren't shot.
We might be able to recall what this means.
My Life As A Neutrino.
The fascination with this invisible, omnipresent particle remains at fever pitch.
This from a particle physicist, who assures us that the only interesting things going on cannot be seen.
A self-serving point of view, to be sure, but nonetheless compelling.
Anything materialized into physical form is but a dim, shadowy insinuation of the energy that made it possible.
Were we able to visualize the electro-chemical energy of a single human thought, we would be instantly rendered pleasantly insane, turned into the sort of raving mystics for whom a fart is as satisfying as a work of art. Sometimes more so.
Hold up an index finger for one second, indoors or out. One hundred million neutrinos have just passed through it. On the way to where, one wonders? Imagine a hundred million Americans descending at once upon a Wal-Mart, then passing through it so fast that no one has a chance to shop. Would the media construe it as a disaster of unknown magnitude, or some sort of avant garde art project?
If we could see this ongoing barrage of neutrinos, every day would look like the worst blizzard imaginable. Forget the girls of the Yuki Guni, the Akita Bijin in her sexy Arctic parker. We'd all be walking around with seeing-eye dogs.
But very little accumulation. Virtually no shoveling.
The Year of the Rooster.
Also known as the Year of the Widow.
No suprise that Chinese men are somewhat disinclined to comtemplate marriage for the next 12 months.
For those men already married, the Chinese government suggests keeping the fingers crossed and buying cheap, Chinese knock-offs at Wal-Mart.
Apropos of nothing in particular, an official Chinese news release stated:
"In China, where the population virtually outnumbers neutrinos, we do not fear the virus of democratic propoganda
spewed forth in invisible, revisionist waves from the West. However, like our decadent, Western counterparts, we do fear our wives. The Year of the Rooster is no laughing matter."
When the rooster crows at the break of dawn,
Look out your window baby and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm traveling on
But don't think twice, it's all right
Recent Comments.
Moving, articulate and LONG.
Is it a cause for concern when comments to a blog become longer than the blog they attempt to comment upon?
When is a blog not a blog? When it turns into the comments of itself, feeds off them, becoming that which it is not; the anti-blog; the blog mutation of its former self; the monster in our midst; the equivalent of a large dog with little or no training.
Or is there no distinction between the blog and the comments it engenders? Is the medium indeed a circular loop beyond cause and effect, a non-linear system with high spin and minimal entrophy? Has the serpent finally swallowed its tail? Have the chicken and the egg reached an out-of-court settlement? We won't know for sure until someone does the actual math.
But there is hope
That the humanists among us
Will survive the blast.
To the names of Twain and Vonnegut, we can add the likes of Petrach, Pico della Mirandola, Thomas More and von Humboldt.
Even Goethe, whom Henry Miller fondly referred to as 'that great German windbag."
These men did not so much hate God as assume that His work on Earth was done. After all, why go to the trouble of making a man, only to strip him of his autonomy?
One definition of being ethical is to accept the responsibility for both the beauty and the madness we inflict upon the world around us.
Even when we conclude the non-existence of the self - as some of us are inclined to do in the wee hours, when the phantoms come a calling - self-determination is no less relevant. In other words, I'll be the one to determine whether or not I exist.
Times, of course, have changed. Postmodernism makes it very difficult to claim humanist sympathies and still keep a straight face. The Pragmatists, who want it both ways, invoke irony as the means to bridge the metaphysical divide.
The point, I suppose, is that there is no point in confining oneself to a single point of view. Today I'm feeling like a postmodern, pragmatic humanist. Tomorrow, who knows?
Nietzsche gets the final word (from Ecce Homo)
"I know my fate. One day there will be associated with my name the recollection of something frightful - a crisis like no other before on earth, of the profoundest collision of conscience, of a decision evoked against everything that until then had been believed in, demanded, sanctified. I am not a man, I am dynamite."
(Happy 18th Birthday, Amber Leigh)
Is it because so much of what is apparently going on makes you wish nothing was going on?
Or should we take the mystical point of view: Nothing ever really happens. It's only the illusion of things going on.
Which is the beauty of mysticism. Assume the mystical viewpoint and you never again have to worry about what may or may not be going on.
Or is this simply dressed-down narcissism?
The only things going on are the things I care about.
Forget the fact that I no longer care about anything.
Either way, it's all in our heads.
If only our memories weren't shot.
We might be able to recall what this means.
My Life As A Neutrino.
The fascination with this invisible, omnipresent particle remains at fever pitch.
This from a particle physicist, who assures us that the only interesting things going on cannot be seen.
A self-serving point of view, to be sure, but nonetheless compelling.
Anything materialized into physical form is but a dim, shadowy insinuation of the energy that made it possible.
Were we able to visualize the electro-chemical energy of a single human thought, we would be instantly rendered pleasantly insane, turned into the sort of raving mystics for whom a fart is as satisfying as a work of art. Sometimes more so.
Hold up an index finger for one second, indoors or out. One hundred million neutrinos have just passed through it. On the way to where, one wonders? Imagine a hundred million Americans descending at once upon a Wal-Mart, then passing through it so fast that no one has a chance to shop. Would the media construe it as a disaster of unknown magnitude, or some sort of avant garde art project?
If we could see this ongoing barrage of neutrinos, every day would look like the worst blizzard imaginable. Forget the girls of the Yuki Guni, the Akita Bijin in her sexy Arctic parker. We'd all be walking around with seeing-eye dogs.
But very little accumulation. Virtually no shoveling.
The Year of the Rooster.
Also known as the Year of the Widow.
No suprise that Chinese men are somewhat disinclined to comtemplate marriage for the next 12 months.
For those men already married, the Chinese government suggests keeping the fingers crossed and buying cheap, Chinese knock-offs at Wal-Mart.
Apropos of nothing in particular, an official Chinese news release stated:
"In China, where the population virtually outnumbers neutrinos, we do not fear the virus of democratic propoganda
spewed forth in invisible, revisionist waves from the West. However, like our decadent, Western counterparts, we do fear our wives. The Year of the Rooster is no laughing matter."
When the rooster crows at the break of dawn,
Look out your window baby and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm traveling on
But don't think twice, it's all right
Recent Comments.
Moving, articulate and LONG.
Is it a cause for concern when comments to a blog become longer than the blog they attempt to comment upon?
When is a blog not a blog? When it turns into the comments of itself, feeds off them, becoming that which it is not; the anti-blog; the blog mutation of its former self; the monster in our midst; the equivalent of a large dog with little or no training.
Or is there no distinction between the blog and the comments it engenders? Is the medium indeed a circular loop beyond cause and effect, a non-linear system with high spin and minimal entrophy? Has the serpent finally swallowed its tail? Have the chicken and the egg reached an out-of-court settlement? We won't know for sure until someone does the actual math.
But there is hope
That the humanists among us
Will survive the blast.
To the names of Twain and Vonnegut, we can add the likes of Petrach, Pico della Mirandola, Thomas More and von Humboldt.
Even Goethe, whom Henry Miller fondly referred to as 'that great German windbag."
These men did not so much hate God as assume that His work on Earth was done. After all, why go to the trouble of making a man, only to strip him of his autonomy?
One definition of being ethical is to accept the responsibility for both the beauty and the madness we inflict upon the world around us.
Even when we conclude the non-existence of the self - as some of us are inclined to do in the wee hours, when the phantoms come a calling - self-determination is no less relevant. In other words, I'll be the one to determine whether or not I exist.
Times, of course, have changed. Postmodernism makes it very difficult to claim humanist sympathies and still keep a straight face. The Pragmatists, who want it both ways, invoke irony as the means to bridge the metaphysical divide.
The point, I suppose, is that there is no point in confining oneself to a single point of view. Today I'm feeling like a postmodern, pragmatic humanist. Tomorrow, who knows?
Nietzsche gets the final word (from Ecce Homo)
"I know my fate. One day there will be associated with my name the recollection of something frightful - a crisis like no other before on earth, of the profoundest collision of conscience, of a decision evoked against everything that until then had been believed in, demanded, sanctified. I am not a man, I am dynamite."
(Happy 18th Birthday, Amber Leigh)
posted by Bruce Leigh at 6:56 PM
4 Comments:
Wow! You must have had a big bowl of Wheaties for breakfast, blog cereal of champions. Who can argue with that? Who dares?
You, the man who insists on length in e-mail and movies, you are complaining of long comments? (Nah, I don't think so.)
[Happy Birthday, Amber Leigh!]
John E.
Those neutrinos really put a damper on my theory that existence in this physical sphere was palpably different a century ago when there were no waves, rays, and beams from television, radio, and cell phone towers passing through us and our environs incessantly. Sounds like those perennial neutrinos trump these more recent phenomena hands-down, exponentially outnumbering them, rendering them mere novelties. Ah, maybe not. What the hell do I know?
Here's one you must like: "I," you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is that in which you do not wish to have faith- your body and its great reason: that does not say "I," but does "I." Thus Spoke Zarathustra: First Part. A bit too nihilistic for my taste.
Nietzsche also said (in Twilight of the Idols), "If a woman has manly virtues, one feels like running away; and if she has no manly virtues, she herself runs away." Well, obviously he wasn't witness to the flock of balding European men courting the ladyboys of Bangkok (as reported by Leigh the Younger).
Okay, I'll skip the Jimmie J.J. Walker joke I had planned and bid you farewell. Yours, Randall Leigh
I take it back. What Zarathustra spake is not too nihilistic for me. Hey, now I'm commenting on my own comment on your blog site. This certainly is unprecedented. But is it a cause for concern? What's feeding off who, becoming that which it is not. Question mark or period? We're mutating. I must control myself. I am not a usurper. Maybe you, Bruce, should post a comment here. Love, RK
One of the happiest moments of my time in this peculiar, little country was when a geeky, little mutant of a Japanese college professor, who dwelled exclusively in the land of 19th century romantic poetry and who probably hadn't been out of his office in over a year (he had everything he needed, including a hot plate, a magnifying glass and what appeared to be a pee pee jar), said to me one day (in his office, needless to say), "You're a nihilist and I can no longer speak with you." I learned that day the true value of nihilism. To whit: It keeps the over-educated rabble at bay.
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