Tag Archives: philosophy

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.

Ima mickey

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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December 4, 2015 · 8:35 pm

Notes From the Archangel Michael

I was born and raised a Methodist.  But I married into the Jehovah’s Witness faith.  Yes, those annoying little people who come knocking at your door offering free Bible studies and wanting to talk to you about the “good news from God’s Word the Bible”.  I was one of them for the better part of 20 years.  And I want to tell you from the outset that I have been guilty of knocking on doors.  I have been threatened to have the dogs sicked on me.  I have been threatened with guns by Winchuks, Hickenloopers, and other rednecks.  Laughingboy Larry, a seventh and eighth grade former student of mine even begged me to come to his door so he could throw a pie in my face.  I requested lemon meringue pie because… mmm, lemon meringue!  Jehovah’s Witnesses are not bad people.  They are real honest-to-God Christians who believe and teach the essential lessons of Christianity, Love and Forgiveness.  Some of the finest people I have ever met are self-sacrificing, hard-working Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I would never speak against them.  But this post has to explain why I no longer am one of them.

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I have always been a reader of the Bible.  I began seriously reading it in my youth when I was a victim of sexual assault and the life-threatening depression that can cause.  A very thoughtful and loving Methodist minister, the father of my best friend, taught me how to use the Bible to seek answers and find comfort.  As a Jehovah’s Witness, I have read the entire Bible cover to cover twice.

But I have also always been a Christian Existentialist, even before I knew what that was.  I believe that existence precedes essence.  There has to be a real, observable rock in front of me before I grant faith in the existence of a rock.  I don’t accept “rock-ness” as something that is real because other people tell me that “rock” exists.  If God is going to be the rock upon which I build my faith, then I have to observe that God is real.  I need proof.  Superstition is acceptance of something without proof.  As far as I can tell, almost all religions… organized religions… are based on superstitions.  “How do you know that Jesus loves me?”  “Because the Bible tells me so.”  “Why must I believe I go to Heaven when I die?”   “Because your father and his father before him believed it.”  “Can I accept these as real reasons… as evidence?”  “Of course not.  These things follow the patterns of superstition.”

“Kill the infidel! Die a hero’s death, and you will be granted 99 virgins in paradise.”  “How do you know this to be true?”  “Allah has told me in a dream.”

 

So, if you follow any of this (undoubtedly due to the same curse of relentless intelligence that plagues me), you are probably wondering why I don’t just come out and claim to be an atheist like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens?  Well, because I believe in God.  I have seen the proof.  When I talk to God, he answers me.  When I ask him to guide me, he sends signs and leads me to the answers I seek.  He comforts me, even though it is only by helping me to find comfort in my own mind… my own self.  He helps me find the power within me to do what is right and overcome what is wrong.  Why, then, am I not still a Jehovah’s Witness?  Why am I not still knocking on doors?

The truth, as I see it, is… each of us must find God for ourselves.  Each of us must obtain the certainty we seek with our own efforts, or be satisfied with a perpetual state of not knowing all the answers.  Either result is perfectly acceptable.  Jehovah’s Witnesses will tell you that you can’t obtain eternal life unless you believe what they believe, do what they do, and accept everything just as they interpret it from their magic book.  Personally, I believe there is no eternal life.  I am made of star stuff (as Carl Sagan used to say, because science has mathematically proven it is true).  When I die, the configuration of star stuff that is me will simply be no more.  But I have existed.  And my atoms will go through a large number of processes that disperse them and turn them into something else.  My individual consciousness will be disbanded, but the overall consciousness of the universe will remain.  The universe is greater than I am.  In fact, the whole human race could wink out of existence in a massive fireball that consumes planet Earth, and the whole still remains.  I don’t have to worry about any of it.  I am the author of my own story.  I am responsible for its content, both good and bad.  And I am not sorry for any of it.

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Most of the angels used in this post are by William-Adolphe Bouguereau…and one is by me.

Now you know the awful truth.  Mickey is a humanist.  He thinks for himself about everything… even matters of religion.  How horrible!

“Tell me, oh great and powerful, Vishnu, will I be offered 99 virgins in paradise if I kill him for you?”

“No, Singh-Rama O’Malley.  You are simply being stupid and superstitious.  And besides, that particular superstition doesn’t belong to my religion.  You are mixing things up.”

“Oh, sorry, Lord Vishnu.  But is it okay if I don’t kill myself for my error?”

“Singh-Rama, you are a child of the universe… no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.  And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding… as it should.”  (Note; These last words are the words of the poet Max Ehrmann in his wise poem, Desiderata.)

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December 1, 2015 · 7:37 pm

Dancing on the Edge

20151201_103041Life is fraught with all sorts of real dangers, and I face them all every day.  But I also suffer from acrophobia, the fear of heights.  And I can tell you for a fact that it is not a real thing.  It is a mental disorder that makes it difficult to get up on a ladder and paint the house.    It makes it difficult to walk next to the railing in any balcony.  And yet, I have proof that is a phony fear, a goofy fear, an all-in-your-head sort of thing.  Not only do I face it and overcome it (I have been able to paint the house), but I love the window seat when riding in an airplane.  Looking out the window after take-off is an adventure better than any video game.  I love to fly.  That irrational fear is a different irrational fear.

And yet, acrophobia paralyzed me once in a panic attack.  We were visiting Arches National Park in Utah.  My wife thinks it’s rather funny to watch me cringe when she can walk up to the edge of a cliff and look over.  She wanted to take a picture of the Princess when our daughter was only five, and she had her backed up near the edge to take the picture with a big deep hole behind her.  I strenuously objected, and would’ve gone out and grabbed her, but I was paralyzed with fear, and I realized I might very well pitch us both over the edge.  In spite of my objections, the picture was taken.  The Princess even jumped up and down a couple of times before she left the edge.  I was curled up in the passenger seat of the van after that with my hands over my eyes and shaking like someone was electrocuting me.  The wife got a good laugh at my expense, and my suffering was entirely too real, though no one else in the car believed it.  (Yes, that certainly made it better, didn’t it?)

My Art

But life is like that.  In so many ways we live our lives on the very edge of the metaphorical cliff.  I have six incurable diseases and I am a cancer survivor.  But I am not taking my four medicines any more because of the cost and what health insurance refuses to pay.  I can’t even afford the copay at the doctor’s office as often as I really ought to be going.  Climate talks in Paris are trying to solve the global warming crisis, but scientists report things like the methane gasses from the melting permafrost, and we realize it may already be too late.  The world may become a boiling ball of heat and acid rain like the planet Venus because so many corporations for so many years put profit margins above environmental protections.  We may succeed in snuffing out life on earth, so I am seriously not alone being on the brink of a plummet into the permanent darkness of non-existence.  But what can you really do?  Do you stop living?  Do you curl up in a fetal ball and quake with fear?

I choose to dance.  I have proven time and time again that I can overcome that irrational fear.  It does not have to rob me of joy and make me suffer.  It is all a matter of the choices we make.  I do my best to recycle and plant growing things that make oxygen out of carbon dioxide.  I do my best not to get sick.  I choose to do what I believe is the wisest thing to do in the face of the deep dark precipice.  I choose to dance.

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November 28, 2015 · 5:54 pm

Late Autumn Rains

20151128_092151It is raining again in Texas, and cold enough to make the leaves turn red and yellow and orange.  The cracked and useless swimming pool is filled with rain water.  The sky is gray. El Niño  is here for a visit.  And he is not a well-behaved little boy.

I am confined indoors again by arthritis pain and breathing difficulties.   But I don’t mind.  I can travel by the wings of my imagination.  Things in my world are soaring once again amongst the clouds… and dancing like kites in the wind.

I have not taken any depression medication in six months, and I seem to be happier for it.  We have hot chocolate to drink and… mmm… pumpkin pie.  The cool winds are a reminder of what is was like as a boy in Iowa in the 60’s and 70’s.  Thanksgiving now past… Christmas coming…  I haven’t celebrated those holidays in 20 years, my wife being a Jehovah’s Witness, and I myself still identified with the congregation… even though my faith is somewhat stumbled… not in God himself, but in how men make pronouncements about what to think and what to say and who to be… in the name of magical rewards that the universe is not capable of delivering.  No higher power will step in to rescue us from our fears and misfortune.  That is not what God is there for.  He does not ask for slavish devotion, or rituals, or the sacrifice of your firstborn son.  That is superstition.  He only offers the chance to live, and laugh, and… love.  It is the only reward I need.  I do not fear the coming winter.  The weather may erode my mountain fortress and the rains may eventually make the rivers of life to drown me, but I have lived, and loved, and laughed.  And not even God can take that away.

I am sorry if this sounds somber and depressed to you.  I hear a different music than that.  I hear a resounding joy.  And even if I die right this minute, I am happy, for all is complete.  “Whether or not it is clear to you… the universe is unfolding as it should.” (The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann)

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