Category: Personal Reflections

This seems frightfully fitting right now…

Perhaps I’m just a wuss, but I find this a bit disturbing. Ah, those good ol’ days!

One of my fellow Backwashers, Uncouth Heathen, posted this fun piece about one of my favorite bands, Jethro Tull. This is their piece, “My God”, which combines flute (how many rock-n-roll flautists can YOU name) with 70’s Acid Rock. Yep, it’s as weird as you think. As a juxtaposition, I’ve included the video of another well known flautist.

Welcome to the “surreal life”.

My mind, being what it is, loves to race. I try to consume Snyder’s work, but this over-active mind hurries, much like gulping down a 5 star meal. It is a crime, truly, to cram this down my mind’s “gullet”, like a ravenous seagull, obsessed, racing to consume the “next“. There is always some new nonsense demanding my limited focus.

Perfection demands attention! True perfection, that is, not the abused notion of over accomplishment nor the doom of overwork. For this mindset, time is god. Measuring one’s worth in the length of a to-do list. How much have I done? Quality? No time for that.

Noticing the leaves move, a gentle, wandering dance; lost. Is it any wonder, then, that we are engorged? We can not consume enough. Our bellies expand, trying to capture that empty place where our souls should be. As our legs give out from our engorged bulk, we have forgotten everything. We have, and are, lost.

Now, a glimpse of a moment. These leaves move; myriad trees, maples, fir, pine, cedar, together. Maples faster, but all of them together, each leaf at the same speed as the others; firs and pines also, but slower. Enslaving myself to the modern mindset sacrifices this moment. Thus, for this moment at least, I resist.

Oh, I’d forgotten how much I loved Russian church music.

Hymns of the All-Night Vigil by Kyiv Seminary Choir

Fear has been in my thoughts lately. Particularly, fear's corrosive nature. The way fear, say in a time of want, quickly takes hold amazes me. In short order a society disintegrates along the fissures of diversity, as we seek to ensure OUR collective's success. More amazing, to me at least, comes with how quickly friends become targets, become "other". Fear births anger, simply the predicate for violent action. And quickly, society, a key evolutionary adaptation, collapses.

Via BlackBerry

Driving along in Kirkland, home of the modern yuppie, I’m passed by a new Mercedes. Lovely, silver, shiny, new, bling-bling; a part of me loaded with insecurity twinges while I purr along in my Toyota. Why? How come this is a metric of my self-esteem? Am I being unfair to myself, being upset by this train of thought and it’s influence? Consider, please, how much this viewpoint is drilled into us. Look at how often this imagery gets pushed into our faces, and how long that’s been going on. It shouldn’t surprise me, really, that I sometimes feel this way. Though my conscious values oppose this, the lingering thread of this programming has threads into the depths psyche.

I'm enjoying this cool, damp and dark day.

Blandious – mediocrity on a grand scale, or with immense influence.

Via BlackBerry

So, I just now read the NYTimes piece about McCain’s Convention speech. Sorry, but pretty much everything he is claiming here is nonsense. He’s going to end partisan rancor? I guess by that he means “after the election”. Or does he only mean that done by the nasty Democrats; Republican invective is not really partisan? It was HIS convention that was laden with partisan jibes, and his VP choice who was the second most rancorous in the parade of bitter characters (Giuliani taking the gold in nasty, partisan invective. I suppose that his ridicule of “hope” shouldn’t surprise me, but the whole thing just saddened me).

With this, why is Palin-as-VP some sort of consummation of his maverickness? Other than her gender, she offers nothing new, nothing mavericky. She is lock-step in line with her party, and loves the dirty tricks perfected by Delay and Gingrich. This pharasitical attitude about being a guardian of virtue who is somehow exempted from common decency is hardly innovative. I find it sad, and rather disturbing.

McCain, give me something here. I respect your service to our country, that your military service was beyond commendable. However, I need a vision. I need something other than a VP who I disagree with on every point. You offer me emotional posturing and anemic vision. I don’t see “change” in anything you’ve said. Sorry, but after the ugliness of the Republican Convention, I doubt there is anything you can do to win my vote. There are times I think McCain “gets it”, gets that America is tired of the ugly politics that his party has mastered. However, he was the only one at his convention who showed any commitment to that notion. It’s clear, especially with Palin on the ticket, that the rest of the party is quite content with rancor and partisan “dirty tricks”. All in all, the behavior of the Republicans, aside for McCain, pretty much alienated me.

So, my take on the past two weeks: Obama was inspiring; Biden a kinda swarmy uber-wonk; Palin angry, partisan, self-righteous, self-absorbed…well, nothing positive to say about her; McCain, a war hero who wants to do something good, but can’t shake the mandibles of his party’s mandarins. Sorry, Pub’s, inspiration wins with me, even over your bitter self-righteousness. Of course, you’ll blame the media for losing this election, like you do everything else. Heaven knows that God’s chosen would ever make need to own any of their own failures.