I have written on and off for the past few years and yet when I review my document, I have barely kept anything from the last 5 months. Lately, I have felt creatively bankrupt. I have started writing blog posts only to give up in disgust or boredom.
When I review my old poems from the last two years, I can see themes that come in waves, sometimes subconsciously. There was a motif of pirates on the high seas (often ending in disasters or being eaten by sharks), clouds, dreams and stars. But I have also have a theme of wrestling with the past. Of course there are heavy doses of nostalgia but more importantly, themes of the futility of living by the past, in the past, or the folly of living the answers of our past history. Anyway, here's one that I don't hate.
Time Travel Blues
You tell me you can travel back in time.
I'm telling you you might get yellow fever and die.
You're fumbling around in a dusty library
that never used the Dewey decimal system.
I’m sorry I can’t join you on your mission to the past.
You're traveling but your die is already cast.
Stop wondering about the history that never came about
I don't have many words to say about the murder of George Floyd that hasn't' said before but I'll start and end with:
Black Lives Matter
and
Defund the Police.
Also, we're living in a pandemic, that sucks. I am convinced Donald Trump's leadership has cost the US tens of thousands of lives. What a disaster. I am predicting at least 200,000 dead by the end of the fall and depending on developments/treatments/a vaccine possibly 250,000 by the end of the winter. I might be low-balling it too and this would not include the tens of thousands that we will likely never count in the official numbers. I still feel like we hit an alternate universe in 2016. Sigh.....well on that uplifting note:
Here's some fragments on life:
I am back in grad school for promotion purposes. I had an opportunity to write about Carl Barks in a big long paper and I have learned a hard lesson. By taking something you love and turning it into a research paper can drain some of the fun of it away. I still think it's fun but ya know, there was one night that I didn't want to read a Barks' story that I had never read before....that was weird. I am quite proud of my work but I don't want to reveal too much here (also I may get feedback that it sucks and then, never mind, I won't be proud of it anymore).
I don't even want to take another grad class right away but given my schedule, I will start another in August, with one week off. Blah.
My wife gave me a haircut. It was fun. Overall, given her inexperience, I have to give her an A for effort and C for the job. I'm wearing caps a lot when I go out. :)
I watched the Watchmen HBO series...was really great but I wasn't crazy about the ending. (SPOILER ALERT). I really wanted her to just throw the egg in the woods.
Also watched The Orville.....and not too shabby. I went in with low expectations. I would recommend if you know it's a homage to TNG and you know it's going to be just "okay"....you'll like it. It's not groundbreaking but I would be lying if I didn't laugh a few times and I am looking forward to the next season (apparently, they had to stop filming but they are done with at least seven episodes...maybe they can release what they have in the fall??).
One of my best friends might be moving out of state. I am really bummed and now I realize even though we were both busy raising families, doing life, we never spent as much time together as we should have. I am having major regrets as I figured they would live here for the long haul. That's life for ya....you don't appreciate people or opportunities until they're gone.
Kids responded as well as kids could respond to the pandemic/school at home. It's been tough and yet, we're survived in large part due to the efforts of my lovely wife.
I hate Zoom.
My birthday is coming up, yipee, According to my calculations, I will be 43. I still feel like a young 36. I am not sure I am all wiser than I used to be. I am still fumbling, bumbling my way through life with usually a smile and a sarcastic remark. My goal this year is to be kinder, more forgiving, less prone to yell at the kids and more thoughtful. Lofty goals, I admit....time will tell if I can do it.
I have been in contact with two people from work via texts/phone calls since the pandemic broke. Also, another one by email (occasionally) and everyone else just dropped off the planet. I kinda was hoping one friend would reach out (we exchanged emails in April, when I emailed her)...but now I am playing the whole, "it's your turn to contact me"...and finding out she probably doesn't care...lol. Kinda a bummer but it is what it is.
I am supposed to be grading papers or I could be working on my big paper due next week...and I just don't have it in me tonight. Sigh.
That's it. Stay safe out there, kids. Wear your mask, wash your hands and after that don't forget to give your cat a good pet down once in a while.
There's not a person who wonders what life would be like if they were wealthy. Who hasn't dreamed of winning the lottery? Why couldn't have life just turned out a little bit differently?
Well, buckle up, my fellow Confucius Fanatics, on this post of "Confucius Didn't Say That", I enter unprecedented, new territory... a quote that isn't quite by Confucius, but it's the closest we've ever come on the series.
You'll see, I don't want to spoil it just yet.
Here's today's gem:
"Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven." - Confucius
Unlike most quotes on the series, which are largely pulled out a black hole of Google ignorance and idiocy, this quote is ACTUALLY IN THE ANALECTS.
Tim & Eric to the rescue. This .gif has aged like fine wine. It's a classic.
Yeah, it shocked me too. It's as if the top ten Google quotes have been getting better of late..so yes, we have our first quote on the series that is actually in the Analects and yet I still scratched out Confucius in the quote above because.....wait for it.... he didn't actually say it.
This is as close as we've come on this blog series to an actual quote from Confucius but let's make this absolutely clear, the quote actually comes from Zi Xia, one of Confucius' disciples, not Confucius himself. Zi Xia was a pretty big deal too, it seems after Confucius' death, he opened up his own Confucian school and was quite successful....but the truth is even more complicated than that because once you see the quote in context, the quote really isn't even from Zi Xia!
Zi Xia is actually quoting a (traditional) proverb. There's no evidence to suggest one or way or the other if Confucius would agree with this proverb (although I have a few guesses below).
So, while it's as close to having a "real" Confucius quote on this blog series....as far as I am concerned it's just as bad as the others. Not only is it not from Confucius, but the quote is also completely and utterly out of context. So much so, it renders the actual passage to mean something nearing the approximate opposite of its intention.
"Sima Niu, upset, said: “Everyone has brothers, I alone have none.”
Zi Xia said, “I have heard this proverb: "Life and death are up to Fate. Wealth and honor are held by Heaven."
“If
the noble man is reverent without lapse, and courteous to everyone
within the frame of propriety, everything within the four seas will be
his brother. Why should a noble man be concerned about not having
brothers?”
The quote taken out of context seems to be saying that your birth and death are fated but your wealth is a
blessing from Heaven. To Western ears, the idea of Heaven would likely be associated with God. One might get the impression that Confucius had similar ideas about God/Heaven that many Westerners have. One might think Confucius is like the ancient Joel Osteen, health and wealth, baby!
Look, I have nothing clever to say here, just that Joel Osteen is an idiot.
Even if this quote was 100% true, I find it neither insightful nor helpful. It's the worst kind of advice or "wisdom" proverbs. It reinforces the idea that you have no control over your life. Life and death? Fated. You're not rich? Too bad, God doesn't want you to be rich, you greedy butt-hole. You play the role of a victim in a game where you didn't set the rules and can't even control your own game piece.
I disagree with the quote on the merit of its claims as well. I don't think your life or death is fated, I don't think God wills people to be wealthy or poor. While free will is limited, it's also a
fact that we do have at least some free will. And before you get technical on me, even if it turns out we don't have free will in any meaningful way, it's certainly better to believe it.
Let's unpack the analect selection a little further but I should point out I am only an amateur Chinese philosopher fan (I bet you haven't heard that very often). I freely admit I don't have a firm grasp of the Chinese language used here nor am I an expert on the concepts or historical background. On one hand, I am not sure if it's "fate" or "Fate" (I've seen this translated differently) and I am honestly not sure what the difference between my death being ordained by Fate (or fate) and my wealth determined by Heaven might be, given that they are both out of my hands. Although I could explain Confucius' conception of Heaven better than his idea of "Fate", I don't need to bother because it neither help us really understand the meaning and message of the passage.
Okay, so that's just getting the theoretical stuff out the way, hopefully, this next part won't be so boring. Now we gotta talk about Sima Niu. Trust me, it's important, just bear with me.
Sima Niu is described as being "upset" when he pathetically states, "Everyone has brothers, I alone have none.” You might be thinking this is an exaggeration for effect because, after all, we all have felt alone in the world at one time or another. However, it turns out he really did "lose" his brothers (at least in some sense).
According to Edward Slingerland (his translation of the Analects is clear and his additional notes indispensable), one of Sima Niu's older brothers had caused trouble for Confucius previously and had planned a revolt against his sovereign, while his other older brother had already carried out an unsuccessful revolt earlier in his life.
As Slingerland states, "The comment 'He alone has no brothers' is not meant literally; the point is either that he has no brothers truly worthy of being considered brothers, or that all of (his) brothers are in exile...and therefore as good as dead" (Slingerland 127).Meaning, Sima Niu is feeling lost and without a center. He is in need of good advice.
Zi Xia's first response to Sima Niu's suffering is that traditional proverb we've already read... but he immediately follows it up with the wisdom of his own. This immediate response might be read as a slight rebuke of the proverb. It implies the old proverb is at least not applicable in this case and at worse it implies the proverb to not be useful at all.
The advice that Zi Xia does give focuses on what the upset Sima Niu can do. And the advice is really good:
“If
the noble man is reverent without lapse, and courteous to everyone
within the frame of propriety, everything within the four seas will be
his brother. Why should a noble man be concerned about not having
brothers?”
In other words, we shouldn't focus on the past or things you can't control, we should focus on what we can control. We have to realize that life, death and riches are largely out of our control. All we have are our choices. The advice is almost existential.
Of course, Zi Xia isn't an existentialist at all and he proves it with a VERY Confucian claim that if you are good, good things will surely follow. It's a hopeful and quite naive point that Confucius and his followers constantly make. It's possibly seen most clearly in 4:25:
"The Master said: “If you are virtuous, you will not be lonely. You will always have friends.”
Confucius had an almost unhealthy faith in the power of a good example or righteous character. When the right things were being done (by the right people)....things would fall into place for everyone.
It was almost as close as the usual grounded Confucius gets to magical or religious thinking. This quote is from 16:2:
"The Master said: “When the Way (just government) prevails in the realm,
then ritual, music and military campaigns are all initiated by the
emperor. When the Way declines in the realm, then ritual, music and
military campaigns are initiated by the nobles. When these things are
initiated by the nobles, the ruling house will usually lose its power
within ten generations. When these things are initiated by the high
ministers, the ruling house will usually lose its power within five
generations. When they are initiated by the lower officers, the ruling
house will lose its power within three generations. When the Way
prevails in the realm, the common people do not debate politics among
themselves.”
All in all, I think Zi Xia gives good advice but I wouldn't go as far as Confucius in my faith that my good examples and choices will be rewarded. I do agree with the sentiment that if we focus on our choices and we work on building character, we will find more doors opening for us than if we don't.
Humans have always excelled when we focus on what we can do, not what we can't do. We need to follow Anna's advice from Frozen 2. Anna had it right, all we can do when things get tough is to "do the next right thing".
To be clear the movie is pretty okay but this song "Do the Next Right Thing" is amazing.
Yeah, I did it, I wedged a Frozen 2 and a The Fiddler on the Roof reference in a single blog post about Confucius. Life achievement unlocked!! Thank you Good Night!!!
I've been going though my drafts of blog posts I never finished so here's one I polished up today.
Here's a short list from my memory banks that my kids mispronounced. We still say them around the house sometimes. I am writing this because I don't want these to escape into the ether of memory. So, here ya go.
My oldest daughter called granola bars,"Gorilla Bars"
My oldest daughter called hand sanitizer, "hanaitizer"..which I think is pretty ingenious.
My middle daughter called coyotes, "COY - otes".
My middle daughter told us the toilet was "flooding up" and used that term several times, again, I think it really describes what was happening quite well.
My son called the Ninja Turtles as "Engine Turtles". I think one of the only words he did not pronounce correctly, so we let him mispronounce this longer than we would have usually.
My son started calling Parmesan cheese, "Parmish". I think he could say it but he couldn't remember the word for it...so he got "Parmish"...we think it's perfect.
"If I write something, it will be posted here. Just don't expect too much. I'll probably abandon it sooner or later."
Well, ten years later and the blog is still chugging along. I undersold the blog because, well, I didn't quite know what it would become (I also tend to undersell everything as I find there's wisdom in doing so). Additionally, I was so haphazard, unfocused and busy that the best one could hope for, would be a blog featuring just the bare fragments of ideas. A blog not themed on any one topic but serving as an outlet for random ideas, memories, musings, etc.
Well, by no planning and almost zero foresight, today marks my tenth year (and 372 posts) of blogging.
So, uncork the champagne and order cake and balloons and celebrate my first decade of blogging.
Just a pic of me and some buddies having the time of our lives. We had a big party for the blog last weekend, the rule was we all had to wear black and get our teeth whitened. Don't get your feelings hurt because you weren't invited. It was a pretty exclusive party. I couldn't invite all my readers.
Sure, it's not like I blog every day, but still, nothing to sneeze at either, bub. You know anyone else that has a blog after 10 years of almost zero readership?
Yeah, neither do I......um...erm...(sigh)....yeah, not many of us left.
Anyway, I started the blog at the tail end of the Golden Era of personal blogs (2003-20011). During that time, MySpace was a thing but with the ascendancy of Facebook, blogs changed. When my wife and I had our first baby she blogged about motherhood and the kids and it was a damn good blog. I think she blogged for about 3-5 years, but when kiddo # 3 came around, the blog became defunct (I mean, a lot of things become defunct when you have three kids).
FB changed everything. After all, it was a hell of a lot easier to update and to maintain a profile than to blog. In the early teens, there were still a good number of news blogs, but alas, many of those have fallen by the way side as well.
I'm sure there's plenty of personal blogs out there but as much as I joke about having no readers...I'm not reading anyone else's blog either (but seriously, I'll follow yours if you follow mine).
I and the blog have changed over the years, but one thing hasn't changed. I still find it enjoyable to write. I might have a beer tonight to celebrate. Here's to another ten years of blogging about whatever weird stuff strikes my fancy. So, click around if you'd like or not and just go along your merry way.
If you're still reading this, why? Just click around or be on your way. I'm pretty sure I'll be around blogging till Google folds Blogger into internet oblivion or I die. In the meantime, while we face the pandemic, talk a nice walk outside in the evening, take a deep breath and stare up at the stars and wonder.
It's been awhile since I've shared an art project. Given that I have had a little more time to be home (as we all do), I started doodling a scene from a Carl Bark's story, "The Black Pearls of Tabu Yama". I have love of Carl Barks, so it was just a matter of time when I found the right thing to re-create. The image comes from the first page of the story, and I found it quite captivating.
So, I went for it. I was hampered by two major things. First, I didn't have enough paint to paint it, so I decided on using map pencils. I also couldn't scourge up a small enough ink point and being that we are in quarantine, I didn't have the patience to just wait for an online order, so I worked ahead anyway despite my limitations. While map pencils have their own unique, child-like charm, it is still an imperfect medium. Nevertheless, it is what it is: a fun project to waste the hours of the day, to day-dream about an adventure on the high sea.
I added a few more seagulls and clouds as well to fill up the now vacated space.
I'd give you a close up of the ship but man, I really goofed up those ducks.
