As devoted readers of this blog know, I'm about to move to New Orleans. I'm a bit puzzled about what to do with this blog. Or, more specifically, I'm puzzled about the picture above. It was taken in New England and it belongs to New England. I hate to change it.
Perhaps I will start writing all new posts in my newer blog (Transient.) Haven't decided yet. But somehow I suspect that New Orleans will provide plenty of material. C. suggested that I start another blog, but it seems to me pretentious to have three blogs. It's somewhat pretentious to have two blogs, actually. And come to think of it, it's pretentious to have any blog at all . . . but it's too late now.
To everyone who comes across this page: go well, with blessings.
Showing posts with label memoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memoir. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, October 02, 2009
Poetry Roundup #2
(cross-posted on Facebook)
elephant lore
the elephant sleeps and dreams of home
awakens to find to find itself captive and
often dies of homesickness
therefore the elephant drivers keep their elephants awake
therefore, says the poet,
live in fear
that someday your heart will awaken
and remember its home
(from Wilberforce-Clarke's notes on the 359th ghazal of Hafiz)
a misconception
Love is not a reward for good behavior.
It's a function of the universe:
Like sunlight, like rain,
it falls on everyone
Indifferently,
Joyously.
Immigration
I said recently, "We are all hyphenated Americans."
We all came from elsewhere (so they say.)
And when we arrived here, the earth said "Welcome!"
It didn't say, "No, go home!"
It couldn't say, "If you're staying, at least don't kill anyone."
It could only say:
"Whatever you put into me will come back to you.
If you sow poison, you will reap poison.
If you shed blood, someday blood will come looking for you."
elephant lore
the elephant sleeps and dreams of home
awakens to find to find itself captive and
often dies of homesickness
therefore the elephant drivers keep their elephants awake
therefore, says the poet,
live in fear
that someday your heart will awaken
and remember its home
(from Wilberforce-Clarke's notes on the 359th ghazal of Hafiz)
a misconception
Love is not a reward for good behavior.
It's a function of the universe:
Like sunlight, like rain,
it falls on everyone
Indifferently,
Joyously.
Immigration
I said recently, "We are all hyphenated Americans."
We all came from elsewhere (so they say.)
And when we arrived here, the earth said "Welcome!"
It didn't say, "No, go home!"
It couldn't say, "If you're staying, at least don't kill anyone."
It could only say:
"Whatever you put into me will come back to you.
If you sow poison, you will reap poison.
If you shed blood, someday blood will come looking for you."
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Ambivalent Legacy
Two recent news stories collided in my mind and I imagined that the late Ted Kennedy had once kidnapped an 11-year-old girl, kept her captive in his backyard for 15 years and fathered two children on her. (Is that worse than leaving someone to die in a submerged car? Answer to rhetorical question: yes, I believe that prolonged abuse is worse than a "quick" death. But anyway.)
On one of the blogs I visit, a discussion began on who was the "greatest American Senator" ever. Someone suggested Henry Clay (about whom I know nothing) and someone else objected on the grounds that Clay owned slaves. Then they headed into "you can't judge the past by the standards of the present" territory. Personally I can't bring myself to agree with that. It implies that nobody back then knew that slavery was wrong. I am sure that the people who were living in slavery knew it was wrong.
It's just that their opinions didn't count (because slaves are not human.) And possibly there are people today who think that their opinions still don't count. A thing does not become immoral until the ruling class decides that it's immoral. Isn't that right?
The Kennedys are just a big heap of moral ambiguity. They did so many good things! They did so many bad things! Which one outweighs the other? We all hope to be judged kindly. But I . . . I don't think it's just a question of "I did ten good things and five bad things" or "I did three really good things and 15 things that were not really all that bad." I think it's a question of power.
If someone uses their power for good, then that's good. If they use their power for bad -- yeah, that's bad. Abuses of power count for much more on the bad side than right uses of power count for the good. And the reason is that people excuse abuses committed by the powerful. They do this because they want to ally themselves with the powerful. There's no point in standing up for someone who has no power. How can they benefit you? You want to curry favor with someone who has favors to hand out. You don't associate with losers.
I blogged recently about a conversation between a childhood friend of mine, and someone who bullied me in childhood. I didn't mention that the bully also wrote "I admire you standing up for her." Because it is so very unusual to take the side of someone who's demonstrated themselves to be a loser. She didn't mean standing up for me at the time, either. She's talking about their present conversation, years later. Even now it is admirable, in the mind of a bully, to say just one little word.
Yes, a certain number of people are willing to side with the underdog, at least some of the time. A large number of people are the underdog . . . sometimes they side with their oppressors and sometimes they don't. I'm trying to say more than just "side with the underdog" . . . I'm trying to say, that powerful people are dangerous. Because somehow, crimes against the powerless are always minimized.
I appreciate the ambiguity of someone who uses their powers both for good and for evil. There's also a saying about "someone who has the power to do evil, but refrains . . . ." But I just can't join in unmitigated, or even faintly mitigated, praise. Because there are too many people, alive and dead, who never got a chance to speak for themselves. That's why.
On one of the blogs I visit, a discussion began on who was the "greatest American Senator" ever. Someone suggested Henry Clay (about whom I know nothing) and someone else objected on the grounds that Clay owned slaves. Then they headed into "you can't judge the past by the standards of the present" territory. Personally I can't bring myself to agree with that. It implies that nobody back then knew that slavery was wrong. I am sure that the people who were living in slavery knew it was wrong.
It's just that their opinions didn't count (because slaves are not human.) And possibly there are people today who think that their opinions still don't count. A thing does not become immoral until the ruling class decides that it's immoral. Isn't that right?
The Kennedys are just a big heap of moral ambiguity. They did so many good things! They did so many bad things! Which one outweighs the other? We all hope to be judged kindly. But I . . . I don't think it's just a question of "I did ten good things and five bad things" or "I did three really good things and 15 things that were not really all that bad." I think it's a question of power.
If someone uses their power for good, then that's good. If they use their power for bad -- yeah, that's bad. Abuses of power count for much more on the bad side than right uses of power count for the good. And the reason is that people excuse abuses committed by the powerful. They do this because they want to ally themselves with the powerful. There's no point in standing up for someone who has no power. How can they benefit you? You want to curry favor with someone who has favors to hand out. You don't associate with losers.
I blogged recently about a conversation between a childhood friend of mine, and someone who bullied me in childhood. I didn't mention that the bully also wrote "I admire you standing up for her." Because it is so very unusual to take the side of someone who's demonstrated themselves to be a loser. She didn't mean standing up for me at the time, either. She's talking about their present conversation, years later. Even now it is admirable, in the mind of a bully, to say just one little word.
Yes, a certain number of people are willing to side with the underdog, at least some of the time. A large number of people are the underdog . . . sometimes they side with their oppressors and sometimes they don't. I'm trying to say more than just "side with the underdog" . . . I'm trying to say, that powerful people are dangerous. Because somehow, crimes against the powerless are always minimized.
I appreciate the ambiguity of someone who uses their powers both for good and for evil. There's also a saying about "someone who has the power to do evil, but refrains . . . ." But I just can't join in unmitigated, or even faintly mitigated, praise. Because there are too many people, alive and dead, who never got a chance to speak for themselves. That's why.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Out of the Past
Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I discovered that two of my friends from elementary school were "friends" with someone who constantly teased me. I told them about it. One of them wrote to her "you were one of the kids that tortured her in school, so not cool."
This person's response:
On the other hand, who taught these kids that "doing your own thing" was not okay? They did all of us a disservice. I'm angry about that.
This person's response:
Nope, you are right about it not being so cool. It taught many of us a good lesson to stop bullying. . . . She was always way brighter than most of us and did her own thing. Doing your own thing was something that took many of us years later to realize that it was okay.On the one hand, I wonder exactly when "we" learned this lesson, because they certainly didn't stop teasing me the whole time I went to school there.
On the other hand, who taught these kids that "doing your own thing" was not okay? They did all of us a disservice. I'm angry about that.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Rainbow Fields
When I was a college freshman, I spent a semester in therapy. For the first session, the counselor handed me a pad of paper and some crayons. "Draw a picture of your childhood," she said.
That was easy. Without hesitation, I drew a large circle, for the horizon. I drew a line intersecting the southern edge of the circle - that was the road. Most of the circle I colored green, pink and blue. The fields were green - they were never actually pink and blue, but that's the way I remember them: magical colors. In the summer they turned orange and yellow (for real!) with Indian paintbrush flowers. I should have drawn the woods too but I can't remember if I did.
I put a dot out in the field to represent myself. Where our house was I put a large black dot. It was concentrated: thick, black, ugly. I put four dots next to it to represent my family. I put one more dot outside of the circle to represent my father. Then I was done.
The counselor and I looked at the picture. "What do you see?" she asked. I started to explain it to her and then I stopped.
"That's strange," I said. "I didn't intend to do that."
"What?" she asked (no doubt with a certain professional satisfaction.)
"That dot out in the field is me," I said. "That's where I was happy. I put four dots to represent my family . . . my mother, my two brothers . . . and me, again. I didn't realize I was putting myself twice."
"There are two of you," she said.
"Yeah. There are two of me."
I don't recall that we talked about that very much. I needed time to assimilate this new idea, and there were more specific things that I wanted to talk about. But it's certainly true that I spent a lot of time - then, and right up to now - trying to find my real self. Not the self that everybody else saw, or failed to see.
It's certainly true that the lessons I learned in the rainbow fields are what have kept me alive. To summarize: the human world is not the only world, thank goodness. Human beings (including myself) are selfish, narrow-minded, and scared.
There's a whole universe out there, much bigger than humanity. It provides beauty, nourishment, and a certain amount of danger, too. It is constantly changing. Constantly alive. Humans build their little structures and push their little buttons. Many of them don't seem to realize that the universe is alive. Life goes on without them. I was stifling inside that little box. I had to get out.
Sometimes I still forget those lessons. But I have to remember, because I can't survive without them. (And even though I live in the city now, I worry about people who have never known any other environment. That can't be good.)
The universe still surprises me.
Note: I posted a slightly different version of this on my other blog.
That was easy. Without hesitation, I drew a large circle, for the horizon. I drew a line intersecting the southern edge of the circle - that was the road. Most of the circle I colored green, pink and blue. The fields were green - they were never actually pink and blue, but that's the way I remember them: magical colors. In the summer they turned orange and yellow (for real!) with Indian paintbrush flowers. I should have drawn the woods too but I can't remember if I did.
I put a dot out in the field to represent myself. Where our house was I put a large black dot. It was concentrated: thick, black, ugly. I put four dots next to it to represent my family. I put one more dot outside of the circle to represent my father. Then I was done.
The counselor and I looked at the picture. "What do you see?" she asked. I started to explain it to her and then I stopped.
"That's strange," I said. "I didn't intend to do that."
"What?" she asked (no doubt with a certain professional satisfaction.)
"That dot out in the field is me," I said. "That's where I was happy. I put four dots to represent my family . . . my mother, my two brothers . . . and me, again. I didn't realize I was putting myself twice."
"There are two of you," she said.
"Yeah. There are two of me."
I don't recall that we talked about that very much. I needed time to assimilate this new idea, and there were more specific things that I wanted to talk about. But it's certainly true that I spent a lot of time - then, and right up to now - trying to find my real self. Not the self that everybody else saw, or failed to see.
It's certainly true that the lessons I learned in the rainbow fields are what have kept me alive. To summarize: the human world is not the only world, thank goodness. Human beings (including myself) are selfish, narrow-minded, and scared.
There's a whole universe out there, much bigger than humanity. It provides beauty, nourishment, and a certain amount of danger, too. It is constantly changing. Constantly alive. Humans build their little structures and push their little buttons. Many of them don't seem to realize that the universe is alive. Life goes on without them. I was stifling inside that little box. I had to get out.
Sometimes I still forget those lessons. But I have to remember, because I can't survive without them. (And even though I live in the city now, I worry about people who have never known any other environment. That can't be good.)
The universe still surprises me.
Note: I posted a slightly different version of this on my other blog.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Poetry Roundup
(cross-posted on Facebook)
glass three-quarters full
sunlight, oxygen,
water and earth.
without these things to nourish us
free gifts from the universe
where would we be?
therefore I don't believe that evil outweighs good.
if that were true, nothing could live.
my role models
some people aspire
to reach the top of the heap,
where everyone will recognize their merits
(of course, this requires keeping down the competition.)
but I say:
it is not the favored ones
who can teach me
how to survive
On Hypocrisy
The cruelties of Fate I can't deny,
but human cruelty still makes me angry.
Hafiz writes of hypocrisy and wine - almost too much;
but hypocrisy is nearly the root of all evil.
Heaven says, "Everything I am, I am."
Only humans say, "No, that's not me."
I don't seek love; I am not cruel.
Written in Red
Last night I dreamed I was writing our story
in red ink
on the inside of my blue shirt.
When I looked at the outside, the letters had soaked through,
and I kept asking myself:
"What am I doing? What if people can read this? Do I really want everybody to see my pain?
Am I ruining my favorite shirt?"
But I kept writing.
Speaking of unrealistic goals . . .
the difference is
that if you lie long enough on the Friend's doorstep,
trembling with sincerity,
someday He will take you in.
from the footnote to ghazal 93:
my heart was flung into the fire
like a counterfeit coin
it turned black.
one who reaches the Beloved loses everything else,
even love.
Introduction to Hafiz
1.
Hafiz takes off all his clothes
and jumps up and down in the marketplace.
Everyone knows you're supposed to hide
your nakedness
2.
The poet says, God is everything.
But still we are drawn to imperfections:
the broken half of the moon.
(written on Facebook, April 9, 2009. Thanks to Tahar.)
glass three-quarters full
sunlight, oxygen,
water and earth.
without these things to nourish us
free gifts from the universe
where would we be?
therefore I don't believe that evil outweighs good.
if that were true, nothing could live.
my role models
some people aspire
to reach the top of the heap,
where everyone will recognize their merits
(of course, this requires keeping down the competition.)
but I say:
it is not the favored ones
who can teach me
how to survive
On Hypocrisy
The cruelties of Fate I can't deny,
but human cruelty still makes me angry.
Hafiz writes of hypocrisy and wine - almost too much;
but hypocrisy is nearly the root of all evil.
Heaven says, "Everything I am, I am."
Only humans say, "No, that's not me."
I don't seek love; I am not cruel.
Written in Red
Last night I dreamed I was writing our story
in red ink
on the inside of my blue shirt.
When I looked at the outside, the letters had soaked through,
and I kept asking myself:
"What am I doing? What if people can read this? Do I really want everybody to see my pain?
Am I ruining my favorite shirt?"
But I kept writing.
Speaking of unrealistic goals . . .
the difference is
that if you lie long enough on the Friend's doorstep,
trembling with sincerity,
someday He will take you in.
from the footnote to ghazal 93:
my heart was flung into the fire
like a counterfeit coin
it turned black.
one who reaches the Beloved loses everything else,
even love.
Introduction to Hafiz
1.
Hafiz takes off all his clothes
and jumps up and down in the marketplace.
Everyone knows you're supposed to hide
your nakedness
2.
The poet says, God is everything.
But still we are drawn to imperfections:
the broken half of the moon.
(written on Facebook, April 9, 2009. Thanks to Tahar.)
Monday, September 29, 2008
"My little penwiper's lying on the beach all alone!"
(to continue the Tove Jansson motif)
My laptop had to go in for repairs, and I miss it the way the character above missed his penwiper. But I pulled my old desktop out of the closet, so blogging can continue unabated. There are two things to be learned from this:
My laptop had to go in for repairs, and I miss it the way the character above missed his penwiper. But I pulled my old desktop out of the closet, so blogging can continue unabated. There are two things to be learned from this:
- It still works. The laptop is only three years old. I bought the desktop used, six years ago, and it's still plugging away. Slowly of course, but surely. I have heard that laptops are less reliable.
- The screensaver on my old computer consists of one word: "Events." I remember why that is. Someone once asked a British prime minister, "What is the most troublesome thing about being prime minister?" and he replied, "Events, dear boy. Events." I created that screensaver over three years ago, and events are still hounding me.
Monday, August 18, 2008
A New Direction
Well. Long story short. I've started another blog, on another subject. I do intend to keep posting here, the same kind of stuff as always, but my orderly mind requires a new blog in addition.
Start here: the coming out letter.
Start here: the coming out letter.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
"Madiba says we must forgive"
Yes, I've written about forgiveness before on this blog, and how I don't really approve of the concept, as people often express it. But then I read about someone like Nelson Mandela, and you know, I can admire forgiveness, when it's done on a large scale like that, in a really classy way.
So when is forgiveness a good thing?
So when is forgiveness a good thing?
- When you have a choice between killing a whole bunch of people or forgiving a whole bunch of people, it's better to forgive. Most of us, I believe, don't have the option of killing those who have wronged us. Some of us might like to. But really, it's not a good idea.
- It seems to me that forgiveness operates differently when it applies to large groups of people. When individuals advise each other to practice forgiveness, it often sounds like they're saying, "You owe that person forgiveness. The relationship between the two of you is such that you have no right to withhold forgiveness." Which can also sound like "You have no right to stand up for yourself." I don't think anybody would argue that black South Africans owe white South Africans anything (well, except for that person who shall be nameless, who likes to talk about all the wonderful things that white people have done for black people.) No, in that case forgiveness was quite obviously . . . I want to say, it was a huge favor. It was going above and beyond.
- When "forgiveness" doesn't mean "never talk about what happened to you." You'll notice that Mandela, Desmond Tutu and their comrades set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where people could tell their stories. Forgiveness is not about covering up the truth.
- When you have a chance to make things better. We can't be sure that all of the South Africans who supported apartheid have seen the error of their ways. Quite possibly they have not. But Mandela wanted to focus on improving things, not on vengeance. As he said later, "It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build." After everything that he had suffered, he didn't want any more destruction. That is so very civilized. Maybe someday, more people will follow his example.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Hear That Whistle Blow
There's a railroad near my house -- not so close that I can see it, but close enough for me to hear the train whistles, especially at night.
What is it that makes trains so cool? Is it the whistle saying "I'm going somewhere far away" (although most of the trains on this line in fact don't), or their purposeful unstoppingness?
I don't often get to ride the train, but when I do two of the things I enjoy are going through the railway crossing and seeing the cars that have to stop for us; and the amazing sight of how different my neighborhood looks from the train. It's another perspective.
I wish there were more trains, and that they were cheaper, so I could ride them more.
What is it that makes trains so cool? Is it the whistle saying "I'm going somewhere far away" (although most of the trains on this line in fact don't), or their purposeful unstoppingness?
I don't often get to ride the train, but when I do two of the things I enjoy are going through the railway crossing and seeing the cars that have to stop for us; and the amazing sight of how different my neighborhood looks from the train. It's another perspective.
I wish there were more trains, and that they were cheaper, so I could ride them more.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Double Tree: Another Metaphor
They say that the root system of a tree extends as far under the ground as its branches do above the ground. So the visible tree is really only half of a tree.
I've been contemplating a theory that the human mind is like that. The subconscious mind is a set of roots, extending into the dark, deeper than we can imagine. The conscious mind, however, is not the visible half of the tree. It's only a slender cross-section, at the point where the tree meets the ground, where the two halves of the tree become one. The conscious mind is a tiny part of the mind itself. I'm becoming more and more convinced of that.
What then is the visible half of the tree? I'm currently speculating that it is . . . the set of all actions and reactions that we perform in the waking world, our interactions with the world and its interactions with us. Every connection that we have with another living being, or with the world, forms a branch or a twig of the tree.
Yes, I'm starting to think that a person's mind, a person's self, exists in the world, as well as inside one's own head. I mean, we all have an inner self and an outer self, and often they are very different. Certainly they do very different things. The inner self spends a lot of time thinking about itself. (Very few of these thoughts, I suspect, are ever shared with another person.)
The outer self is "in charge of" interacting with the world. It takes in information from the world, and sends it to the inner self. And they say that we never really forget anything. All our memories are stored in the unconscious mind -- the mind duplicates our experience, the same way the root system of a tree duplicates the structure of the branches above.
I'm naturally an introverted person. That means that I feel much more interested in the subterranean half of the tree than the sky-inhabiting tree. The invisible world, what some people perhaps consider to be a nonexistent world. But for me it is real.
My previous metaphor was the ruined house.
I've been contemplating a theory that the human mind is like that. The subconscious mind is a set of roots, extending into the dark, deeper than we can imagine. The conscious mind, however, is not the visible half of the tree. It's only a slender cross-section, at the point where the tree meets the ground, where the two halves of the tree become one. The conscious mind is a tiny part of the mind itself. I'm becoming more and more convinced of that.
What then is the visible half of the tree? I'm currently speculating that it is . . . the set of all actions and reactions that we perform in the waking world, our interactions with the world and its interactions with us. Every connection that we have with another living being, or with the world, forms a branch or a twig of the tree.
Yes, I'm starting to think that a person's mind, a person's self, exists in the world, as well as inside one's own head. I mean, we all have an inner self and an outer self, and often they are very different. Certainly they do very different things. The inner self spends a lot of time thinking about itself. (Very few of these thoughts, I suspect, are ever shared with another person.)
The outer self is "in charge of" interacting with the world. It takes in information from the world, and sends it to the inner self. And they say that we never really forget anything. All our memories are stored in the unconscious mind -- the mind duplicates our experience, the same way the root system of a tree duplicates the structure of the branches above.
I'm naturally an introverted person. That means that I feel much more interested in the subterranean half of the tree than the sky-inhabiting tree. The invisible world, what some people perhaps consider to be a nonexistent world. But for me it is real.
My previous metaphor was the ruined house.
Friday, February 15, 2008
How Indigo Got His Name
My cats were given names by their previous owner which I never really liked, but it took me a while to come up with new ones. A certain event gave Indigo his name.
Many years ago, when my cats were only four years old, our household (two humans, five cats) moved to a new apartment, in a part of town where we thought it might be safe to let the cats go outside. We discovered our mistake when one of them dragged himself back to the house with an injured hind leg.
The vet said it was dislocated, and that he had been hit by a car. (In fact, if it was a car, he was so incredibly lucky not to have been more seriously injured that I sometimes wonder if it was something else.) Anyway, he came back from the animal hospital with two big pins holding his leg together. Plus all the fur had been shaved off, so it looked like a chicken leg. It was so very upsetting.
There was an open wound on the leg as well. As the wound healed, the new skin grew back in this amazing dark blue color. I've never heard of such a thing, but the cat was renamed Indigo in honor of his healing process.
However, I couldn't change his name until his brother also got a new name (that wouldn't be fair.) After deep thought, it occurred to me that his brother was a plump pear-shaped beast, very much like one of those dark green Avocadoes. Thus the new names were bestowed.
Many years ago, when my cats were only four years old, our household (two humans, five cats) moved to a new apartment, in a part of town where we thought it might be safe to let the cats go outside. We discovered our mistake when one of them dragged himself back to the house with an injured hind leg.
The vet said it was dislocated, and that he had been hit by a car. (In fact, if it was a car, he was so incredibly lucky not to have been more seriously injured that I sometimes wonder if it was something else.) Anyway, he came back from the animal hospital with two big pins holding his leg together. Plus all the fur had been shaved off, so it looked like a chicken leg. It was so very upsetting.
There was an open wound on the leg as well. As the wound healed, the new skin grew back in this amazing dark blue color. I've never heard of such a thing, but the cat was renamed Indigo in honor of his healing process.
However, I couldn't change his name until his brother also got a new name (that wouldn't be fair.) After deep thought, it occurred to me that his brother was a plump pear-shaped beast, very much like one of those dark green Avocadoes. Thus the new names were bestowed.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Forgiveness is Not a Virtue, or "Pomegranates"
There are some people whom I would forgive anything. There are others whom I don't believe I'll ever be able to forgive. This suggests to me that there is nothing moral about forgiveness. It's a feeling--it is, in effect, a preference.
Here's an analogy: I love pomegranates. They're only available here in one brief period of the year (namely, right now!) Now, when choosing a pomegranate it can be difficult to tell if it's any good. It might be under-ripe, or have a bad spot. And they're expensive. But none of that matters to me. None of it will ever make me want to stop buying pomegranates. I love them so much that I can forgive them anything. The ideal, the Perfect Pomegranate, is always floating before my eyes, even when individual pomegranates disappoint. (Some people claim that pomegranates are "not worth the trouble" it takes to eat them. For me, the fact that you have to eat them slowly and laboriously is part of their charm. But I digress.)
Certain people talk about forgiveness a lot. They make it sound like you ought to forgive everybody for everything, all the time. I have always had a problem with this attitude.
It seems to me that "forgiveness" means various things to various people. It can mean "Pretend that what that person did was not wrong" or "Allow that person to keep treating you badly." Nobody has the right to treat another person badly. There's nothing moral about that. If someone is not going to change their bad behavior, it is completely unacceptable to condone what they're doing. And even if you feel that you should forgive them for what they did to you, what if they've hurt other people as well? You can't forgive them for that.
I also wonder if some people believe that "forgiving your enemies" means you're morally superior to them. (Self-righteousness is not a virtue either.) This reminds me of the late Doreen Valiente's remark, "I cannot see any virtue in unctuously professing to forgive someone against whom you can do nothing. The only time I can see merit in forgiving an enemy is when you have your foot on his neck."
The only interpretation of forgiveness that I have any sympathy with is the idea that it means "not holding grudges." But even then, the problem with holding a grudge is that it's bad for you, not for the person you're angry at. It's just self-interest. (I would argue that with true forgiveness, the grudge never even gets formed, so it doesn't have to be let go of.)
Furthermore, "holding a grudge" is not the same as "holding someone responsible for their actions." Neither is it the same as remembering "This person would hurt me again if they got the chance." That's self-preservation.
The problem with forgiveness is that it can lead to your being taken advantage of. I think I might go so far as to say that forgiveness is too risky to be a virtue. Forgiveness is spontaneous, it comes from the heart, it doesn't care about self-preservation and that means it has to be tempered with something more moderate. Or to put it another way, sometimes it's best to forgive but not forget.
Oh, pomegranate . . .
Here's an analogy: I love pomegranates. They're only available here in one brief period of the year (namely, right now!) Now, when choosing a pomegranate it can be difficult to tell if it's any good. It might be under-ripe, or have a bad spot. And they're expensive. But none of that matters to me. None of it will ever make me want to stop buying pomegranates. I love them so much that I can forgive them anything. The ideal, the Perfect Pomegranate, is always floating before my eyes, even when individual pomegranates disappoint. (Some people claim that pomegranates are "not worth the trouble" it takes to eat them. For me, the fact that you have to eat them slowly and laboriously is part of their charm. But I digress.)
Certain people talk about forgiveness a lot. They make it sound like you ought to forgive everybody for everything, all the time. I have always had a problem with this attitude.
It seems to me that "forgiveness" means various things to various people. It can mean "Pretend that what that person did was not wrong" or "Allow that person to keep treating you badly." Nobody has the right to treat another person badly. There's nothing moral about that. If someone is not going to change their bad behavior, it is completely unacceptable to condone what they're doing. And even if you feel that you should forgive them for what they did to you, what if they've hurt other people as well? You can't forgive them for that.
I also wonder if some people believe that "forgiving your enemies" means you're morally superior to them. (Self-righteousness is not a virtue either.) This reminds me of the late Doreen Valiente's remark, "I cannot see any virtue in unctuously professing to forgive someone against whom you can do nothing. The only time I can see merit in forgiving an enemy is when you have your foot on his neck."
The only interpretation of forgiveness that I have any sympathy with is the idea that it means "not holding grudges." But even then, the problem with holding a grudge is that it's bad for you, not for the person you're angry at. It's just self-interest. (I would argue that with true forgiveness, the grudge never even gets formed, so it doesn't have to be let go of.)
Furthermore, "holding a grudge" is not the same as "holding someone responsible for their actions." Neither is it the same as remembering "This person would hurt me again if they got the chance." That's self-preservation.
The problem with forgiveness is that it can lead to your being taken advantage of. I think I might go so far as to say that forgiveness is too risky to be a virtue. Forgiveness is spontaneous, it comes from the heart, it doesn't care about self-preservation and that means it has to be tempered with something more moderate. Or to put it another way, sometimes it's best to forgive but not forget.
Oh, pomegranate . . .
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
My Two Favorite Movies
When I was a teenager, my favorite movie was Harold and Maude. It's a perfect movie for adolescents, because it depicts hopelessness and hope with equal accuracy. Or to put it another way, if Harold can finally decide not to kill himself then I can too.
I haven't watched H&M for a few years now, and I'm starting to think that my new favorite movie is Performance. The two films have a lot in common. Most significantly, they date from the same era, the late 1960s (yes, I was born 20 years too late.) Performance was filmed in 1968 and released in 1970. Harold and Maude was released in 1971 but the screenplay was probably written some time earlier. They are both very rebellious films, I would say . . . "unconventional," perhaps, although that's an understatement.
Another thing the two films have in common is the high quality of the music. H&M is almost all Cat Stevens--I've heard that he wrote a couple songs especially for the film. Performance features Mick Jagger prominently in the supporting cast. He only performs two songs (as I recall), but all the rest of the music, I would say, even when not by him is the sort of music you would expect in the sort of film that would cast Mick Jagger. I like it, anyway.
Performance is a much more adult film. There are no easy answers. There is quite a bit of sex and violence. The protagonist is an anti-hero, in the sense of not being someone you (or I) would really want to emulate. He thinks he can handle anything, but he gets in over his head. I think that's why I've come to like this movie--because life will do that to anyone.
Neither film has a traditional happy ending, although of the two Harold and Maude is slightly more optimistic. And yet the ending of Performance doesn't bother me--and I am someone who usually insists on a happy ending. It's a very low-key ending. It just fits. I suppose there is one easy answer, after all.
I haven't watched H&M for a few years now, and I'm starting to think that my new favorite movie is Performance. The two films have a lot in common. Most significantly, they date from the same era, the late 1960s (yes, I was born 20 years too late.) Performance was filmed in 1968 and released in 1970. Harold and Maude was released in 1971 but the screenplay was probably written some time earlier. They are both very rebellious films, I would say . . . "unconventional," perhaps, although that's an understatement.
Another thing the two films have in common is the high quality of the music. H&M is almost all Cat Stevens--I've heard that he wrote a couple songs especially for the film. Performance features Mick Jagger prominently in the supporting cast. He only performs two songs (as I recall), but all the rest of the music, I would say, even when not by him is the sort of music you would expect in the sort of film that would cast Mick Jagger. I like it, anyway.
Performance is a much more adult film. There are no easy answers. There is quite a bit of sex and violence. The protagonist is an anti-hero, in the sense of not being someone you (or I) would really want to emulate. He thinks he can handle anything, but he gets in over his head. I think that's why I've come to like this movie--because life will do that to anyone.
Neither film has a traditional happy ending, although of the two Harold and Maude is slightly more optimistic. And yet the ending of Performance doesn't bother me--and I am someone who usually insists on a happy ending. It's a very low-key ending. It just fits. I suppose there is one easy answer, after all.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The Ruined House: A Metaphor
When I was 18, I went to therapy for about six months. Almost the first thing I explained to my counselor was that I didn't intend for this to be "a lifetime project." I wanted to get in and get out. I had gathered that some people spent years in therapy (although at that time I don't believe I knew anyone who actually had) and to me that seemed like a bad idea. Since then I've become more confirmed in my belief that lots of talking does not actually help. Some people get very adept at talking about their emotions and their traumas--analysing themselves--and they genuinely feel bad. But talking is no substitute for actually doing the work.
The time that I spent talking to my therapist was only the tip of the iceberg. Outside of our sessions I spent hours thinking and remembering and feeling my feelings. That was the real work. Having a professional person to talk to was also vitally important. But I was doing the work myself. And it took years . . . much, much longer than six months.
Just today I realized what it is like, this work.
Imagine a house that's been gutted by fire: not completely destroyed. But there's a lot of structural damage, and all the furniture and belongings that were in the house have been charred and water-soaked, reduced to rubbish and sludge. Or perhaps the house was struck by an earthquake, or bombed.
In any case, therapy is the task of clearing out all the junk. It's hard work. It's sad work. And when it's over, you don't have much to show for it: only the ruins of a house. (It's almost exasperating.) Now the work of rebuilding begins . . . and maybe the house is so damaged that you have to tear it all down and start over.
It is possible to do. One does make progress, slowly. (One of the odd things about it is that you can make progress without even being aware of it. You just keep slogging along, and one day you lift your head and notice that the house is actually looking quite nice.) Of course, houses require a lot of upkeep. There's always something that needs to be worked on, and perhaps the carpentry will never be quite finished. I've never owned an actual house--it seems like a daunting prospect, on top of all the work that this imaginary house requires.
The very strangest thing about this house, the self, is that even though this metaphor of building the house is so useful, it's wrong in one important respect: the house builds itself. Each one of our houses has hidden rooms, passageways, staircases, sometimes entire floors that we can discover one day and announce "I had no idea that was there!" Where do these rooms come from, when we are quite certain that the house was at one point almost completely destroyed? Were they there all the time? Maybe.
Some parts of the house we need to build for ourselves, I think. Or at least decorate. We need to know what's there, and where it is, so that we're not constantly bumping into the furniture. But these unexpected rooms . . . personally I rather enjoy them. After spending so much time clearing away the rubbish and having to worry about the whole thing falling down, it's nice to explore some rooms that are, in my opinion at least, well-furnished and clean. My compliments to the decorator.
The time that I spent talking to my therapist was only the tip of the iceberg. Outside of our sessions I spent hours thinking and remembering and feeling my feelings. That was the real work. Having a professional person to talk to was also vitally important. But I was doing the work myself. And it took years . . . much, much longer than six months.
Just today I realized what it is like, this work.
Imagine a house that's been gutted by fire: not completely destroyed. But there's a lot of structural damage, and all the furniture and belongings that were in the house have been charred and water-soaked, reduced to rubbish and sludge. Or perhaps the house was struck by an earthquake, or bombed.
In any case, therapy is the task of clearing out all the junk. It's hard work. It's sad work. And when it's over, you don't have much to show for it: only the ruins of a house. (It's almost exasperating.) Now the work of rebuilding begins . . . and maybe the house is so damaged that you have to tear it all down and start over.
It is possible to do. One does make progress, slowly. (One of the odd things about it is that you can make progress without even being aware of it. You just keep slogging along, and one day you lift your head and notice that the house is actually looking quite nice.) Of course, houses require a lot of upkeep. There's always something that needs to be worked on, and perhaps the carpentry will never be quite finished. I've never owned an actual house--it seems like a daunting prospect, on top of all the work that this imaginary house requires.
The very strangest thing about this house, the self, is that even though this metaphor of building the house is so useful, it's wrong in one important respect: the house builds itself. Each one of our houses has hidden rooms, passageways, staircases, sometimes entire floors that we can discover one day and announce "I had no idea that was there!" Where do these rooms come from, when we are quite certain that the house was at one point almost completely destroyed? Were they there all the time? Maybe.
Some parts of the house we need to build for ourselves, I think. Or at least decorate. We need to know what's there, and where it is, so that we're not constantly bumping into the furniture. But these unexpected rooms . . . personally I rather enjoy them. After spending so much time clearing away the rubbish and having to worry about the whole thing falling down, it's nice to explore some rooms that are, in my opinion at least, well-furnished and clean. My compliments to the decorator.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Aerial Photography
So, you know those satellite maps that they have on the Web now? Looking at the place where I grew up on one of those maps was a strange experience. (Yes, I'm easily astonished.) Tracing the road from the nearest town to our house . . . I remember that road, not every bit of it, but some parts in better detail than the map can reveal. I still dream about that road.
Aerial photography shows the trees and rivers, but not the topography, so much. It shows the roads that led to friends' houses, and the side roads that I never got a chance to go down. The unknown roads that concealed some magic place right around the corner. (Satellites can't see those secret places, of course.)
It must show the lake that we went to, but it can't show the excitement of those summer evenings, or the humidity. Or the frogs. It shows where the river runs alongside the road, but it can't show what I remember, one particular bend of the river and the light coming through the trees. Perhaps the water was unusually high? For some reason it has stayed with me. Maybe it was a dream.
It can't show the road from my vantage point, the back of our old pickup.
And yet, it astonishes me that the road of my memory has its counterpart in the real world. No, I don't expect it to still be the same (although I bet it hasn't changed all that much.) Just the fact that it's real is enough. Not to mention the fact that the Internet knows where I lived. I can type in the name of that dead-end dirt road and it pops right up. A map of Nowhere. A real place. As real as my dreams.
Aerial photography shows the trees and rivers, but not the topography, so much. It shows the roads that led to friends' houses, and the side roads that I never got a chance to go down. The unknown roads that concealed some magic place right around the corner. (Satellites can't see those secret places, of course.)
It must show the lake that we went to, but it can't show the excitement of those summer evenings, or the humidity. Or the frogs. It shows where the river runs alongside the road, but it can't show what I remember, one particular bend of the river and the light coming through the trees. Perhaps the water was unusually high? For some reason it has stayed with me. Maybe it was a dream.
It can't show the road from my vantage point, the back of our old pickup.
And yet, it astonishes me that the road of my memory has its counterpart in the real world. No, I don't expect it to still be the same (although I bet it hasn't changed all that much.) Just the fact that it's real is enough. Not to mention the fact that the Internet knows where I lived. I can type in the name of that dead-end dirt road and it pops right up. A map of Nowhere. A real place. As real as my dreams.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Goats
My friends and I went to the country fair. (That is what it amounts to, even though you can get there on a city bus.) Among the many farm animals they had were a number of goats.
I grew up with goats. It was great to see them again. I had forgotten, until I saw them do it, that goats lie down by putting their front legs on the ground first and then their back legs. They always do it this way, and when I saw it I remembered "Yes! That's how they do it!"
It's a very strange sensation, to be reminded of something that you haven't thought about in years, but is still etched into your memory. I think what makes it strange is that it happens entirely without your own volition. Your brain retrieves the memory -- your conscious mind is only a spectator.
Another interesting thing about goats is that their legs are articulated in the opposite way from human limbs. They have "knees" on their front legs and "elbows" on their back legs.
I grew up with goats. It was great to see them again. I had forgotten, until I saw them do it, that goats lie down by putting their front legs on the ground first and then their back legs. They always do it this way, and when I saw it I remembered "Yes! That's how they do it!"
It's a very strange sensation, to be reminded of something that you haven't thought about in years, but is still etched into your memory. I think what makes it strange is that it happens entirely without your own volition. Your brain retrieves the memory -- your conscious mind is only a spectator.
Another interesting thing about goats is that their legs are articulated in the opposite way from human limbs. They have "knees" on their front legs and "elbows" on their back legs.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
An Oasis in the Desert of Time
For the last week, it's been very hot here. Temperatures in the 90's, which is unusual for us. But it happened last summer, and I somehow suspect it will become an annual occurrence.
The heat wave finally broke last night. It's so pleasant to wake up in the morning with the blanket wrapped around you, and to feel the cold air on your face. It's like finding an oasis.
But the desert that we were in was temporal, not spatial. The heat arrived, and then it moved on. Time is a funny thing. It surrounds us, but we don't think about it much, as a daily thing (at least I don't). We think of ourselves as living in a place, as travelling from one place to another. How do we view our travels through time?
I think about the oases that I've discovered, in the deserts of time. Sometimes bad weather just moves in - there's no help for it. You think it will never leave, and then one day . . . there's a change in the weather.
The seasons of our lives. The things you can't hurry, or postpone. The thunderstorms that sweep through. Oh, many times I have welcomed the storm. I want everything to be shaken up, tossed around, swept away. (In fact, I miss seeing the storms of my childhood. These tall buildings block any view of the lightning in the sky.)
Weather is a thing that happens. Like life.
The heat wave finally broke last night. It's so pleasant to wake up in the morning with the blanket wrapped around you, and to feel the cold air on your face. It's like finding an oasis.
But the desert that we were in was temporal, not spatial. The heat arrived, and then it moved on. Time is a funny thing. It surrounds us, but we don't think about it much, as a daily thing (at least I don't). We think of ourselves as living in a place, as travelling from one place to another. How do we view our travels through time?
I think about the oases that I've discovered, in the deserts of time. Sometimes bad weather just moves in - there's no help for it. You think it will never leave, and then one day . . . there's a change in the weather.
The seasons of our lives. The things you can't hurry, or postpone. The thunderstorms that sweep through. Oh, many times I have welcomed the storm. I want everything to be shaken up, tossed around, swept away. (In fact, I miss seeing the storms of my childhood. These tall buildings block any view of the lightning in the sky.)
Weather is a thing that happens. Like life.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Memory 2
How to live in such a house, in such a way,
the fields stretching out all around.
It's called poetic license -
"the house of some friends I rarely visited"?
It's true that I rarely went up to the house
but I worked in those fields for two or three summers.
One of the owners was a man I'd known since childhood.
(Goddamn hippies. Caring for the earth. Is that the way to live well?)
Long rows of beans to pick
Close your eyes, in bed at night, and see nothing but beans.
Lots of other vegetables too, of course.
I don't miss the monotony of the work
(or the fact that I wasn't fast enough to be considered a good worker)
I certainly don't miss anything else about my adolescence
But the bright blue sky, the clear morning air
the scent of grass and earth
the sweet taste of water when you're thirsty
And the time we saw two bald eagles, circling impossibly high,
the sunlight flashing off their white heads.
I remember those things, while sitting in the office.
Always did hate being stuck indoors.
the fields stretching out all around.
It's called poetic license -
"the house of some friends I rarely visited"?
It's true that I rarely went up to the house
but I worked in those fields for two or three summers.
One of the owners was a man I'd known since childhood.
(Goddamn hippies. Caring for the earth. Is that the way to live well?)
Long rows of beans to pick
Close your eyes, in bed at night, and see nothing but beans.
Lots of other vegetables too, of course.
I don't miss the monotony of the work
(or the fact that I wasn't fast enough to be considered a good worker)
I certainly don't miss anything else about my adolescence
But the bright blue sky, the clear morning air
the scent of grass and earth
the sweet taste of water when you're thirsty
And the time we saw two bald eagles, circling impossibly high,
the sunlight flashing off their white heads.
I remember those things, while sitting in the office.
Always did hate being stuck indoors.
Monday, May 01, 2006
One Memory
How one image stays in your mind
one second of time
pine trees in the rain.
Looking out of the window
in the house of some friends I rarely visited.
The long, soft needles of the pines
the soft rainy sky.
No one else has ever seen that moment, that place
that memory.
How one image leads to a string of thoughts
it was a beautiful house (which means, it was very much to my taste)
very suited to pine trees and rain.
How to live in such a house, in such a way
the fields stretching out in front, the pine trees behind.
Is that how to live well?
one moment, one place
one second of time
pine trees in the rain.
Looking out of the window
in the house of some friends I rarely visited.
The long, soft needles of the pines
the soft rainy sky.
No one else has ever seen that moment, that place
that memory.
How one image leads to a string of thoughts
it was a beautiful house (which means, it was very much to my taste)
very suited to pine trees and rain.
How to live in such a house, in such a way
the fields stretching out in front, the pine trees behind.
Is that how to live well?
one moment, one place
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