To End The Year

One of my favorite quotes.

“Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy - that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.”

― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Writing Inspiration (from a decade ago)

These thoughts were originally posted 9 Nov. 2009

At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. 

Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, 

bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth. 

 - Warren Ellis

I consider myself a master of sitting and staring into space. I also have graduate training which includes wandering in the woods, vegetating on the veranda and a certificate in morning meditation disguised as sleeping in. Ideas come to me in all of these and many other places, however, I have yet to sink my metaphorical fangs into a single one of them. No, my process is more welcoming. I tend to nurture a new idea, giving it a proverbial saucer of milk.

I don't like to take notes unless the idea comes to me as I drift off at night. All writers abhor the thought of waking in the morning with no chance of recalling what the Pulitzer idea was they had the night before. But unless I am about to commune with Morpheus, I prefer to wander a bit, perhaps take a walk or at least pace about a snow bound house and let a new idea percolate and flourish.

Some new ideas are just scenes that may be part of a story yet undiscovered. All I really need is some time to lock the key pieces into memory where it can await the rest of the story from which it has prematurely erupted. There are times when a day or two later, I check my mental, paper or cyber notes to find what I have is not a scene from a story but, in fact, a blog post. Something like this one today.

Pondering Warren Ellis' rapine writing habits, I wonder if I might add a touch of the carnivore to my sitting and staring routine. Gives a whole new perspective to the practice of vegetating. Perhaps the tone and tenor is different when one ravages an idea.

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photo credit: archives

A Different Perspective

A month on from the election, we have all had time to ponder the results and what those numbers might mean going forward. I have not been reticent in expressing my views but not here . . . yet.

Today, however, in lieu of my thoughts, I am drawn to the perspective of someone close to me. In the days following the vote, streets in many cities were filled with protestors. One successful candidate could not resist the urge to twitter. He wrote:

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!" 

A month ago, I looked at those words and decided to pass, the time was not right for me to add vitriol to the stew of post-election angst. But my friend had another perspective which has stuck with me these many weeks. She observed the president-elect's tweet was unfortunate and:

 "The first of a thousand missed opportunities." 

The president-elect continues to demonstrate he is that guy, not interested in bringing the nation together, nor reaching out to others. How many missed opportunities will it take before the realization of what we have done really sinks in?

A Great Harper Lee Quote

Fear not, there will be no assessment of the current Harper Lee novel, nor any of the comparisons with To Kill a Mockingbird. I simply want to toss your way a two line quote from Go Set a Watchman.

"But the white supremacists fear reason, because they know cold reason beats them. Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: 

they both begin where reason ends."

It's the second sentence, of course, that contains the thought for the millennium. Is it any wonder that faith at the extremes leads to prejudice. Why not, they both begin with the abandonment of rational thought. 

"Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: 

they both begin where reason ends."

Thanks to my friend Marcia for reading this to us the other evening. This is going into my repertoire of quotable quotes. My conservative friends and a few of the liberals are not going to like it when I pull this one out. At least I can say, my friends will get the comparison. Think any of the current candidates would?

Just a Thought and a Feeling

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of 

getting naked in public."

- Paul Coelho

". . . even more so these days is the act of blogging."

- me

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Like many of my generation I have some very strong feelings about the American war in Vietnam. Now forty years since the withdrawal of U.S. forces, not everyone has mellowed at the same pace. Some not at all.

I have for some years taken a literary path, reading dozens of books about the war. For those who have not heard this recommendation before - A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan is the quintessential book on the subject. I should probably do a separate post of the top ten Vietnam War books, maybe later.

What nearly everyone from that era will tell you is that Vietnam was frustrating, maddening and horrifying. That sense of frustration was captured again for me last night as I read yet another book on the war. A new novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer. What got me up to grab a pencil and paper was this line:

". . . swimmers doing the backstroke towards a waterfall."

The line was in context of a several chapter description of the chaos surrounding the final days of American withdrawal from Saigon viewed from the perspective of those Vietnamese who had supported (collaborated) with the U.S.

The sense of frustration and powerlessness from decades ago, came back in a most uncomfortable reality. And I had to wonder, why don't we feel the same about Iraq and Afghanistan?

Kurt Vonnegut on Writing

 “I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don’t want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that’s the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.”    To the Paris Review, 1977.

One of My Favorite Quotes

"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else." 

George Bernard Shaw

I've always liked this quote since I first heard it in 1966 on WJMD, the Kalamazoo College radio station. Actually, my friend Bob Snyder heard it and relayed it to me. Where are you these days, Bob?

Anyway, it's not cynical. How can it be, I mean George Bernard Shaw; he actively encouraged marriage across lines of both race and class. He also co-founded the London School of Economics and he like shortbread.

So go out there today and grossly exaggeration how you feel about someone.

quotes

Either/Or

On Our Own

quote 14

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, 
you must first create the universe.

                                                                   -- Carl Sagan


When we write, we first tell the reader what landscape we will be operating within. Does our story take place now or in the past. This land, this country or another. This planet or somewhere else. This reality or will we be creating something completely different and if different, just how far do we intend to go. 

Writers are creators, we don't have to just use the stuff that is laying around, we can create the very basics of the universe we intend to inhabit then invite the reader to come along on the journey. Some of my favorite authors have used wildly sublime material to create their tales, others evolve from the mundane and the ordinary; but they all share one critical element of creation - the invisible adhesive that holds their entire universe together and that methinks is the true craft of writing. Binding together the tale such that the reader never sees the glue.

Voting for Your True Self

Presidential Propaganda is to . . .

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If Not Us, Who?

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

                      -- Jerry Garcia

Just a Question

Sex and the Single Senior

Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions. -Woody Allen

Yes, he did that thing with his adopted daughter and yes, he keeps making the same movie over and over again. But when Woody was good, he was really, really good. However, this post is not about Woody Allen, it is rather about some thoughts prompted by that quote of his and women of a certain age.

That age would be - my age. Middle age, probably more correctly late middle age. But it's hard to tell, what with the actuarial tables being what they are today. Old age keeps getting older and middle age seems to be expanding. Here again the lump in the esophagus of society we the Baby Boomers caused in the 60s has now become the intestinal blockage of the national process and we all know where that will lead further down the country's collective alimentary canal. OK, that's as far as my scatologically adverse sensitivities will allow this metaphor to proceed; besides today's topic was meant to be sex. I probably never should have allowed Woody's mental excentricities into my head this morning.

Sex and the single woman of my generation, which means in the neighborhood of sixty years of age, I have a few observations. I am not speaking to those who are still or are once again in LTRs. No this is about being back in the game with wisdom or at least experience. "Sex in the Sixties" without the tie-dye.


Two intertwined but very different items to discuss - being post-romance and/or being post-sex.


There is a small but not that small minority of women who are post-sex. There probably are a few men in this category as well and some of both genders who are there as a result of medical issues. I exempt them from my comments. I am talking about those who have decided that sex and sexual intimacy is no longer of interest. Make whatever judgments you like, I have already made mine and will keep them to myself but I do wish to say - If you are no longer going to participate in sexual congress with any partner, you really have an obligation to disclose this fairly early in potential dating situations.


I mean, you have no problem letting us know you are vegan, diabetic or a scuba diver; asexuality or non-sexuality should be on the list of early disclosures. In fact, in my not so humble opinion, a discussion of sex and sexual wants, needs and desires should be so much easier at our age. News flash - it really isn't 'all we are looking for' these days. Sure there are still Lotharios and playas in the dating pool but a lot of them have drowned or need at least an hour for the blue pill to take effect.


As much as I feel a lifestyle of post-sex should be disclosed, even more significant is post-romance. I have come to feel that there are many, many more women who have relinquished romance to the bier of youth. Probably in the wake of one or more bad marriages; these ladies, in large numbers, have no interest in another "big" relationship. Got it, but you really ought to disclose it.


One of the online dating sites I have frequented has a question that asks your reaction to the term "making love." My answer is that it refers to a very specific kind of sex, one among many. However, I have coffee dated several women and read profiles of many more who are either opposed to "love making" or, as one women put it, "I don't indulge in that level of fantasy anymore." These women are not post-sexual at all, but they are post-romance. 

To finish today on a positive note - there are many members of my generation on both sides of the fence who can and do engage in healthy but varied sexual relationships in dating situations. Others find such interaction to be insignificant in what they seek in a later life partner. My only suggestion is be upfront with what you want or at least what you think you want, but be open to the earth moving without you seeing it coming.

A Pondering Quote

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. -William James

I remember this quote a bit differently. And I am not going to sully my smeared memory by googling the 'correct' version.

Our normal waking consciousness is but one type of consciousness. Whilst all about us, separated from us by the filmiest of veils lie many other forms of consciousness patiently waiting for us to awaken to them. -William James as remembered by my consciousness  

To me the meaning is clear - ordinary reality is not only just one of a myriad of ways of perceiving reality; it does in fact shape the reality we identify as ordinary or waking consciousness. Change your reality, change your perceptions of reality or change your perception of reality, change your actual reality. 

Astronomers now believe their are literally hundreds of thousands of potential earth-like planets circling stars near and far (mostly far). I would suggest that there are just as many realities circling each of us, we need only awaken to them. How to do that? How to experience those realities just out of your sight? 

Well, meditation comes to mind as a well traversed path. Drugs are clearly another (insert caveats here). But I think one preliminary step is almost a necessity, particularly if your end goal is enlightenment, nirvana, wisdom or growth. You need to honestly embrace the belief that those "filmiest of veils" exist and then examine them to see them for what they are. We construct the veils, the walls, the impediments to the multiverse of realities and, of course, only we can take them down. Step one - recognize your energetic funding of your own limited view of realities.

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in. -Mika

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art by Thor Lange

Constructing a Personality

"I am just a bundle of reaction formation responses."

I don't know if I love my friends because they are my friends or if they are my friends because I love them. But I do know I love the wonderful things they say. So much laughter, learning and blog fodder.

Reaction formation refers to a coping mechanism (Freudian defense mechanism) by which we replace unacceptable or anxiety producing behaviors and emotions with their direct opposite. Or at least what is perceived to be the opposite. Different flip-sides for different folks as it were.

Of course, as with all psychological theory it all gets much more diffuse and complicated as applied to various personas and personalities. For instance, if you are reacting to a parent who is often angry then you might avoid anger yourself by overly compensating, being always agreeable, never oppositional. Perhaps trading one dysfunctional behavior for another. How then does someone express an emotion like anger when reacting to a pathological use of that same emotion in parents or peers?

Well fortunately we are not just a bundle of reaction formations. We really do have free will; we actually can break free of whatever traits our childhood imposed upon us. Our maturation allows us options other than reaction formation. Still buried down deep or not buried at all lurks the remanent of all we have been and might have been. All twisty and turny (psychological terms) yet changeable, malleable and unique.

All my friends are nearly normal and I love them for exactly those qualities.

It's All Your Fault!

The student section at Yost Hockey Arena in Ann Arbor is a raucous, some might say rude bunch. One of their favorite cheers comes after the Michigan squad scores a goal. They all stand and point at the visitor's goalie and chant:

"It's all your fault. It's all your fault. It's all your fault."

I was reminded of this recently when a friend had a fender bender. An expensive event when you carry a $1,000 deductible in a society where no auto repair is less than a grand. What was unnerving was listening to her on the phone with her insurance agent admitting it was her fault. Unfortunately she had said exactly those words to the other driver at the scene of the accident. Even in the description of the incident I overheard, I had doubts about her culpability. But, of course, the moral of the story is not that you should never admit guilt; nay, the object lesson is the mindset in life that it's all your fault.

My friend is one of those guilt-ridden personalities. You know those people who do guilt so well, so often and so quickly that there really is no room for anyone else to shoulder any part of the burden. I will not mention her heritage here, you are allowed to speculate. I will, however, say that upbringing is the key; with the true guilt focused directly on the parents.

Guilt is instilled at an early age, most personality traits are. What one has to wonder is why of all the gifts to give a child, a parent would select this one? The answer, of course, is that the adult is compensating for their own feelings by projecting them on their child. Some parents are wise enough to compensate by giving their child the opposite or positive referent to their own tortured soul. Others - not so much.

Moral of the story - At least 50% of the time, it really isn't your fault. Ponder that possibility and we'll work on lowering the number next session.