|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Apology
The thing is I've been away from xanga for so long I'd completely forgotten that www.jamesworld.org was being used to get to this site. So, I went ahead and made a change with the domain name without thinking that it might be confusing to some folks. Sorry about that. If you tried to come here and went there . . . Wait. If you tried to come here and went there you probably wouldn't come back here. And if you came here without going there you don't really know about there. Never mind.
Since I am here I'd like to say thank you to whomever gifted me with Premium for this site some years ago. The way things go in the real world is I'm probably no longer in your life nor you in mine, but just in case you read this I want you to know that I remember your kindness and generosity. Thank you. Though I don't write here any longer I write as much as ever. It's just different now and there are no comments. No comments has freed me in many ways. Liberation is pretty cool.
Oh, one other thing. I do miss some of you and wonder how things are going for you but really don't want to get back on the xanga wheel, so I don't. It's not that I've forgotten you or stopped caring for you. It's a personal thing about the kinds of changes I needed to make and the impact that might have on casual readers. Now, I have no casual readers or people who read out of a misplaced sense of loyalty or comment exchange or whatever. That works better for me. Take good care and thank you for everything over the years.
| | |
| Moving
Who likes to move? There must be someone on the planet who likes to move. No. No fair citing people in the moving business. I don't think they like to move as much as they like to get paid for moving people who hate to move. But let's be realistic. There have just got to be some people who really like to move. They look forward to it the way other people look forward to dessert. And why not? There are wonderful aspects of moving. Think of all the crap you get to throw away. Of course, most of us are so attached to our crap that we don't throw it away until after we move it. Then we swear we're not going to do that the next time but by the time the next time rolls around we've forgotten our oath. Or what about the people who love to move because they get to leave all their mistakes behind. When I left the state in which I was born I was delighted to leave behind some really awful years full of unpleasant relationships and experiences. There are people who were raised moving. Kids who had a parent in the service spring to mind. The funny thing is they end up on both sides of the moving question. Some of them love it and some of them hate it. Are any of them neutral toward it? Kids who got yanked out of school where they had friends and transplanted to another school in another state where they didn't know a soul and had to pick up in the middle of a year.
Our antecedents were movers. They followed what they ate and what they ate followed what they ate. But then someone who hated moving got the bright idea to raise some tomatoes, potatoes, carrots and peas along with some chickens and whatever else. One thing led to another and they stayed around long enough to put a new roof on the hut. Now we're moving back to the nomad lifestyle. We don't raise our own food much anymore. Instead of following the game we follow the job. If you frame it over millions of years it all seems to repeat. If one looks at it in a smaller frame there are generations of people who live in the same town. Most of my life I've moved but I never considered it a lot compared with people who moved every year. But now I've been in Southern California since 1975 and in this town since 1982 and in this house since 1991. Life is changing for me. I'm sixty now and winding down. The things for which I worked are either here or forgotten now. Though my eyesight has failed I can read the exit sign without trouble. I can't recall anyone in our family living to the age of one hundred twenty so I'm past middle age.
Moving is a good bit easier if it's done slowly, over time rather than distance. We hardly notice a move like that. One day you look in the mirror and notice you've moved. The realization begins to dawn, if you're paying attention, that you aren't interested in doing the things you were interested in doing a while ago. The police look like they're still in high school and your parents, if they're still alive, look more your age than ever they did. Of course, that changes quickly too as parents progress in age. At either end of life we seem to move quite quickly. When we're born we grow pretty fast compared with the years of adulthood. Then, when we get to the other end of life, we seem to age pretty fast compared with the years we seemed to be kind of frozen in time. The thing got me thinking about this is that I've been around xanga nearly seven years. Not a long time compared to how long I've been around earth but a long time in dog years. What I've noticed is that I've moved. You noticed it too. At least as much as anyone really notices anything around here. If we make the change slowly it doesn't make many ripples in the pond. Lower a pebble into the pond and hardly anyone will notice. It's the splash, plop that gets people's attention. But some folks look around one day and notice that someone who used to sit on that rock isn't on that rock any longer. I guess you could say I'm not on that rock any longer. I write other things now and post them somewhere else or I write things that get posted nowhere else. Life is good but I think I've moved.
| | |
| Coalescence
Some days the good fortune that visits me is enough to make a man think there could be some higher power at work in his life. But of course, a rational man living in the age of modern science will have had any trace of superstition, mysticism or deity wiped clean from his consciousness like a hard disk that's been zeroed out. The name, James, has been used to identify this personal coalescence of matter for three score of years. Many people, as well as I, myself, have attempted to classify, categorize, pigeonhole, index, typecast, stereotype or otherwise define said coalescence. It's happened so often and with such regularity it's ceased to be monotonous. It has had the effect of giving rise to a certain curiosity in my personal being. What is it that drives us to conclude our insatiable innate sense of curiosity? It's like eating. We get hungry and we eat and we may be sated. I say may because the body is a delicate piece of complex machinery that is easily thrown out of balance. It's further complicated by the interaction between the physical and psychological. And, if we weren't all modern thinkers here, free from superstition, we might be tempted to add a third element into the mix, often called spirit. An increasingly unpopular view in a world where the religion of science is in the ascendancy. As it happens, some relatively short time after we've sated our appetite with foodstuffs, we become hungry once again. But we don't try to find a meal that will end all meals. Yet, in the mental realm we try to find a label that will end any further exploration of the subject. It's like there's so much to discover, so much we don't know, that we don't have time to be thorough.
During the early seventies, while I was in ministerial school, I took a speed reading course. It was like eating a ninety-nine cent burrito. You got a lot for a little and it held you over till the next machine driven fueling session. I don't speed read, as a rule, because I find it unsatisfying. In fact, I'm a slow reader and a slow liver. Perhaps the reason is I've accepted the limited amount of time this coalescence of matter named James has to discover. Quality may well have edged out quantity in the race. Recently I've enjoyed a flurry of free, unsolicited advice from important persons. Unfortunately, in collecting said free advice, I've found it to be similar in quality to the free sofas left on the side of country roads. No doubt this is due to my lack of education, innate intelligence and understanding. After all, I'm not an important person. I've never published a book and no one wants my autograph on anything other than a personal check. The truth is if I didn't get email from important people telling we what they think I shouldn't do I wouldn't have anything in my inbox besides spam. And there's nothing personal or intimate about spam. But somehow I don't feel the appropriate sense of awe such email should inspire in a nobody like myself. Instead I find myself even more confused than I am usually. I can understand this, I think your associating yourself with the movie mentioned in your blog is not a good idea. That would make more sense to me if I cared about my self-image. But I don't particularly. I mean, after all, I'm not asking anyone for money. I'm not selling anything. I'm not asking anyone to believe anything. I'm not trying to be some one or get some where. I'm simply sharing my life with anyone who cares to participate at any level they choose.
The next bit simply left me scratching my thick and stupid head. Also, separating the alchemical work from your own particular theological views is important. I feel like the caveman in the Geico commercial. Wha? Why would anyone care about my particular theological views? They are, quite frankly, beyond my own understanding. To separate myself from them, whatever they may be, would be incredibly time consuming at this point. First, I'd have to define them. Since they are almost constantly changing that would be an ongoing process. At which particular point in time would I pin the tail on the donkey, as it were? The donkey keeps moving, the pin won't stay put and my hand is a mass of swirling subatomic particles that randomly appear and disappear. Yikes! Is it any wonder I'm confused? Perhaps this is why people feel the need to advise me. It's like seeing a homeless man on the street who doesn't even have the sense to ask you for a dollar when you pass. He clearly needs a bath, a meal and clothes but he's so far gone he's beyond caring about any of his external needs. Could it be that I've meditated so much that my brain has finally gone soft? If I could remember I'm sure I'd remember that I got some free advice about that at some point in time. That if I meditated too much I'd get too detached from the physical world and become worthless. But then I'm not even sure what worthless means. It seems so subjective. If the earth were made of gold a man would die for a handful of dirt. What determines worth or value? Is it simply scarcity? Please, if you feel the need to advise me remember that you're going to have to put it in terms I might be able to understand. Okay, I'm going to go now. Thanks for reading. | | |
| Fantasy
When I turned thirty my girlfriend took me and two of her friends to Disneyland for my birthday. I'd never been to Disneyland even though it was only a couple of towns over from where I lived. It may also be of interest to note she did not tell me where we were going when we all packed into her car and started our trip. Whether she wanted to keep it a surprise or whether she knew I wouldn't willingly go to Disneyland remains a mystery to me and she's no longer on my radar screen so I can't ask her. Back then, the Magic Kingdom turned me off in a big way. From my perspective Americans didn't need another form of escape from the realities of the world they were destroying. It seemed better to me half a lifetime ago to face the problems we were creating and do something constructive to resolve them, not pretend we lived in a land of talking rodents. Now? Well, now I'm not so anti Disneyland and proactive about the human race. Quite frankly I'd rather spend my time with singing, dancing, talking penguins than with my own kind, as it were. Yesterday in a chat the person with whom I was talking said, I used to share your cynicism. It's not uncommon for me to be labeled a cynic. Since I understand the roots of the word I take no offense. A quick dictionary definition for the word is, a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. But there's more to cynicism than that for which the label has come to stand.
The Cynics were adherents to an ancient Greek school of philosophy which held that the fundamental ethical precept that virtue, not pleasure, is the end of existence. The truth is I'm not either kind of cynic. And it's not just because I resist being labeled. I'd love a label that fit. Labels are neat. They're a kind of short hand for thinking. If you have enough labels you don't ever have to think again. You can spend all your time in Disneyland playing make the world go away. Not an unpleasant alternative to playing make the world go away in war games. Perhaps because I have devoted so much time and energy to dispassionately (as far as is possible for me) observing human behavior it appears that I'm pessimistic about people. This leaves out a huge chunk of what my life has been about. Given that we live in animal bodies that are well under the law of the jungle I think I'm quite optimistic about people. You see, I think we can overcome the natural tendencies that come with an animal body evolved from lower life forms. From my perspective some of us have the chance to evolve in an entirely different direction from the animal body with its limitations. Furthermore it appears to me the path starts off with what Socrates called virtue. It doesn't end there but it's a good start. What is virtue? Socrates said it was knowledge. But his definition of the word appears to have been supplanted in modern times so it's not what we think it is.
An opportunity to transform into something other than what we take as a normal or common human existence is fascinating to me. Yes, we are selfish, greedy, arrogant and violent. But that's not all there is to us. We can get beyond much of that by making the right kind of effort. I don't pretend that everyone can. It's clear that some people are incapable of even generating the desire to be something other than hedonists. That doesn't mean everyone is held by the same limitation. Even gravity can be transcended if one is willing to make right effort. Rather than moan about what we can't do I choose to press the envelop of what we may be able to do. We have models. People, like us in that they too had animal bodies dragging them in the direction of natural evolution. But they took a different path and led others, not too unlike ourselves, to make great strides on that path. They couldn't do it for us though we'd love to believe they could. Their early students understood we must each breath, eat and drink for ourselves. Somehow over the span of time which seems to separate us we have screwed up nearly everything they ever tried to show us. Much the same way great art and people are lost or destroyed in the periodic global madness we call war that plagues our species. What we may achieve is far more encouraging than what we have destroyed. Perhaps it's all a fantasy but I think not. Individuals have progressed even while the body of humanity we call people has regressed. Yes, I think we can go either backward or forward. Just because time passed doesn't mean we got better. But just because most don't get better doesn't mean some can't. Optimism or fantasy? Hell, I don't know but I'd like to take a shot at the transformation and talk as many others into the trip as I'm able.
| | |
| Diminishing
Over the past few years I've been tracking an interesting attitude I've been sensing in our society. If it's happening or not I don't know, but as I look over my life I think there is ample evidence of the veracity of the phenomenon. When I lived in Guatemala it became clear to me the culture there had an entirely different attitude toward the elderly. As I've not collected any scientific data concerning this concept this whole point of view is subjective. Of course, this doesn't mean it's not so. It only means I can't prove it in court. You be the judge. There weren't a lot of old age homes in Guatemala. Actually, I never really saw many in any of the countries of Latin America I visited. Parents and grandparents lived with their children. At first I thought it was because they were too poor to have a choice. Something I've come to think is an American point of view, but not exclusively. I'm confident there are other finance based cultures share the concept. They all had to live together. But the more I got involved with families in a personal way the more I began to see a bond of love and respect which has become rare in our country. One somewhat crude way to define what I'm talking about is, if we can't screw then you're not much value to me. It's not just an age based prejudice but it seems to be related more to physical appeal.
As I've matured my tastes have changed. There's a sexual taboo about older people being in relationships with people many years younger. Think about dirty old men for a minute and you'll get the idea. Of course, now we've got a rash of female high school and junior high school teachers having sexual trysts with their students. It's a little more okay for an older woman to have sex with a younger male. Women don't seem to appear as predatory in the collective unconscious of America. How many people think twice about talking to little boys and little girls in stores these days because of the perception that adults are sexually preying on children? I'm not arguing for or against what people feel they need to do to protect their children in our society. I'm speaking of the differences I've noted over the years. More people appear to be more uptight than once they did. Of course I'm speaking in general as it's pretty silly to try to be specific about a population as large as that of the United States of America. Advertisers target age groups. We've got Dennis Hopper pitching my generation about investments and retirement. Cadillac plays music of the sixties in one of their car ads aimed at the Baby Boomers.
It's no secret cereal and game makers pitch the younger crowd. It's a multi-billion dollar market and we're all about the money.
Turning sixty recently found me noticing how much I'd diminished in the eyes of the majority of Americans. I'm an old guy for sure now. And yes, I feel marginalized. It's okay for a guy in his fifties to have a midlife crisis and run off with some chick half his age but it's not okay for the blue pill people. Though if you believe the drug companies it appears men are encouraged to start thinking about male performance sometime just after twenty or so. My whole idea about male performance and making love has been transformed. eHarmony.com makes me laugh out loud. But not quite as much as the idea that someone would be willing to pay ten dollars for a Viagra tablet. All my life I've enjoyed a good relationship with the elderly. My paternal grandfather was a great friend and hero from my earliest recollection. I loved spending time with him, listening to stories and marinating in his loving wisdom. Perhaps I'm a treasure hunter at heart. But my interest isn't in gold but rather the wisdom and gentleness that can come with maturity if one does it properly. Come to think about it I'm probably about the age my grandfather was when I fell in love with him. I love him still. I learned more good from him than I ever did from his son and remain grateful to this day. The elderly rock!
| | |
|
Lifetime
