Tag Archives: philosophy

April 7, 2016 · 3:03 pm

Apple Blossoms Return to Texas

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There are certain things that keep me going when my connection to the mortal coil begins to chafe and itch.  Apple blossoms are one of those things.  The apple blossoms have bloomed in our two Texas apple trees in April of 2016.  As I was raking endless live oak leaves out of my yard, making it harder for myself to breathe and continue living because I am allergic to live oak… and most of the rest of Texas to boot, I saw that the apple blossoms had burst forth from their buds.  Between coughs and gasps for breathe, it made me smile.  I ended the raking of endless live oak leaves after only thirty minutes and one sack of leaves.  I am laboring in the face of impending doom, but I am not stupid.  I needed to live to rake another day.  Otherwise I’ll never get it done.

But apple blossoms are worth the heartache and pain and toil of life.  They are not only something to remind me why I keep going.  They are a reason for being.  So I used my phone camera to take a picture of an open blossom.  Then I photo-shopped in a picture of my novel character, Valerie Clarke, the character I created as an amalgam of my lovely daughter and the pretty little girl in my third grade class that I fell madly in love with when I was a little boy.  Like most artists, I am quite capable of slapping beautiful things and ideas together haphazardly to make something that is either a huge pile of kitschy crap, or even more beautiful.  And like most artists, I am entirely too close to the feelings and memories and realities that make up this work of art to ever know for sure which of the two things it really is.  Forgive me if I chose the opposite one that you did. I try not to offend with my Paffoonies.  I try not to be a creep or a bore or a Philistine… but those things are not always possible to avoid.  But there are apple blossoms, and sunrises, and a number of other things as well that, in the end, balance out the equations quite nicely.

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March 27, 2016 · 2:53 pm

Thinking Differently

Buckminster Fuller is an intellectual hero of mine.  As he said in the video, if you bothered to watch it, “I was told I had to get a job and make money, but would you rather be making money, or making sense?”  Bucky was always a little bit to the left of center, and basically in the farthest corner of the outfield.  That’s why we depend so much on him in times like these when the ball is being hit to the warning track.  (I know the world doesn’t really work on baseball metaphors any more, but my life has always been about metaphors from 1964 with the St. Louis Cardinals playing and beating the New York Yankees.  Mantle was on their side, but Maris was playing for us.)  You have to live in the world that fits into your own mental map of reality.  And if you’ve been whacked on the side of the head one too many times… it changes the way you think.  You begin to think differently.  

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If you don’t know who Bucky is, as you probably don’t because he revolutionized the world in the 60’s and died in the 1980’s,  Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor.  He is credited with the invention of the Geodesic Dome.  But he was so much more than that.  He wanted to build things that made better sense, in a practical sort of way, than the way we actually do them.  He built geodesic homes because he felt a home should maximize space and use of materials and minimize costs and amounts of materials as well as environmental impacts.  He is the one who popularized the notion of “Spaceship Earth”.  He wrote and published more than thirty books, and gave us a variety of truly wise insights.  He promoted the concept of synergy.  He said, “Don’t fight forces, use them.”  He also pointed out, “Ninety per cent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.”  He was a man full of quotes useful for internet memes.

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So, lets consider an example from the mixed up mind of Mickey;

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Here are three dolls from the Planet of the Apes part of my doll collection. (Two different movies are represented here, the 1968 original, and the Tim Burton 2001 remake.)

The world we now live in is increasingly like the movie, The Planet of the Apes.  In that film the world the astronauts set down upon is ruled by talking apes.  The human beings in that film are relegated to the fields and forests where they are no more than speechless animals.  Much like the Republican Party and the wealthy ruling elite of this day and age, the apes control everything and, led by Dr. Zaius (seen on the far right) reject science and evidence as a way to explain things.  They rely on the rules set down by the Lawgiver in much the same way that modern day Republicans swear by the U.S. Constitution to determine the truth of all things.

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Here we see the apes capturing and enslaving Marky Mark… er… Mark Wahlberg rather than Chuck Heston from the original movie.

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In the original set of movies, Charleton Heston, playing the astronaut Taylor, discovers that through hatred and warring, the human beings of Earth have bombed themselves back into the stone age and enabled the evolved apes to take over.  How does Mr. Heston deal with that problem?  He discovers an old doomsday device and blows up the world.  Chuck Heston has always approved Second Amendment solutions to modern problems, so it is no wonder that he lays waste to everything, the good and the bad.  I think we can see that old orangutan-man, Donald Trump doing exactly the same things now as he runs for President, or Great Ape, or whatever…

In both the previous series, and the current remake, salvation from the rule of the monkey people comes in the form of a leader among the apes.  Caesar, whether he be played by Roddy MacDowell or by Andy Serkis, is able to solve the problems of apes and men by reaching out to those of the other species, assigning them value, and ultimately doing what helps everyone to survive and live together.  Diversity is power and provides a workable solution through cooperation.  The forces of hatred and fear are the things that must be overcome and threaten the existence of everyone.  Donald Trump needs to learn from the lesson of The Planet of the Apes, and be less like General Ursus.   We need Bernie Sanders to embrace the role of Caesar and show us how we can get along with our Muslim brothers… after all, they are more like us than the apes are, and Caesar builds bridges between apes and men.

So, there you have it, my attempt to build a new model based on an old movie… or on the remake… whichever you prefer.  And if that doesn’t work, well, there’s always…

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March 24, 2016 · 3:22 pm

Skyscape

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It is difficult to look at the sky and not feel that the power of Heaven is real.  As I approach the halfway point of my sixtieth year, and the darkness of the future draws ever nearer, I am forced to think about what I really believe.  Being smarter than the average bear has its drawbacks.  I understand why most of the writers I most admire were atheists, and all of the philosophers I have read and found agreement with are decidedly atheist.   Science, rationality, and reason all suggest that there is nothing beyond the physical realm.  Should that matter?  Faith, according to Mark Twain, is fervently believing in your heart what your mind tells you ain’t so.  In fact, Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.”  Even the Bible is saying you have to believe it even though you shouldn’t believe it.

So, will I go to Heaven when I die?  For me, the question is meaningless.  I look up at the miracle of a blue sky on a partly cloudy day and see the life-giving sun.  I am alive… here and now… and nothing else is really relevant.  I am a part of the great, vast universe of reality.  My existence is real and cannot be unmade… even by God, if He were inclined to do such a thing.  I am a small, insignificant part of reality, and I can be gone in the next instant like a puff of smoke in the wind.  But I am here and I am alive and I took the Paffooney picture that I used to illustrate this post.  And I face whatever comes with a smile on my face.  I am alive… and life is good.

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March 4, 2016 · 9:05 pm

Wizarding Ain’t Easy

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A wizard selfie taken at Mad Ludwig’s Castle in Bavaria.

My quest to become a wizard began when I was but a kid reading comic books.  It got a boost when I became a middle school English teacher and realized the fundamental truth of the universe, human beings know practically nothing at all… about anything.  The only path to wisdom is the way of the fool.

So, I embraced it.  It made it so much easier to teach and manage a classroom full of teenybumpers to realize the only thing that works when they laugh at you and make fun of you, is to be able to laugh at yourself and make fun of them right back.

I learned along the way that things that hurt you and make you suffer cause wisdom to happen.  You walk under a ladder and the painter accidentally drops a paint bucket on your head, and you realize that walking under a ladder is a bad thing to do in the future… not simply because of superstition either.

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Drawing and painting wizards is something I began to do too.  I find it fascinating to try to draw a wrinkly old face and attempt to put some kind of intelligence in the eyes.  I can get vapid and stupid really really well.  I think I know what that looks like in the eyes of another far better than I know what wisdom looks like.  And how do you know it is wisdom, anyway, and not merely constipation?  Can you see understanding and intelligence in the eyes of another?  I think you can.  But looking into the eyes of young learners for so many years and searching for those things, I realized that the best you can do is guess.  You could easily be wrong.

That is what wisdom is.  Make your best guess, but remember that you are probably wrong.  It is possible to do great and powerful magic in the world if you are a wizard and you have wisdom.  But it will not be easy.  And you must work hard.  And when you have to decide whether to speak or stay silent, the wise man is always silent first, giving himself time to think before he speaks.

“Are you a wise man, Mickey?” you ask.

“…” Mickey says.

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February 25, 2016 · 4:43 pm

Left is Right

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The finished portrait of Marla

With numerous health problems, I have difficulty with sleeping every night.  One of the worst problems I have is nocturnal acid reflux.  It makes me wake up in the middle of night with fire in my throat, like some sort of dyspeptic acid-spitting dragon.  I have to vault out of bed, arthritis and all, and go toss the contents of my stomach into the toilet.  Sorry to be so gross, but it is important to this theme to get a sense of just how bad it is to be on the wrong side.  What do I mean by that?  Well, I learned from a doctor recently that which side you lie on to sleep makes a big difference.  If you sleep on your right side at night, your stomach is oriented in a way that the top opening angles down towards the esophagus.  This leads to an unfortunate ooze of stomach acid that sets off the reflux crisis.  If, however, you sleep on your left side, the stomach is angled in a manner that allows gravity to work for you instead of against you.  I have been intentionally lying on my left side every night for a month.  It works.  No acid reflux.  Until last night.  But when I woke up gagging, I had unconsciously rolled onto my right side.  So it has become obvious to me,  the left side is the right side.

 

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The latest additions to my collection, January & February

Life has to be in balance.  But, unfortunately, it constantly shifts back and forth, up and down, and all around.  Keeping life in balance is a juggling act that may involve lying only on your left side while you sleep.

I worry too about the balance affecting the world as a whole right now.  We are very deeply mired in a time when political right and left are out of balance and have been for too long.  In politics, the right is the conservative belief that things should remain the same.  Since the Reagan administration, that has meant deregulating in the name of profits, free market capitalism, and letting Wall Street profit-makers do anything and everything they want to do to make higher profits.  The left is in favor of change.  When I was a kid, I can remember the left being a very bad thing.  They wanted communist-style revolution.  They robbed banks and blew things up.  But most of those leftists are now dead.  They still exist, but the far right is just as dangerous, the KKK, the militias, and they are far more numerous in this day and age.  The leftist agenda now is more what used to be the moderate position.  Senator Elizabeth Warren and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders want to re-regulate the Wall Street trends that caused the economic meltdown in 2008.   They want to promote progressive tax systems that move the money out of corporate profit-funnels and back into the hands of the middle class, and the institutions that benefit them.  There is a need to shift to the left.  There is need to restore balance.  Once again I think it is proper to say, the left side is the right side.

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Here is some of that leftist thinking from the socialist Public Television initiative.

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February 5, 2016 · 6:40 pm

Building Cardboard Castles

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The current state of my cardboard castle is pictured above.  I probably need to remind you that I am making this thing with my own hands.  It is made from old Ritz Cracker boxes with a layer of cutout skin printed from the computer.  It is put together with glue, tape, and a little bit of ingenuity… oh, and a lot of “insert tab A into slot B”.  It is shaping up into a very Elizabethan style of castle.  I originally started it to create props for use with the family Dungeons and Dragons game.  But it grows into a project existing for its own sake, a piece of artwork that is made just like so many others I have done before, in many small steps, one piece at a time.

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Here we are stepping back in time to what it looked like before, with fewer elements created.  You can see that the essentials are already added in here… the tavern and the outhouse… can’t live without either of those.

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It does, indeed, make a worthy addition and contribution to the ongoing D&D campaign currently journeying through the eastern cities of Aundair in the realm of Eberron.  We are seeking the stolen dragon eggs, and have recently conquered the castle of the Duke of Evernight, freeing it from its terrible curse.

But I do truly believe that the key to this art project, in fact, the theme of this whole post, is that big, impressive things are built our of one small step following another over time.  You build brick walls with a bricklayer placing one brick at a time.

Novels, too, are accomplished this way… one small step after another.  As are both the marriage and the raising of children in the life of a family.  Nothing worth building goes up in a flash… unless it’s built by the Flash… but he is only a character from a comic book and not real.  So, I continue to build.  One day soon, I shall have battlements capable of warding off goblins and orcs.  And for today, I have added another brick to the walls of my blog.

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December 31, 2015 · 4:46 pm

Wisdom of the Mickey

 

 

MickeyOne must end the year on a note that is either upbeat or regretful.  A heartfelt, “Meh,” just won’t cut it.

So here are a few particles of wisdom from the dustbowl of Mickey’s imagination.

The world is getting brighter… also hotter.  If we continue to chill on the topic of global warming, soon we will be fricasseed.

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You should definitely pay attention to your teachers.  They are mostly old and cranky and undervalued, and it makes them sad when they realize that no one really listens to them.

I learned this from the poet Dylan Thomas, “Rage! Rage! Against the dying of the light!”  He cursed death, and then he promptly went out and drank so much liquor, he died at a very young age.  Thank God I have lived to be old.

You are also pretty much stuck with the face that you are born with, so you better get used to it, and it has many varied uses… especially in the comic sense.

And I would also like to re-iterate the wisdom of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery;

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It is a bit of a disappointment to an artist to realize that what is essential is actually invisible to the eye… but I know it is true.  Truth resides in words.

The only wisdom I truly possess is the knowledge that I am a fool.

Since I was a mere stupid boy, and before I grew up to be a mildly stupid man, I always yearned to have wisdom.  And wisdom comes through experience and pain.  Now, years later, I realize what true wisdom is… I’d have been better off without all that pain.

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People are a lot like rabbits, except that they are not.

They can never eat too many carrots… unless they do.  And then their skin can turn orange.

There is no beast as noble as a rabbit… except for practically every other beast.

Turtles are not as noble as rabbits.  When you challenge them to a race, they cheat.

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People really ought to be naked more.  It’s true.  If you can strip yourself down to only what is fundamentally nothing but you yourself… you begin to know who you really are.  And it is not shame to let other people see.  Oh, wait a minute!  You thought I was talking about being literally naked?  Oh, no!  Metaphorically naked only!

One should be so opaque and obtuse that other people can see acutely right through you.  It is the only thing that makes nonsense into sense.

And we need to sing and dance a little more than we do.  A good song is healthy for the soul, no matter how badly you sing it.  And even if you are old and arthritic like me, dancing a good jiggity-jig keeps the bones loose and the heart thumping.

Everyone needs to dance with their children.  And talk to them.  You can learn more from them than they can from you.  They have more recently come here from the hand of God.  And they know things that you have forgotten… and will need to remember before you return to Him.

 

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I hope my anti-wisdom has not seriously screwed everybody up.

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December 26, 2015 · 4:31 pm

Roses at Christmas Time

When bad things happen, we can usually make something good out of them.  I have always believed this.  It is Midwestern pragmatism in action.  Hail destroyed the crops?  Martial your resources for the next growing season, or change from a farmer to something else more profitable.  There is always a way forward, even if you have to learn to be tougher and tighten the belt, or next year’s food supply depends on the farmer in the next county.  Global warming is threatening to cook us in our own juices?  Well, this year our confused roses in the yard are blooming like it was Springtime.  The part of the wheel at the bottom, crushed against the pavement, rises to the top again as we move forward on the bicycle of human life.

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All of these roses have bloomed during the Christmas holiday this year when temperatures sank no lower than the 50’s and got as high as 77 degrees.  It recalls a recent year when dorky daffodils poked their yellow heads out of the ground in January only to be murdered by snowstorm a week later.  Will these roses be subjected to the same fate?  Robert Herrick says, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”  We will pragmatically enjoy them while they are here, no matter what happens.  I have been writing a science fiction novel about environmental and political Armageddon.  It is set on another planet, but that planet stands in for Earth in my book.  But the point is that the universe goes on even if we are dumb enough to destroy ourselves by pillaging the natural world.  Yet, I don’t believe that will happen.  I see movement towards renewable energy, and political change for the better is in the wind.  In the end, I think humanity will dig down deep for that magical force we all possess.  We will be able to change for the better when we are forced to.  I don’t expect to live to see it.  I don’t figure I have another whole decade left to live, and the course we are on won’t be decided before 2050… probably.  But, all speculation aside, I am here now to enjoy roses blooming at Christmastime… and to share that rare feeling with you.

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December 11, 2015 · 7:53 pm

The Underdog

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Yesterday I failed to add to the list of magical powers I possess the ability to make football teams lose.  I have always believed that all I have to do is root for a team to win and they will lose.  I have tested out this power thoroughly over the years.  Through most of my life I thoroughly detested the Dallas Cowboys.  I hated the way they always seemed to have the advantage, the way they would always injure players on my favorite teams and force them out of football for the rest of the season, and they would always win.  Even after moving to Texas and, still rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals even after they moved to Arizona, I rooted against the Cowboys in every game they played.  I am amazed that they didn’t go undefeated for three decades.  But a little miracle called “General Manager Jerry Jones” happened to the Cowboys.  I moved to Dallas at a time when the team was being dismantled and dismembered by a magical ability of Jerry’s that seems very similar to my own.  The Cowboys became the underdog.  So much so that I actually began to root for them when they were not playing the Cardinals.  This, of course, magnified Jerry’s magical gifts tenfold.  The Cowboys became the same kind of perennial losers the Cardinals had always been.

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So, you can easily see that I am one of those superstitious nerd-body nincompoops who always pulls for the underdog.  I admit to helping the Boston Redsox win their first World Series at the end of “Babe Ruth’s Curse”.  Those perennial also-rans benefited from playing my beloved Cardinals’ baseball team.  So I rooted against them fiercely, and they won.  In fact, underdogs sometimes win even in spite of magical ability.  Some times they just have to win.  In 2006 the Cardinals won the World Series on the strength of Chris Carpenter’s throwing arm and Albert Pujols’ bat, along with a team of underdogs and ne’er-do-wells who all played far above themselves.  I rooted for them every step of the way.  And we lost some battles, but we won the war.  Such is the way it must be in this world.  The ultimate victory belongs to the Underdog, the unlikely superhero that is sometimes confused with a flying frog.

The football Arizona Cardinals came through for me again in the same way last night.  They were up against another good team in the Minnesota Vikings.  And in spite of the fact that I was rooting for them every step of the way, I saw them pull victory from the jaws of imminent defeat.  With mere seconds left, they created a fumble and recovered it, preventing a game-tying field goal that was practically in the bag.  The Cardinals are now in the playoffs with an 11 and 2 record, poised to make another run at the Superbowl.  That may not seem like an underdog to you, but if you look back over the years of rooting for a team that was often the butt of jokes and were usually losers like the current Cowboys are, then you can see that these are underdogs at the end of a long, long uphill climb.  And aren’t we all like that most of the time?  Aren’t we all climbing the mountainside in spite of numerous avalanches, storms, and falls?

Listening to the radio station KLUV doing their annual radiothon for Children’s Hospital while taking my daughter to school this morning, I heard the heartbreaking story of a little boy who is both autistic and epileptic.  Apparently he collapsed in school, and when taken to Children’s ER, was found to have leukemia as well.  I had to stop the car and cry for ten minutes.   It never seems fair to have to listen to stories like that.  You want to help the underdog to win.  But you feel totally powerless.  I don’t have enough money to pay my own medical expenses, and my daughter had to come home early with a fever.  But believe me, I had to donate $20 to Children’s Hospital.  It is a tiny, meaningless amount… but the magic is in the doing and the believing.  I will continue to use my goofy magic to the very best of my ability.

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December 7, 2015 · 7:29 pm

Framing the Picture

Framing the Picture (a poem about autobiography)

I pop out of bed and look in the mirror

And there is horror in that picture

Wrinkles, spots, and a crypt-skinned leerer,

Stare back from that ancient mixture.

It isn’t so terrible to be really old.

But you have to learn to live with the mold.

And it makes me long for when we were young,

When the sounds and feels of Spring had just sprung.

Remember how we were limber and spry?

And fully intended to write our names on the sky?

But looking back the picture will shift,

Deeds that were done shine brighter with fame,

With polish and retelling, the purpose to lift,

We remake the picture by placing the frame.

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The picture is called That Night in Saqqara I Was Taken By Surprise.  It is built on the themes of life versus death, youth versus age, fear versus courage, and probably other things that I never thought of because the interpretation is not entirely up to me.  I can indicate that the Mummy Imhotep has suddenly come back to life.  The picture on the wall behind him is supposed to suggest what he was like in life, at least in his own mind when he had it carved and painted in his tomb.  The boy Tanis is supposed to appear startled, but not afraid.  He wears the Ankh around his neck that symbolizes life and resurrection.  If the mummy kills him, as horror movie monsters once portrayed by Boris Karloff are apt to do, the mummy himself is proof that the dead live on in some way.  The god Horus on the sarcophagus is practically kissing Tanis on the lips  The hawk-headed god is also leading the procession on the side of the sarcophagus, which you may interpret as having the naked boy in line with the others following the god of resurrection and life.  But all of this drivel is me telling you what to see, and you are welcome to disagree with all of it.  Truth is our own to define.  And we define it by putting a frame around it and saying, “This is what you should look at.”  Aren’t we the silliest of creatures when we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that we can actually do that?

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This is called Wakanhca’s Daughter.  Wakanhca in the language of the Tetonwan Dakotah Sioux means “lightning dreamer” or, loosely translated, “Magic Man”.   But the interpretation is again up to the viewer.  The brave in the foreground could be that magic fellow since the shield he carries has figures on it that represent a bolt of lightning and a man flapping his arms.  The girl, however, is white-skinned and fair.  Possibly my own daughter rather than his?  Except the Princess wasn’t born until years after this was painted.  The stag, as well as the two Native Americans, is illuminated in a way that is brighter than what you might expect from a night of thunderstorms.  Is he a warrior’s spirit animal?  He is not behaving like a real deer or elk.  And is he looking at the girl, or the warrior?  Consider too, these framings;

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So, what, in the end is all this nonsense about “framing the picture”?  We are the authors of our own stories.  We get to set the whole thing in a frame of our own making.  Does that mean anything important?  Oh, probably not.

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