the social conventions of the heart

Yesterday, my neighbor Joe came out of his house to retrieve his Bible, which was in the back seat of his Honda. I was sitting on the porch and it was the first time I had seen him since I learned that Joe's dog, Samson, had died several days ago. I stood in my doorway and conveyed my condolences.

Joe said he had been driving to Canada with his wife Pat when he stopped so that Samson could take a leak. Samson did his business, hopped back in the car ... and his heart gave out. Most bulldogs have a life expectancy of eight or nine. Samson was 12 or 13. Joe remembered the various veterinary procedures Samson had survived -- and Joe and Pat had survived with him -- and ... well, it was his time. Joe did not say so, but I filled in the blanks: A family member had died.

Joe said that they buried Samson in the backyard during the night. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised, given Joe's low-keyed devotion to his church, if there were prayers to accompany the interment.

Buried in the backyard. Close to home. Close to the hearts that loved him.

Given the nature of municipalities, I wouldn't be surprised if the burial were against a number of high-minded and health-related laws. And yet the fitness of the burial struck me as superseding such considerations. There is a time when anyone might take the law into his own hands.

Little and large, how many laws does anyone learn to abide by? There are rules. There are consequences. There are social responsibilities. And however much anyone might have chafed when digesting the laws of this life or the laws of self-discipline, still I think there needs to be the willingness and ability to break those laws. At some point there needs to be some understanding that the rules and laws do not rule me ... it is I who rule the laws.

The rule-educated will balk at such an assertion: What if everyone did that? What if everyone just did as s/he pleased? It would be anarchy. It would be social mayhem. And indeed it would.

But I think there was a quiet willingness in Joe's action that made his act not just understandable, but also fitting. Unless I miss my guess, he would be willing to take responsibility for what he had done. If there was a price to pay, he would pay it because being "right" is not always being right. Joe was not some feather-merchant egotist who broke rules because he was better or more deserving. He broke the rules because there are times when rules cannot be allowed to rule. If Joe's society criticized or penalized him, well, that was OK. He was responsible for being right... even if he was wrong.

How many social conventions of the heart are like this? The rules are rules for good reason. With luck, they bring stability to anyone's life. And yet that stability and strength are not based on how good the rules are but rather on how good an individual might be, how responsible.

Socially, there is the saying, "don't do the crime if you can't do the time." The saying arises from a society-based context: Rob a convenience store, go to jail. And the cause-and-effect wisdom is everywhere in the conventions of the heart -- hard-won, hard-learned conventions. Responsible conventions. Rules and regs, wise nostrums realized in living fact.

But I do wonder if the ultimate responsibility must not allow for the ability, willingness or even insistence on the irresponsible (or is it responsible?) act, the act of ruling the rules. "I choose" not because you say so -- however much I may honor your wisdom -- but because ... I choose.

Freedom is not cheap, but it is worth the price.

I am happy Samson is buried nearby.

as if you owed a million dollars

In Zen, I once read the encouragement, "practice as if you owed a million dollars and had no way to pay it back."

Today, via this blog, I received two donations -- one for $100 and one for $1.88.

These were gifts.

Gifts I have no way of paying back.

I don't personally know the men who made them, though I know them to differing degrees via the Internet. Somehow, I would like to know them personally and face-to-face so they could see for a fact how much I would like to repay what I cannot.

It is a matter of practice, from my point of view -- learning that giving, which I enjoy and do when I can, is the same as receiving, which I do poorly: I can say the socially-acceptable thank-you's, but in my heart, I can't imagine what might have prompted such generosity. Certainly I can use the money: A fixed income insures that state of affairs. But beyond that there is something more important.

So I will practice and perhaps one day be able to stop fidgeting about giving and receiving.

A million bucks! Where am I going to get that sort of dough?

Practice.

and, speaking of meaningful...

If things actually had "meaning," how interesting (not to mention truthful) could that possibly be?

who benefits, who foots the bill?

Anyone wondering idly if there is some substance beyond their own caterwauling about the disparities between the have's and the have-not's might want to take a look at this very good article. Aside from anything else, it suggests why the economic bubble that burst in 2008 is being generously re-inflated and, you guessed it, another crash, with Uncle Sam's help, is on the horizon.

Be forewarned: It's longer than a Tweet.

intellectual courage

This has been sitting on my computer's desk top waiting for me to return and rewrite, but the fact is, I am no longer as interested as when I started writing it ... and it's too long ... and who, including me, reads long these days ... and the short version is here ... and I want to 'get rid of it' so ....

INTELLECTUAL COURAGE

Aldous Huxley once wrote, "If the intellectual travels long enough and far enough, he will return to the same point from which the non-intellectual has never started."

For the rough purposes of rumination, I would define intellectual courage as the willingness to stop keeping things at bay. And as far as I can see, intellectual courage is exceptionally rare because the desire/need to be right is so viscerally alluring. As a result, the chances of returning "to the same point" are pretty damned slim.

But I sometimes wonder if the same result might be observed in those who simply get old enough.

Intellectual acquisitions, whether for alligator hunter or bedecked academic, are pretty much the acquisitions that will define the present or past and pray like a Pentacostal to ward off dangers in the future. They shape and ease and form a relatively calm pool in what can be raging seas.

But perhaps they are also acquisitions that fit on a limited number of book shelves. It makes some good common sense to be well informed about what has happened or is happening. An ill-informed alligator hunter can get his hand bit off and a poorly-informed academic runs the risk of being left in the scholarly dust if he doesn't "keep up." So the rule of thumb, socially or professionally, is to add more acquisitions to the acquisitions already in hand. More and more and more.

But, like stretching a rubber band, there is a point when the tension asserts its power and when, either by understanding or simple lethargy, things seem to reverse course. How many more acquisitions can anyone stuff on an already-overstuffed set of book shelves? More to the point, do the reasons for stuffing those bookshelves any longer obtain?

"Keeping up?" "Potential danger?" "Fear of failure?" "Culturally astute?" The on-set of age is as good as the rare-as-hen's-teeth intellectual courage in blurring the impetus and desire. Will the world fall apart if I don't inform myself about the latest developments of my environment? What's so bad about failure? And precisely whom do I really need to keep up with? At a certain point the rubber band asserts its ways ... I know enough to know that I have the capacity to find out ... or not ... and that the universe is unlikely to purr with delight or suffer collapse either way.

Sociology, history, alligator hunting, psychology, philosophy, religion, astro-physics, sprinting, debating, politics, war, romance, iron-mongering, barrel-making, torture, fine art, literature, Hollywood, Nigerian scams, breast augmentation, pecker enhancement, language, cliff-climbing, shark fishing, poker, joke-telling, drug addiction, gold medals, Internet savvy ... and on and on and on and on ... how many books, little and large, will fit on the shelf and how great is the impetus to fit them there?

Lacking intellectual courage is OK, I imagine. Age will probably teach the same lessons:

A little love, a little decency, a little effort -- that's probably enough. And if it's not, well, life will let you know soon enough. Great effort, great intellectual collections tend to take a waning throne when the body and mind set themselves on a downward course. No one ever stops learning, but those who suggest that learning is something anyone should do is just jerking off in the breeze.

No one can return to "the same point."

"The same point" is no more.

Can "now" be more "now" than now?

But I imagine you get the point.

unconditional love

Elsewhere, there was an Internet bulletin board conversation going on about conditional and unconditional love and I wrote:

Maybe it would be better to stop daydreaming about what is "unconditioned" and just cope effectively with what we've got.

"Unconditioned" -- how seductive.

And yet, in spiritual endeavor, it seems to me that just because someone classifies himself or others as "ignorant" or "deluded," that's no excuse for being a dope.

Consider: When talking or thinking about something that is "unconditioned,"  how could anyone be doing something other than "conditioning" what was being addressed?

Does this compute?

Does this make sense?

In what way is it useful?

To me it sounds dumber than an unconditional box of rocks ... sexy, perhaps, but stupid.

... and one more thing

When it becomes clear that anything can be anything else, what else could there possibly be?

confusion and hope

Some people -- and I am not excluding myself -- get out of bed in the morning wracked by one confusion or another. It's not something to treat lightly: The confusion can be vastly painful, encompassing, endless and aaaarrrrgh! Some loss, some inescapable set of circumstances, some piercing something-or-other.

Or maybe the confusion is just a tickle or a nag, something like a mild headache during which things could be better, but, oh well, I'll survive.

Confusion.

And yet -- did you ever notice? -- the confusion is utterly assured and sure of itself. There is no confusion about this confusion. Seriously -- this confusion really knows what's what. It makes self-assured blow-hards like Donald Trump look like a sissy by comparison.

And it is in this lack of confusion about confusion, I would speculate, that hope is born.

make your own gun

And, even as the latest outcry for gun control sinks back into impotence, here is news that the first computer-generated firearm has been successfully fired in (where else?) Texas. Made almost entirely of plastic (only the firing pin is metal), the weapon was made with a 3D printer.

The idea is that as the printers become cheaper, instead of buying goods from shops, consumers will instead be able to download designs and print out the items at home.

Peaceable or violent, such manufactured goods are not cheap at present.

But over time ...?

useful uselessness

In upstate New York, Phillip Patterson is wrapping up a years-long project -- copying by hand the entire  Bible.

Patterson, 63, might seem like an unlikely scribe for the King James version of the Bible. Tall and bald with a hearty laugh, the retired interior designer is neither monkish nor zealous. He goes to church but has never been particularly religious.

And it makes him happy.

He doesn't seem to want to sell his achievement or experience to anyone else.

That's a relief.

But it makes me happy when someone else is happy.

Useful uselessness, perhaps.

it soars my heart

Two girls passed down our street yesterday, affixing orange plastic bags to one front door knob after another. As they moved away from my house, I ran out and called them back: "Give me a couple of more, would you?!" And they obliged.

It's a yearly event around here -- "The Post Office Food Drive" -- and I love it. The event is always the same, simple and direct and, in my mind, decent: Residents put dried or canned goods in the orange bag, place it on their front steps and volunteer postal workers come around and pick it up. The food goes to the Survival Center where it is portioned out to those who might not be able to afford it. There is no middle man, no skimming off the top, when it comes to a box of oatmeal or a can of red kidney beans.

Although I live on a fixed income and can never give as much as I might wish, still I am grateful to be given this opportunity ... literally, grateful. I like giving what I can to people. But I also like giving things that will be useful and will not burden the recipient with feeling s/he has to say thank you to me. It is I who have been given this gift and feel slightly flummoxed that I cannot say thank you to those in need. Well, my small thank you is -- or will be next Saturday when the bags are picked up -- in the bag.

In hard economic times, this "charity" is eminently practical in one sense. I find it vile and indecent that anyone in the United States -- or anywhere else for that matter -- might go hungry. The visceral greediness that hunger implies ... well, it makes me grind my mental teeth.

But yesterday, besides the purely practical implications of the orange bags, I was given a gift I cannot repay. It is like feeding my own, literal children ... not something to make a big deal about or pat myself on the back for, but something I can be grateful to have taken part in.

I once heard of a Zen teacher who was asked why he never said thank you for the donations his students made to the Zen center. The teacher raised his voice and said something like, "It is you who should say thank you to me for giving you the opportunity!" While it is easy to envision this point of view being put to self-serving and manipulative uses, still, I sense the on-target appropriateness of his remark.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

It soars my heart.

meaning and meditation

Like pebbles in my shoes, the thoughts chafe gently today....

What an enormously self-centered question it is ... "What is the meaning of life?"  And, by extension, perhaps, "What is the meaning ..." of anything?

I don't ask from the perspective of some smug pessimist or assured nihilist. Just gently, like some warm cat purring as it rubs against your leg: Is this ego-tripping necessary?

Wail and fulminate and mull -- what does it all mean?! What is the meaning of life?!

And beyond a core of self-centeredness, or perhaps in tandem with it, aren't these questions burdensome ... sort of like putting another rock in a knapsack already laden with cumbersome and sometimes painful weights. When daily evidence points again and again and again towards the fact that answering such questions is an open invitation to getting bitten on the ass ... well it's human, but it's not terribly humane.

And that line of thinking brought me around to the fact that after all these years, I have a hard time saying something credibly good about meditation as a practice. Yes, I like it and yes I do it, but saying something good about it slips like water through my fingers. Not that I'll sit still for finding something bad about it either, but, well ... it would be nice to say something nice.

And perhaps this morning I can. Maybe what is nice about meditation is that it provides a time in which the matter of meaning, the weight and freight of meaning, is laid aside, when its imagined import slips away ... like water through the fingers. I suppose other circumstances can provide the same opportunity, but sitting still in meditation is so much less cluttered.

The habit of looking for or finding meaning is so strong and so ingrained and so self-elevating that taking a few minutes now and then to suggest that there really is an easier approach ... well, isn't that both sensible and kind? Not necessarily easy, of course, but still ... what is the payback for all the rocks in this knapsack? Isn't it just endless strain for no very satisfactory result? It's understandable on the one hand and dumber than a box of rocks on the other ... like Kim Kardashian with yet another suitcase.

Finding meaning in meditation is a pastime for feather merchants. But when anyone actually sits down and focuses the mind ... well, it's kind of nice, kind of lighter, kind of meaningful in a universe where no one would imagine they could nail down a meaning.

olivia and the old man

Daughter Olivia poses with the old man May 5, 2113. The stick came along for Gandolf or Jizo purposes.

on topic

On the one hand, it can be infuriating to be in a conversation in which one participant refuses to remain "on topic." No one discussing the implications of the latest famine or war finds last night's basketball score useful or relevant.

On the other hand, even the most on-topic discussion has a way of slip-sliding into revised clothing. A discussion of famine or war may naturally segue into food or medical relief, augmenting armaments, or bringing nourishment to those afflicted. These are acceptable, on-topic aspects ... basketball is not.

Those who demand an on-topic relevance can become quite irritated ....

But since remaining perfectly "on-topic" is impossible as that topic passes from you to me and back again, does anyone wonder as I do ...

What, precisely, is the topic and how could anyone remain 'on' it? Isn't it sort of like herding cats or keeping dough from rising? To require something to stand still when by definition it is always in motion ....

What, precisely, is the topic? Or not?

Israel does it again

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.

Welcome to the 'next war.'

soul food

It has been a long, long time since I received a present that surprised me in the way that a five-year-old might open some 'perfect' Christmas gift ... deeply grateful, delighted and full of imagine-that!

Yesterday, my daughter and her husband, who are visiting, cooked dinner. On the one hand, it was not a big deal, and yet I was melted: How long had it been since anyone gave me a home-cooked meal, one I did not have any hand in preparing?

I am not accustomed to such gifts... gifts that are just gifts. My vision is clearly skewed, but skewed vision is the farm I am stuck with ... a rare, delicious hot-damn that is worth all the tea in China.

What it was (steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus) did not matter. That it was overwhelmed me.

We sat outdoors and ate it.

Now it is gone, but the wonder still embraces me.

Isreal bombs targets in Syria

For the second time, Israel, America's bosom ally, has bombed targets in war-torn Syria. The United States is doing its damnedest not to get personally involved in yet another war in the Middle East. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan -- with little or no credible grounding -- have left the American public war weary, not least because of the funding which might easily have built schools, repaired infrastructure and perhaps created badly-needed jobs.

Israel, as usual, has its own very good reasons. The strike allegedly targeted a munitions site from which ground-to-ground missiles could be shipped to Hezbollah, an enemy of Israel. The missiles threatened to be a game-changer in the favorable balance of power that Israel would like to maintain. It was not clear if Israelis crossed into Syrian air space in order to make the attack.

Israel has its own good reasons.

The U.S. is Israel's lock-step friend.

But if Syria decides not to swallow Israel's own good reasons and if it decides to strike back against what it considers aggression on its soil, what is a lock-step friend to do?

It's hard to imagine that American coffin-makers are not licking their chops.

-- In Boston, meanwhile, a funeral home is having a hard time finding a cemetery that will accept the body of one of the alleged Boston Marathon (April 15) bombers.

"My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don't want to do it. They don't want to be involved with this," said Stefan, who said dozens of protesters gathered outside his funeral home, upset with his decision to handle the service. "I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too."

running out of marvels

At the fork, in the darkness, the rancher let me out of his pickup with a mild warning: "Keep an eye out for the rattlers. They're shedding this time of year and they're pretty touchy."

He might have been offering honest advice or he might have been having a bit of fun at the tenderfoot's expense. Either way, I thanked him for the lift and stepped out of the truck and into the Wyoming night. His road led right. Mine ran straight ahead.

The last road sign I had seen said that it was 54 miles from Laramie to Cheyenne and I considered walking: If I walked all night, I might make it by morning. It was unlikely that I would get a ride at this time of night. And then I realized that walking 54 miles was not really sensible, even if I could do it. Better to sleep and resume hitchhiking by day when there would be more cars on the road.

I stood on the road and looked out into the scrub prairie all around me. The stars -- and there seemed to be millions of them -- gave a half-light to the scene of wide-open ... wide-openness with nothing to suggest it was anything other than wide-open. I had no idea what time it was ... 9 perhaps or maybe 10. There was no noise, no traffic, no man-made light on the horizon... not even the hiss and rattle of a creature shedding its past. A land without handholds. The setting wasn't hostile; it just wasn't in the business of holding anyone's hand.

For a while I just stood still in the late-August darkness. I was a day-and-a-little into a 3,300-mile trip across the country -- from Oregon where I had just finished up a two-month summer job at a lumbering camp to New York, where the canyons formed by skyscrapers meant that no one ever really saw the sky. It was the first of two times I would hitchhike across the country. The second would arrive three years later, in 1962.

Finally I took a few tentative steps on the road, as if entertaining the notion of a 54-mile walk. But I knew I was just bullshitting -- putting off the time when I would lay out my old army blanket on the prairie and perhaps disturb some rattle snake. Even without laying out my blanket and staking a wide claim, I wondered if my footsteps might accidentally disturb an innocent creature in the midst of a touchy effort. I had a jackknife, but doubted if there were enough light to see and then minister to the point where the fangs entered.

I walked a little and then took the plunge, stepping off the highway and onto the prairie. About 100 feet out in the mixture of soil and tufts of grass I stopped, put down my small suitcase, unrolled the attached blanket and spread it gingerly on the ground I could not see clearly. I waited a moment to see if my territorial assertion would arouse any of the tenants who had staked a claim before me. When there were no complaints, I lowered myself onto one half of the blanket and pulled the other half over my body. If I went to sleep, do you suppose a rattler in search of warmth might curl up next to me and then fang me when I rolled over?

After the what-if's had abated a little, I relaxed and looked up at the sky. It was enormous and filled with stars that no one would ever see through the pollution in the East. Huge ... it was huge! And not only was it huge and jam-packed with stars, but there were shooting stars. Not just one, which was pretty rare in the East, but one after another after another ... at intervals of between several seconds to several minutes. Whhhhhiiiiiissssssh! There was no telling where the next one might come from. Some came from low on the horizon heading towards the top of the huge ball I imagined myself to be in. Some came from the top and fell towards the bottom. Some just came out of nowhere, streaked, and burned out nowhere.

How many shooting stars did I see that night? 50? 100? I don't know. But I do know I marveled and marveled and marveled ... and marveled until, as with all marvels, I ran out of marveling and simply went to sleep. If human marveling were the honest yardstick of a marvel, how could it be marvelous?

I woke up with the sun and looked around carefully before getting up to take a leak. I saw no snakes nor any tracks to indicate they had been there. Got back on the road and caught a ride to a truck stop several miles down the road. I had no idea what time it was, but I was hungry. The waitress looked at me a bit oddly when I ordered roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, rolls and a large glass of milk. When the food came, I set to with a will ... only wondering vaguely why my meal was barely luke warm. After the plate was wiped clean, I glanced casually at a wall clock: It was 5:45.

The marvelous stars were gone. The marvelous snakes were gone. My stomach was full. The sky was a radiant blue, a perfect day for hitchhiking. And I was off to an early start.

5:45 -- how marvelous is that?!

suggestion

Since you can't talk your way out of life

   You might as well learn to live it.

help

A friend of mine shocked me once when he said, "You're the only guy I know who would give anyone the shirt off your back -- literally -- if asked."

Was I really like that? I honestly didn't know. I did know I had a long-standing habit of lending a hand where I could, based, I suppose, on a dysfunctional upbringing. The habit was and remains so ingrained that I take it as I might take a mole on some part of my body -- part of the landscape; it's too late now to do anything about it; and in general, it's probably better than the alternative. I can't really remember ever expecting anything in return: Helping, so-called, is just a well-woven or well-worn habit, neurotic or otherwise.

 But with the onset of age and the fatigue that goes with it, habits have a way of getting too weighty, too cumbersome and too unnecessary. Finding ways to lighten the load becomes a priority.

Lately I've had correspondence with a person who is endlessly needy. It's like talking with a drug addict who swears on his mother's grave that he will quit and who is sincerely contrite about past failures ... and then returns to the drug of choice: After a while, you begin to realize that far from being a help, you are being asked to be an enabler ... someone who cares about a person who has not yet decided to care for himself.

This is an excellent lesson for my habituation. After enough times of not wanting something in return, I am forced to admit I do want something in return ... to be in the presence of someone who cares for himself. Moreover, I dislike being played for an enabling daddy-figure. False starts are forgivable in any endeavor, but there seems to be a tipover point at which false starts become a self-indulgent way of life. And I want no part of it.

All of this brings me around to some vague recognition that the matter of "helping" needs to be addressed and, if possible, disposed of as extra weight. No more eyewash about compassion (which really does mean something when the boy-scout factor is stripped away). No more altruism which imposes a non-existent separation. No more merit badges .. if, perhaps, that desire exists.

I'm working on it.

I could probably use a little help, but, like anything else, I'm not sure how helpful anyone might actually be.

As far as I can figure out, "helping" is a two-edged sword, its cutting edges lying at the midpoint between blessing and curse.

Helping, on the other hand, is something no one can help.

moments of guilt

It was Beatle John Lennon who wrote, "Life is what happens to you while you were busy making other plans." It's a line that can catch anyone by the short hairs.

Sometimes I feel a sense of guilt when posting remarks on the Internet in spaces dedicated to "Buddhism" or "Zen Buddhism" or "spiritual life." The spaces are like club houses where club members gather to consider topics designated as club-worthy. I too have devoted sweat-stained gouts of time and energy to such club activities. They nurtured and grew me and I am grateful and I use their spaces. But ...

But I am also increasingly bored and as a result feel like a bit of a faker when entering the club house. It's like sitting at a bar where Red Sox fans know every statistic and moment of glory or defeat ... and the conversation chews and rechews ... and it's tasty stuff ... and you bet I have loved it and honor it ... and ...
"life is what happens to you while you were busy making other plans."

I have a hunch that getting bored is part and parcel of so-called spiritual life. Yes, it nourished you and yes, many of its disciplines and directions dovetail beautifully with "what happens while you were making other plans."

But discussing the Red Sox endlessly only results in a nagging case of hemorrhoids. The topic is fun when it comes up, but what comes up deserves to fall away. 

I have made tons of "other plans." Heaven, hell, enlightenment, compassion, emptiness, wealth, health, family and the perfect spitball. Now I am more interested in the "what happens" part.

It's pretty kool ... but I still feel a little guilty.

seamlessness

One man described the death of his three-year-old daughter as a "game changer."

A woman wrote that on any given day she would drink two bottles of her favorite soda, "three when I'm feeling festive."

Both were included in a plump promo I received in the mail the other day -- a compendium of memories of those who had graduated 50 years ago from Colby College, a place I attended but was never graduated from. The class was preparing for a reunion in summer and the compendium had apparently been sent out as a platform or enhancement to the event.

I read through the book like a man eating potato chips. I love to hear people's stories -- the individual recountings of individual tastes and adventures. But reading the one- or two-page summations and looking at the pictures that accompanied them ... how the hell could anyone sum up fifty years in so small a space?

The writers were reduced to skimming the tops of the waves ... marriage, family, employment, travel. How could so much time and living be packaged adequately in such thimble-sized capsules? They couldn't, of course, and yet I read on like a man mainlining salty tidbits.

Would these stories have told more if they had been given more space? On the one hand, yes they would. On the other hand, no they wouldn't. And yet I read on and on, searching for ... searching for ... searching for.

Searching for those little flashes of what felt like humanity ... a daughter who died, a soda-pop pleasure. None of the flashes was ever more than a small flash: There was no room to expand and explain and even if there had been, would that have explained the experience of 50 years? In the space of 500 words, there are a few buds, but there are no full-faced flowers.

Each entry was whole and complete as it came up off the page. It was as seamless and smooth as a satin sheet. It was interesting and yet I read it with a strange sense of loneliness and loss ... perhaps the same loneliness and longing that ripples through the delight when watching sitcoms on TV: It is delightful and compact and complete. Everything turns out OK in the end. And there is some reassurance, however false, that somewhere, somehow, someone's life is actually as smooth and seamless and complete as a satin sheet.

The 'grown-up' intellect knows that this is not so, that experience cannot be bordered and cannot fit perfectly in some sardine tin. But there is some child that wishes insistently to be included in a wondrous group of friends whose lives are seamless and smooth ... and it is lonely not to be included, to be pressing a face against the glass that reveals a TV sitcom whose seamlessness is as inviting as it is ludicrous. The child stamps his insistent foot: "There IS a seamlessness. There IS connection. There IS a happy ending that brooks no doubt or downside. There IS ... and I want it!"

On and on I read, both skimming absent-mindedly and yet focused with a gimlet attention ... where were the bits and pieces of humanity that might credibly assert a sharing of experience or belonging ... an eradication of the understanding that experience cannot be shared and simultaneously the understanding that there really is sharing, even if the smarm-meisters say so.

The kid presses his face to the glass behind which there is a longed-for seamlessness. It is too lonely and hard in this place where just-plain-living, whether for 50 years or five, is rife with seams and bad hair days. The glass is so utterly clean that to see through it is effortless. The kid, like the adult, sees everything perfectly well and yet ... and yet ... the glass remains and the longing not to be lonely persists: If I could just get beyond the glass, then I would belong and be part and could lose this clear understanding that experience cannot be shared ... in 500 words or 500,000.

The adult croons: Life is not like that, honey. There is no seamlessness, no capturing. Life is filled with the greys of mixture and compromise. Everything has cowlicks. The deeply-informed adult is 'adult.'

But in the end, the kid is right. S/he's not right in the way that s/he imagines, but that doesn't mean s/he is not right. It's not something one kid can tell another, whether in 500 words or 500,000. The perfectly-cleaned glass reveals all, and yet it's still glass, still bars the way, still fuels the fires of loneliness and longing.

But there is such a thing as opening the window.

your magic and mine

-- In Papua, New Guinea, the prime minister is considering the repeal of the Sorcery Act "which criminalizes the practice of sorcery and recognizes the accusation of sorcery as a defense in murder cases."

-- In Peru, a Chilean cult leader who proclaimed that he was God, was found hanged. Gustavo Castillo Ramon Gaete had been sought by police after he allegedly threw a three-day old baby -- his own son -- onto a fire because, as he explained it, any offspring of God would by definition be the antichrist and therefore must die. The mother of the child agreed with God's decision.

Looking down on or being horrified by the 'magic' of others is easy.

Funny how frequently our own Magical Kingdoms are given a pass.

the extremities of hunger

As during the 872-day siege of Leningrad during World War II, scientists have now unearthed evidence that the cruel winter of 1609-1610 led English settlers at Jamestown, Va., to feast on each others' remains.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

"The evidence is absolutely consistent with dismemberment and de-fleshing of this body," said Doug Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.

Interesting to notice how, just about the time anyone gets their 'civilized' and well-educated and culturally-adroit ducks lined up, there's a gust of reality-check wind that topples the goslings.

the symphonies of hell

Tickling my ivories and dovetailing comfortably with an uninformed bias....

Yesterday, I was skipping through television channels in search of some alpha waves when I paused briefly at a History Channel presentation about the Christian vision of hell. When it comes to scaring the crap out of people, I'm not sure who is more adept -- the Republicans with their visions of the next righteous war or the Christians depicting a toasty and horrific afterlife.

Anyway, since I live in a Christian culture, I paused. And one of the assertions I found interesting was that it was not the apostles or the Bible that brought Cecil B. DeMille to the realms of Christian hell ... it was the poets and other tale-tellers who came much later. Notably, among others, John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and, probably more important, Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" ... and more specifically, within that work, "The Inferno."

At the time he wrote "The Inferno" and depicted its nine levels of descending and increasing horror, Dante was probably about 35 and was, among other things, a pissed off young man. Due to his political alliances, he had been exiled and his wealth put under strain by the papacy and other political forces of the time. The worst of his hell realms -- the apex of awful -- was reserved for a couple of popes who had screwed Dante over. Sure, there were punishments for wrath, greed, gluttony, pride, lust, envy and sloth, but in Dante's hands, the hands of a poet, they took on a very graphic reality ... with the worst reserved for those who had done him wrong.

It tickled my ivories to think that it was a poet who might come down through the ages, tormenting those who did not live up to approved and sometimes ornamental values. The Bible might refer to hell in passing, but it was the ornamental symphony of a poet that hung baubles on the Christmas tree: Let me tell you how awful, terrible, horrific and fiery things can get! Dante may have created the Harry Potter not just of his times but of times yet to come.

The poet or prognosticator who can depict the blissful climes is bound to attract a swooning audience. Amen, brother! A-A-A-A-M-E-N! But isn't it true that where good news provokes an as-yet-unfounded hope, it's the fires of hell that strike the most alluring notes? The gouging, fiery sorrows win a hands-down roar of public approval because, what the hell, everyone has had their ox gored at one time or another; everyone has felt the lash of loss; everyone has been hurt and that pain is concrete and empirical. The bad stuff, the worries and the sorrow are verifiable in an individual life. Bliss might be nice, but discombobulation is fershur. And we bless the name of the poet who weaves our worries.

Who wouldn't lend an ear to the poet, the tale-weaver, whose depictions related to down-home experience, to a very reliable hell? As with the Republican agenda, it is ever so much more credible when the bad stuff is trotted out.

And what is true without is also true within, I imagine. The punishments, the worries and the woes come together in a symphony of credulity. There may be an element that wails, "Get me out of here!" but the fact is that the symphony is often lovely and beloved and if I did, somehow, "get out of here," my life would be gob-stopped and quite possibly boring as hell. Bliss, by whatever name, carries with it a very real promise of hell-fire.

As with all hard things, the escape route is not "out" but rather "in." Using bliss to eradicate sorrow is to enhance the square knots of that sorrow. For those fatigued by their own poetry, there is no option other than going to hell. Bliss is for bimbos. Hell is the road to any honest salvation.

And one of the first steps is to step back and allow the likes of Dante or Milton or the Bible or the Tripitaka to get some rest. OK, it's all wondrous and wide and sustaining and beautiful and horrific ... but give it a rest. There is hell ... really, really -- there is hell ... now what?

Thaddeus Golas, the author of "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment," once observed, "When you learn to love hell, you will be in heaven." At one level, this is one of those smarmy, fortune-cookie nostrums that all spiritual expositors can drop like so many candy wrappers... they've got the candy, you get the wrapper. But at another level, it's a pretty good observation -- one that invites the audience to stop applauding their hellish symphonies and find out for themselves.

Sure, it's scary as hell, but what other option is there for someone who has tired of an ornate and poetic symphony of horror?

a bit of grit

I've seldom been good at assessing what other people thought of me: I can imagine and sympathize about a lot of other things, but somehow I come up blank when the topic arises. What do others think ... I really don't know.

Simultaneously, as a parent, I am informed when others assess my children, people I know largely from their lives at home and thus from a pretty narrow perspective.

Last weekend, my daughter was the subject of a belated bridal shower. Since she and her husband had been married in Fiji, a lot of the lead-up to a more conformist wedding had been put to the side. So, over the weekend, the ladies got together, gave gifts and generally applauded my daughter.

And one of the games they played, according to my daughter, was one to determine how much she knew about her now-husband. What did he think or how did he think of her. My daughter said she got seven out of ten answers correct, which strikes me as a good batting average.

But one of the questions made her pause before answering. The answer was a bit too gritty for the frilly gathering ... but in the end, she gave it anyway. The question was, "What sort of animal does your husband associate you with?"

And the answer, which was correct, was, "a bumblebee because generally she just goes about her business, but if you give her any trouble, she will really fuck up your shit."

I like to think and like to hear that my children are good-natured, caring individuals. But I also have to admit that I like to hear they have a bit of grit.

wealth gap on Mt. Everest

A "donnybrook at 23,000 feet?"

That was one description of the dust-up between climbers and their Sherpa guides on Mt. Everest on Saturday.

Punches, kicks and even rocks were thrown, according to a statement posted Sunday on the website of one of the climbers, Simone Moro.

The Sherpas, locals who guide expeditions up the world's highest mountain, apparently became angered when the climbers from Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom did not listen to instructions from the Sherpas, moved above them on the peak and dislodged ice that fell in the direction of the Sherpas.

But apparently it wasn't just the fact that the well-heeled climbers ignored Sherpa instruction:

 "They're angry at this financial gap on their mountain," Jonathan Griffith said of the Sherpas. "These commercial trips are based on a lot of luxury and getting you up the mountain and a lot of these Western clients don't even know what the names of their Sherpas are."

Somehow the incident brings to mind the classic, if crude, description of stupidity: "Dumb enough to fuck up a wet dream."

elevated and mundane

Beer and bagels and cream cheese and vacuuming and scrubbing the upstairs bathroom and paying the rent ...

My daughter and her husband are coming tonight and there are chores that need doing before their arrival.

Time that I might otherwise spend writing -- something I can do without breaking a physical sweat and seem to take 'seriously' -- needs to be devoted to mundane, practical stuff that I have less energy and will to perform.

Funny how the most elevated and 'important' pastimes are invariably brought to heel by the unanointed and mundane.

You might think that at my age, I would have learned to lay off anointing things or categorizing them as mundane.

I thought you were supposed to get smarter as you got older.

Well, there's a piece of nonsense!

your dumbest mistake

Question: What is the dumbest mistake you ever made?

Personally, that's a question I really can't answer, although I have a very, very strong hunch that my biggest mistake is exactly and precisely the 'smartest thing I ever did ...'

Whatever that is.

"Let's Legalize Begging"

The following appeared in the local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, this morning. Since there are too many Internet hoops to jump through, I'll just print it instead of linking it.

LETS JUST GO AHEAD AND LEGALIZE BEGGING

Here's a modest proposal for the United States, Britain, France, Spain and whatever other countries imagine themselves to be exemplars of social and economic maturity:

Let's legalize begging.

Raven Storm, 30, who counts "the streets

of Northampton" as home, begs on

Main Street April 27, 2013.

Since, among others, American policy makers to date have made beggars of so many, the least the body politic could do in return would be to make begging a statutory right. As in, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness ... and begging.

Currently, begging may not be universally illegal, but I would argue that it deserves the status of a fully-enunciated right.

As an example of a wider attitude towards begging, the Michigan ACLU conducted a yearlong investigation and is suing the Detroit Police Department for scooping up beggars in an entertainment district, busing them miles away and letting them return as best they may. Detroit has one of the highest murder rates in the country, so it is a marvel the police may have found the time and manpower to deal so effectively with begging.

Written into my imaginary statute might be clauses designating some acceptable locations in which to exercise the right to beg: Outside banks, entertainment districts, stock brokerages, conglomerate headquarters, presidential homes, congressional watering holes and venues in which dress-down Fridays were still de rigueur.

Closer to home here in Northampton, the gates of Smith College or the Bank of America or the front door of Yes Computers might be possibilities.

Children attending classes in which teachers were forced to pony up basic supplies like paper, crayons, pencils, and glue might be given time off -- kind of a field trip in reality -- to stand with their signs and begging bowls outside suitably well-heeled organizations. Sorrowful faces would be optional.

Clearly such a proposal is likely to run into opposition. Those with the power to create laws on behalf of the common good are frequently the same people who don't like their streets littered ... either with grit, grime and plastic water bottles or with the human examples of what their world is most emphatically not.

"Mind you, I care about the poor, but, well ... couldn't they do it some place else ... some place not quite so obvious ... some place that is not my street?"

Yes, it would be an uphill battle even to get the legislation introduced. But you never know -- maybe a hot-blooded Tea Party politician with insistent religious credentials might take on the task of bringing the statutory right to beg to the attention of his or her important colleagues ... you know, the ones who helped dismantle and demolish regulations aimed at heading off future economic catastrophes (read derivatives) of the kind that struck in 2008.

And even if the legislation were introduced, it is highly unlikely to pass. No one would want to admit s/he had implicitly condoned the poverty s/he prefers to be seen as caring about and ameliorating.

All in all, legislation to legalize begging is a non-starter.  

"Oh well," as Saturday Night Live's fictional and wacky Emily Litella used to say when her misunderstandings were brought to light "... never mind!"

The only problem, of course, is that what is a legislative non-starter has already started.

Adam Fisher lives in Northampton and is the author of "Answer Your Love Letters: Footnotes to a Zen Practice."