Response Cause I don’t Know Either
Sunday, August 10, 2008
My good pal Lib wrote about this foreshadowy-hindsight subject and I have been mulling my own version.
I don’t hold much in common with hers. In fact, we may well be opposites all round.
I am stuck in the now most of the time, being some twisted form of practical and efficient that takes me out of the loop of contemplating the future. Most of the time, I am focused on immediate problems, and the extent of my “scrying” is tracking the potential outcomes of what is going on right now in my life. Now, this can often lead into long-range speculation, but as might be noticed from my language here, I’m still pragmatic about all of it. Very rarely do I get the emotional, personal sort of condition spun up to be of any impact.
There are only two sorts of situations, offhand, that have ever emotionally engaged me. One would be the fairly routine times where I am (in my opinion), the catalyst or a big player in change at my work. I am too much of an idealist and perfectionist which just don’t jive with today’s relativistic, no-conflict sort of culture. Drives me nuts.
Or
Something that impacts my relationship with my Wife. Whenever we’ve had our spats or knock-down-drag-out fights, I’ve hit my all-time highs of emotional extremes. Prior to my marriage, there were about maybe 2 episodes that killed me inside. One was the catastrophe (at the time) with Janelle, and the other was Korea. Both were shocks that built upon each other and I didn’t really clear the fog from them until I met Anika. There are a couple more little shadows lingering in my little existence, but they have yet to turn to the energized sorts of events as the ones above.
Why am I blubbering all about this? Is it on the subject? I think so. I’m often emotionally detached, I think, and very rarely FEEL the fear of the future, or the remorse of the past about which many, many people write and think. What is going on now, is simply going on now. What happened last month, is just that. There are some items that haunt me, sure. I wrote about that on my other blog, about failures so miserable that they come back to guilt me from time to time, but that’s not really the point.
I get trapped in thought of the future sometimes, and the fear sets in. But it’s rarely much more than daydreaming. I can’t seem to find any worry (or excitement) about the future. Call it 1, 5, or 10 years down the road, I have no idea what it will be like then, and though it’s probably crass to say so, can’t bring myself to care. I just shrug the worries off. This may seem convenient, but when mixed with my anti-empathetic here and past, it’s hard to deal with.
I don’t do well around the emotional events. Deaths especially don’t make me jump. I have many losses, but none have precious loss value. Grandmas and Grandpas and Grannies and others have passed on, and I have no sense of attachment, though I know in my logical mind that I wish they were still here. I am unhappy when knowing that it isn’t too long before my last Grandpa’s passing, but only in that practical way that seems to be all that I can muster for emotion.
I can’t, and haven’t ever been able to envision the future very well. I haven’t ever been particularly surprised about the future, and when looking into that mirror, I don’t think I feel much of anything to see what I was. Were I to see into the future at 15, or 17 years old, I’d probably shrug and say “okay, I think that’s cool.” I sure didn’t think anything of my future back then. Sometimes I’ll get locked into fear of “what will happen next” but it’s never associated with important stuff, but usually the improbable or impossible. Work-related challenges or child-raising challenges usually drive me nuts and it’s mostly like trying to figure out a soduko puzzle (I’ve never managed to solve one of those things - I’m mathematically retarded).
I joined the Navy because it “made” something for me to do next. I didn’t do it for “my future” as all the advertisements used to say back then. I didn’t know what the heck I was supposed to be doing in the future. I didn’t foresee my family until a few years later. I didn’t put any thought into marriage or kids at any point until I was oh, about 20 or so. Then, of course, I was the lost poet type who romanticized everything and mooned over vapors and visions. None of that was foresight, really.
There was one point, a short few moments of maybe months in 1995 where I actually saw Anika. I saw Molly then, too. I just can’t explain how I saw, but I knew them and that they were coming. But I could never have envisioned the circumstances of our meeting, joining, or future together at any point, and still can’t. I don’t have the gift, if that is it, that Lib has of connecting to future or past. I don’t know if I want it, as much pain as it seems she has found there. I can’t see past the end of my nose, future-history wise, and have no idea how to go about it.
In all, the ninja-master-MAAS-gamer-total-nerd-introvert (who hasn’t changed much at all since) that was me as I grew into self-knowledge would never have payed attention to the future that loomed ahead. I wouldn’t have taken the time to look for that mirror that showed me the future. I was oblivious to just about everything up until the last couple of years. I’m still pretty dysfunctional as far as realizing the gravity of situations in my life. I feel as selfish, blind and immature as I was 18 years ago and am not sure when (if ever) I’ll ever get the connection connected. I sure envy Lib and my Anika and many others sometimes for their ability to be passionate and thoughtful about things that I have no idea how to approach.
This whole mess will probably make little sense, especially in the light of my writing and poetry, but it’s sort of the real me here as I feel and be, rather than as I present myself in words. The poetry may well be my “passion” that never makes it out in other forums. That could be a good thing, I guess, but I’m not sure. That’s all I can think to put down right now, though, so…
OBTW, Gwennie has been better since about two days after my last post. I am certainly embarrassed that I’ve posted nothing for so long. Sheesh. I think I need to go home now, I’m losing touch.
...OUT
One Favorite Picture
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Just one of my favorite pics. Was thinking of my Gwennie, who has been under the weather this week.
HOPE YOU’RE FEELING BETTER!!!! I love you DoubleBobbleHeadElvisStevieWonderHuh?
Michael Whelan Dream List
Sunday, June 15, 2008
My favorite artist. I want to hang these on my walls. Way cool. I don’t know if he’s put all of them up for sale. A couple are in the store on his website. Not sure where else he has released sales, if anywhere. Big time pro artists probably don’t have all their stuff in the poster joint at the mall. The ones on the site are for sale SIGNED!
Then Danced A Shadow
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Flashes from long ago…
That won’t fade away
-----------------------------------------
Trimmed these sails
To light in your port
Then danced away
Fear, just me
Same as ever so
Twixt these twin shadows
I am not torn
Yet have these relics been only
One a wound as will not close
Twins adored
Riddled to shreds
My heart and my mind
I’ve walked me to a spiral
That loops returnt to itself
Of touches unendured
O lust that betrays me
Let me distill this dream
For I touched not thy tresses
That last time so fair
Though twas cold bitter cold
For fear or was it fear?
For some thing I dared not again
O why did I pull loose
This anchor when not half set?
Open these arms this time an’ I return
Two shadows
My sails have harbor’d
Between thy ports
Mooring in but the one
Though the other left fair trade
O let me be, cursed dreaming
Let my breath be my own
Or let down thy slip
Let me mind this fair haven
The dark one that has haunted me so
Think this paradox?
No but painful
To dream to lift this fair veil
Of the white
Of the fountain
Of the longest long lingering
Let me come here
Or throw me to the stars
And let me ne’er hear again
Nor see with these eyes
These browning lands ever.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prelude To The End Of The Game
(I’ve never been able to figure out what Sting meant in this song, but I’ll put it to my own use)
The fox is done running
And the beast is at bay
He’d run them in circles
By the end of the day
They chased him through brambles
They chased him through the fields
They could chase him forever
But the fox would not yield
And some saw her shadow
On the crest of a hill
And the hounds were distracted
Away from the kill
One day we’ll reach a great ocean
At the end of a pale afternoon
And we’ll lay down our heads just like we were sleeping
And be towed by the drag of the moon
We ran through the forest
And we ran through the streams
And we ran through the heather
Though we ran in our dreams
You were my lover
And I was your beau
We ran like the river
For what else did we know
One day we’ll reach a great ocean
At the end of a pale afternoon
The dogs are all worn out
And the horses are lame
The hunters and hunted
At the end of the game
Our love was a river
A wild mountain stream
In a tumbling fury
On the edge of a dream
And they chased us through brambles
And they chased us through fields
They could chase us forever
But the heart would not yield
When the fox is done running
At the end of the day
I’m ready to answer
I’m ready to pay
And this river’s done running
And time will come soon
Carried to the great ocean
By the drag of the moon
IMA NPC
Monday, May 26, 2008
I had a revelatory thought today on the way home from work.
That guy who blew by me on his bike was an NPC. He appeared to have no interest in what was going on around him. As I pondered this relatively pointless observation, I stumbled upon another thought. To him, I’m probably an NPC. Then I thought, if I’m and NPC to him, and the majority of people I run into are NPCs to me, then more people think I’m an NPC than there are people I think are PCs. If they are all NOT NPCs, then I’m pretty much guaranteed to be an NPC.
Now, this means I need to either rethink my position and start looking for more PCs to back my status or I need to get some major acceptance of my fate installed. Or, if I can convince myself that this guy really is an NPC, then it all washes up just fine and I’m still a member of an elite, high-level party.
But if not, and I’m an NPC, then I’m thinking most of us who would claim PC-hood are also NPCs. So we need to be prepared to suck it up.
It’s not all bad, of course. In a way that is vaguely similar to the Spare-Star-Trek-Ensign-X, we have short, flashy lives that end in senseless accidents or violence, and rarely of dull, doddering old age. We exist and act at the whim of some GM and his PC partners to be sacrificed, pillaged, extorted, tricked, befriended, resurrected, tanked and made to carry immense SAP gear for miles (tirelessly, I’ll add, which is a benny).
So, PCs of the world, if I am not among you, just you remember, the game isn’t worth playing without the real cast. And we outnumber you a billion to one.
That, my dears, was the absolutely random and absurd comment of the day.
Waterborne
Sunday, May 25, 2008
In the desert our water-spoiled senses seem to come to life. Days can go by without a scent of water or clean, moist earth. Shade under a desert tree that’s recently had fill of rain is completely different from that of a building or overhanging stones. The scent of water in the desert is not easily explained without some sort of poetic sense. It’s like breathing life. It is coolness and a refreshing that has a physical impact. Sometimes I feel like I can touch it, maybe even see it, that shimmering sense of wellness in a place that appears dry and dead. I love this in my desert.
I think you, each, are my sense of life in my little desert-mind. That essential water that, though beautiful and wonderful anywhere in the world, is far more in the corners of desolation, distance and endless days. The sky may be filled with dreams, but the life is found here, here at the waystation and shimmering oasis of this one’s visions.
Up, up past the ridge of vision
The line of sight at the bronze edge of the world
Little moments, little words I find to savor
Fountain in this secret grotto
where I come to whisper
Where songs find beginning
in little words and dreams
Waterborne Ivy making these walls so sweet smelling and alive
O the seed that was such tiny hope
worked into the cracks, holding so much together
Alive and green and everywhere so fine
Stream, breathing noise that never ends
the life grown up and around over all these years
Rain that ends all days in soft darkness
wrapped in peace
Bring little moments to my senses
speak of paradise amidst the dust and burn
my little kingdom of dunes and crags,
of sun and wind-swept emptiness.
Shawl (Hide You)
I have dreamt
To surround you with wisps of shadows
For I cannot cure them with my own
Tender breath upon your shoulder
And for fear of touching your pain,
Gentle fingertips upon your hair again
Let me take your tears upon my face
Wrap as translucent silk my arms about you
Simple light against your dark lace
Without the intense
Crush that burns and freezes the breath
Just presence
The hurt won’t fade, I know
Nothing that I can do, I know
But may I plumb the depths uncruel
To share the shades of you
That seem to come out in these years
With whispers that none of us can hear
I would hear this
This long story from long ago
With your lips to my cheek speak slow
In that tiny voice you possess
Simply be
Render this to nothing
In the motes of dust
That enchant the morning sunlight
Let me be your waking
Your wishing all this was not hurting
Let me miss the whole point
And it fly to oblivion
Just some little dream now
Surrounded by hands and arms
Motionless, courting solace now
Holding together you and your dark
Your shawl
To hide your face
Your silent call
Just that place
That stands still
Just in case
I will
-------------------------------------------------------
This has a lot of different applications
though crafted with one in particular.
Some long thoughts.
Some old Gurp.
Just wishing things could be better, hurt less.
The Bo Bauble 1, 2 and 3
Saturday, May 17, 2008
I got inspired and popped this pic of Bo together with another clip of an old drawing.
Then I put it in GIMP for a nice retro version.
The fine combination that I think is the Very Best:
Flashy Purple and Gold Thingy and Emergency Molly Access System
After reading a manual on Photoshop, I was inspired to toy around with layers and shiny stuff again.
Yes, I read manuals and handbooks. I’m weird.
This is just goofing off. I put a clip of an old ink-scrawl piece that Anika likes in there for pretty neat results.
And I made this funky picture with a Molly installed with a piece of the cool door created a while back.
So here is the Molly Rat, a cool cat who knows where it’s at, just waiting to go into action.
Molly’s getting older every day, and I figure she’s probably into coolness now (being almost a TEEN).
Hope you like it, Pretty Girl.
I’ll make some for the other guys too, pretty soon, so don’t let ‘em get jealous.
Art Thoughts From the Studio of an Amateur
Friday, May 16, 2008
Here’s the basis for my thoughts:
Opera Gallery
“The only valid thing in art is that which cannot be explained.”
--Georges Braque
This is ridiculous:
Exhibit #1
I don’t mean to pick on NARA Yoshitomo in any way, but what in the world is the world thinking? Yoshimoto is listed in the Masters section of this website. You can see the rest of the gallery here: Nara Yoshimoto.
Now I won’t claim to be anywhere near a master, based on my concept of “master artists.” I’m not qualified for a lot of reasons. I’m not particularly innovative, I’m not prolific, I’m not well known, I’m not DEAD, I don’t have much consistency and all sorts of other stuff. BUT, look at my art attempts and contrast them to this artist and what do I look like? Holy cow I’m an institution unto myself.
And Yoshimoto isn’t the only one. There’s some really bizarre stuff out there that just defies reason.
I don’t understand what is going on with this world and its art. I grew up with the Baroque Period in a huge compendium form in my closet, and I used to sit there and scrutinize the work there. I hope Mom and Dad still have that book, because I’d really like to get my hands on it again. It was filled with beautiful work.
I’m a huge fan of Michael Whelan as well. He’s all the things of art that I am not (we have two things in common: we like his art and we’re not dead). I love the story he told of a print he’d left on a table and a woman who came up and actually touched it to find out if the textures he’d painted were real. Whelan can do magic with his brush. I only wish I could do that.
Which of these two images would you attribute to a master?
This isn’t really a good comparison, for one of them looks identical to the work of a 6 year old.
It appears, based on the quote at the start, here, that we’re interested more in the inexplicable, irrational and mindless than we are in the reality of this pretty vibrant, often meaningful world of ours. People have meaning, but they’re losing it. Things have meaning, but that meaning seems to be fading fast.
Where has our judgment gone? Why has the world as a whole become so retarded (and I mean it) that we revel in backwards, dysfunctional garbage? What happened to our obsession with perfection and beauty? Why isn’t the historical master’s spirit inspiring the artists of the world. Check this out.
One last, before I continue on the tirade: Expose’, the annual from Ballistic publishing, which represents the cutting edge of digital art, makes a bold and vicious statement against the bunko that passes for fine art these days. It seems the despised geeks and techies have reached the heights that “real” artists can no longer seem to match. Nearly every image in this incredible portfolio is a work that shows talent, creativity, massive inspiration and… get this… WORK! Yes, it took work, thousands of hours in the case of some of the 3D imagery, to put these pieces together. Even the bizarre and wacko stuff that defies explanation demonstrate skill and labor in their creation. Contrast to Yoshimoto and what do you get?
How does a 10-minute doodle, no talent apparent, on lined notebook paper become a masterpiece in three countries’ exhibits? I’m disappointed. Not only that, but look at all else we create. Our kids are into cartoons that, 15 years ago would have caused apoplexy in most homes. Poorly crafted, doodled, sloppy work that has no value is drummed into our kids’ heads from the start. Sponge Bob is a cultural icon, and the felt-board computerized gook of South Park, with all its insanity and inanity tells me we’re getting stupider and more mindless by the day. Here’s Sponge Bob’s Site. No joke, South Park is lauded with Emmy Awards and is declared to be Adult Oriented, yet kids watch the stuff.
Robert Heinlein had a good grasp on stupidity (Note, I don’t agree with all RAH’s thoughts, but he did well with what he had).
“Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”
This applies to me, too, for I am regularly stupid about a great many things. But I believe that we are coming closer and closer, yearly even, to a point where whole societies or cultures are going to be incredibly stupid (see California, maybe? Or at least a portion of it, including the courts.). With the rapid looming Globalization of Everything, we’ll see retarded stuff happen more and more, even in our own back yards.
Music? I won’t even go there other than to say that the end of harmonious, rhythmic beauty is on its way, to be replaced by arrhythmic sewage that I’m convinced invokes false and deceptive emotional reactions which legitimately should be attributed to the fact that the music (and often lyrics) absolutely fail to attain any worth whatsoever. Instead the “music” trend in some courts seems to evoke insane modes of response such as ridiculous expression in mosh pits and bizarre, should-be-embarrasing dance (?) that makes the Music Video Industry all sorts of money. The more radical or shocking it is, especially as unintelligibility becomes more common, the more money and popularity is achieved.
Video games? I laugh. We obsess with shoot-em-ups like Grand Theft Auto and any number of other titles whose sole purpose (in game) is to achieve the most success in pursuit of all the things for which, in the real world, one would be jailed, executed or even (more often) shot on site by whatever law-enforcement or military entity could get there first. Why in the WORLD do our kids get exposed to this stuff? Why in the WORLD would adults like us, with a good grasp of legal and moral ideas, immerse ourselves in the irresponsible, the destructive, the absolutely anarchistic, illicit-natured garbage of a lot of the video games out there, not just for entertainment of a few spare moments, but for hours or DAYS!
We’re dying in our own poisons.
I didn’t entirely mean to fall into a rant here, but the sight of Exhibit #1 blew my mind and I had to let the words fly.
I humbly submit that I’m capable of stupid thoughts and actions. I am obsessive in many ways, retarded in many, and just plain incompetent as well.
But I affirm with a LOUD VOICE that the insanity in which our culture seems to be submersing itself is far beyond the simple-minded nutcase behind this blog. I am appalled at what comes out of our collective mouth and desire nothing more than to escape it entirely. I hate the exposure to it, I hate the fact that my family is exposed to it. I despise our media and our culture of shock and debasement. I dream of the day in which freedom is made available. Not too long ago, Gurp would have commented, “We’re being overrun by NPCs! Flee, you fools, Flee!” and I think I still would, only this time it’s serious.
Spider Robinson has a running commentary on The Crazy Years which was inspired by Heinlein’s predictions that can mostly be found in his Future History books.
If I could manage it, I’d be in my Desert right now, making do with peace and a little bubble of my own constructed reality that didn’t contain this scary vitriol-spewing culture that I am increasingly ashamed to call American and My Own. I’m beginning to think…
This Place Sucks.