beyond the harmed circle

Who doesn't want to escape a circle of harm? For that matter, who is not from a circle of harm? Freudians, perhaps Jungians, too, as well as anthropologists, sociologists, historians, biologists, theologians, philosophers, pornographers, and poets would note that the circle of harm we all experience is birth, the trauma of passage through the dark and narrow avenue of the womb to the rude light of day in the fresh and brutal but necessary air. (Some theologians would hearken farther back, all the way to the birth of the human race and its rupture from Paradise.) 

Harm might be the wrong word. How "harmful" could it be if we're all in the same boat (or ark)?

And why a harmed circle? Why not a harmed square, rectangle, oval, or triangle? That's easy. I hardly need to type it. Who hasn't at one moment or another (maybe many or most moments) felt like a hamster on a wheel of frustration, pain, or madness, in an inescapable loop? The circular treadmill might even be jubilant, pleasurable, or poignant. Good or bad, it's hard (impossible? barely possible?) to extract oneself from that furiously spinning circle.

It might not be harm at all! You might be in a circle of charm. You might be hamster-running under a spell, on an intravenous-magical-mystery drenching of espresso, sex, drugs, religion, righteousness, reason, anger, angst, success, failure, danger, or drama. 

Can the circle be unbroken?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Aha! I got it. Eureka. I have found out how to wed harm and charm (lucky or not), quirk and quark (charm, it turns out, is an elemental particle; don't ask me why they chose that word; channel Stephen Hawking). The enchantment of charm can dispel harm, singing an aria (that's right, charm circles back to song, incantation, chant, verse) of freedom and release.  

Before we get too excited about the charm bracelet of etymology, before we decide it always works like a charm, bear in mind that a charm can be a curse or a blessing. No less than Jakob Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm and their grim fairy tales, reminds us of this in 1883. To be effective, Grimm says, a charm "must be a choice." He claims it can't be a blessing and a curse. It's got to be one or the other, "either/or" (which is the title of a work by the philosopher-theologian Sören Kierkegaard). 

Take your pick.

Or flip a coin.

Charm or harm.

Give or take a letter.

Who said "spelling" wasn't important? 

 

The Long Form [PLEASE PRINT]

[LAST NAME] [MIDDLE INITIAL] [FIRST NAME]

[ADDRESS LINE 1]

[ADDRESS LINE 2]

[CITY, TOWN, VILLAGE, HAMLET] [STATE, PROVINCE, DISTRICT, PRINCIPALITY]

[COUNTRY, SOVEREIGN AUTONOMOUS STATE, EXTRATERRESTRIAL COLONY]

[DATE OF BIRTH]

[SOCIAL INSECURITY NUMBER]

[DATE OF SATORI, SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT, SURRENDER, AWAKENING]

[MOST RECENT EMPLOYER]

[REASON FOR LEAVING]

[MOST RECENT LOVER]

[REASON FOR LEAVING]

[FAVORITE POET]

[EARLIEST MEMORY]

[MOST MEMORABLE PASSAGE OF 'REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST' BY MARCEL PROUST]

[MOST RECENT LIE]

[PERCENTAGE SUCCESS RATE WITH REBLOSSOMING ORCHIDS]

[PROPER SPELLING OF BOUGAINVILLEA]

[ETYMOLOGY OF HIBISCUS]

[DREAM DESTINATION, DESTINATION OF DREAMS, DESTINY OF DESIRE]

[ALIBI FOR MIDNIGHT, JULY 23, 2019]

[PREMIUM REGRET 1]

[SECRET TRIUMPH 1]

[NEVER REVEALED TO ANYONE ANYWHERE BEFORE]

[YOUR BACK PAGES]

[MY FRONT MATTER]

[PLACE OF BIRTH]

[FONDEST FETISH]

[DESOLATION ROW]

[OFFSPRING SPRUNG, UNSPRUNG, SPARED]

[CELESTIAL COORDINATES]

[DIVINE PARAMETERS]

[HUMAN SCENT, SIGNATURE, FRAGRANCE, IMPRINT, ECHO]

[HANDWRITING SAMPLE]

[CRESCENDO, CODA, CLIMAX, COMMINGLING, COMMUNION, CHIASMUS]

[THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY BLANK]

valedictory volleys

do you have any last requests

like a favorite song or something

hello goodbye

any parting words of wisdom

a word to the wise

the wise don't need no wisdom

or words

like a last meal

be serious

bon appetit

pass the ketchup

what about blindfolds

for me or the firing squad

sayonara

can I have a cigarette

au revoir

spare change

hasta la vista

do you take cream or sugar

down the hatch

a leap of faith

anonymous

Literally without a name. Or without a literal name. How about a metaphorical name. Nameless. Not "name known but unspoken." No, not that. No name at all. Was there ever a name. Was a prior name shorn and shucked, offering a new self. Or was the anonymity there from birth. Did the anonymity serve as a blank canvas to paint on, to create an identity, a self. Dead to me. They say this or that one is "dead to me." A phrase nurturing either resentment or detachment. Take your pick. But who are "you"? Who is "me"? The power of anonymity. What exactly is that power. The unheralded secret, random kindness. The so-called selfless act that is never truly selfless despite what they say. Who are "they"? Anonymity as a shield, a shelter. Anonymity as a brandishing (surely not a brand name). "Anonymous" being the author. "Anonymous" being the donor. Handy for purposes of humility. Purposeful for adoptions. Anonymous the voyeur. Anonymous the spy. Anonymous the unknowable divinity, the unspeakable divine, as the ancient chosen tribe resorted to an acronym rather than utter the Sacred Name of No Name. That power of anonymity. Protector. Refuge. Savior. No name. Before name. Beyond name. Beyond noun or pronoun. Beyond adjective.

Just verb.

texting one two three

the text text texts Scripture scripture stuttering writing the writing the word words wording string of semantic syllables passage extract narrative pretext context line lines nonverbal unspoken legible utterance utterances legible illegible indefinable posit of posing etymological energy of imprecise embedded thought would be thought inked inkling of linked intuition articulation you say text synonymous anonymous musing musings musingification beyond deeper than hermeneutics semiotics sunny cloudy composition in the infinite cloud unlouded texture texting fabricated text the text tyranny of term terminal terminology text textual silence nothing no-thing  
 

stock phrase

if you recall

our stock

phrase

such as it was

three ancient words

wrapped around

our twisted veins

mad crazy

seared

 into a Tuesday

moon

bright blood

bloomed in the cut

one too many moorings

ripped from our secret heart

a black pearl

labeled

‘love’

hole in the donut

Waiting to board an Adirondack Trailways bus bound for New York from Syracuse, I spied a sign in the distance at the Dunkin' Donuts in the regional transportation center. 

The sign read, "DO A DOZEN."

Or did it?

Now picture a doughnut, or donut, if you will, in place of each letter "O."

"D A D ZEN." 

I pointed out this oddity, coincidence, novelty, or providential message to the prospective passenger sitting in front of me on a metal bench.

"I've never been on a bus," she felt compelled to confess.

"Never? How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How about a train?"

"No."

"Plane."

"No." Self-conscious chuckle.

"A school bus?"

"Yes."

What Dad Zen wisdom could I impart to this brave-new-worlding daughter of her dad?

A smile, a reassuring voice.

"I wonder if it's late. I'll check," Zendad offered.

What is Dad Zen? you might ask.

If there is no self, wouldn't that rule out Dad Zen, as well as Mom, Son, Daughter, Brother, or Sister Zen?

Having no self, do we become the hole in the doughnut? 

But in doing so, are we made whole?

In Step Three of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson observed that someone, especially a fledgling seeker, might be afraid of taking a leap of faith, a surrender to Somebody or Something. Such a BraveNewUniverser might be afraid of becoming "the whole in the doughnut."  

Becoming a doughnut hole isn't just a clever Dunkin' marketing ploy.

Willing to risk becoming the hole in the doughnut takes a leap of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard put it.

Who wouldn't be afraid to take a leap of faith? Where do we fall to? Who or what catches us? Are we bruised? 

And what or who are we after The Fall?

There you have it.

It?

Alan Watts says, "This is It."

So be it.

Later, having arrived in NYC, I see In front of La Mode cleaners on Broadway near 109th Street, an Asian man wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word "DAD."  

Was he practicing Dad Zen? 

(Or subliminally advertising DO A DOZEN?)

I've been staying with friends on 108th Street.

There are 108 mala beads.

A baseball has 108 stitches.

It's Opening Day.

I'll have a bagel with a schmear.
 

what is a cell phone?

Before we answer the question at hand, let me digress (if one can do so with nothing to digress from). I prefer cellphone as one word. Why? Because the typical evolution in American English is to go from two words to a compound word with a hyphen and then to one solid word combining the original two words. Why not skip all that and go straight to one word? After all, we don't say tele-phone anymore. But most style guides go for cell phone as two words, so I will obey, which is not my nature. Here's a rather fascinating and in-depth look at the issue, from an Australian writing 10 years ago. And I won't digress from a digression to ponder smart phone vs. smartphone.

What is a cell phone? 

Wikipedia says: "A mobile phone, known as a cell phone in North America, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and, therefore, mobile telephones are called cellular telephones or cell phones, in North America."

Well now! I couldn't have said it better myself. Who knew? Not me. Who knew that this is what that ubiquitous ever-present thing is and how it works, if you understand all that technical stuff.  

But that doesn't get to the existential nature of the thing. I mean, how would Soren Kierkegaard or Martin Heidegger answer the standing question? And would they possess one? 

I'm going to allow for a lot of wiggle, or wriggle, room and say that defining a cell phone depends on circumstances and intent. I won't foolishly say, "It's all relative." I had a philosophy professor at Le Moyne College, the Rev. John J. McNeill, S.J., who told our class about a debate on situation ethics he participated in around 1970. When his opponent said, "It's all relative" or "Everything is relative," McNeill retorted, "You can't make a statement like that. It contains an absolute. It subverts your argument." I always thought that was quick and clever. 

Where were we?

Permit me the Socratic method. Isn't that when the philosopher (which I am not) asks a series of leading questions so that the student formulates a reasoned response?

Is a cell phone a communication device? Obviously. They say that it is. But --hold on -- I submit it is equally, if not more so, a miscommunication device, especially when SMS, or texting, is employed. So we cannot with certainty claim that a cell phone is a communication device. Even if one texts another saying "bring some milk home," the sender assumes the receiver received the message, on time, in English, and without sarcasm, doubt, irony, etc. Throw an emoji in there and land mines may be planted.

Is a cell phone a weapon? You would think so, the way the "device" is brandished. Especially on business calls, isn't the object used as a weapon in the arsenal of persuasive tools? Just watch someone's posture, mannerisms, volume, and word choices.

Is a cell phone a walkie-talkie? It can be, especially if someone is in the attic talking to someone in the basement, if there's service coverage.

Is a cell phone a tether? Is it not a cable, a rope, a binding to the mother ship, your network, your friends, even your enemies, your spouses (plural in my case), your lovers, your ex-lovers, your would-be lovers, and your would-be ex-ex-lovers or would-be ex-ex-spouses? Ask yourself this: what happens if you sever that tether? Can you do it? What happens when baby's pacifier pops out of the mouth and rolls onto the pavement and slips down a storm drain? Tantrum, right? And what does the unshackled slave do without the familiar grip of tyranny?

What is a cell phone?

Tell me.

Testify.

cone of uncertainty

The projected paths of hurricanes are surely not the only examples of a "cone of uncertainty." We are born (and borne) through and into a cone of uncertainty. Our cone of uncertainty encompasses the all-direction maze of life, death, and all stations in between those two terminals. Uncertainty about meaning, lack of meaning, direction, no direction, beginning, middle, end -- it's all there, entwined by faith or fear into a conical conundrum, comedic or tragic -- take your pick.

#punctuationmatters

The day after Mother's Day, as I was driving, I spotted a sign outside a church. The sign declared:

MOTHERS ARE GODS

ANGELS ON EARTH

Being a sometime editor, I quickly perceived what I thought was an error of diction and wanted to rejigger the movable letters to say:

MOTHERS ARE GODDESSES

thinking, "Wow, that's a pretty progressive church, going all New Age on us with gods or goddesses." And then I read the next line and realized the misperception that the missing apostrophe in "GODS" had wrought in one reader. See, punctuation matters. In heaven and on earth.

Incidentally, theologically speaking, I don't get all Thomas Kinkade-warm-and-gauzy over that angel thing. Back in the Sixties, in high school, Father Giuliani used to say we've got to be human before anything else. We're humans. No disrespect to angelic entities, wherever they may be, if anywhere, but we humans need not aspire to that ontological leap. (Is it even a leap, Kierkegaardian or otherwise? Now don't go ruffling your gossamers.)

digitalitis

Returning from the bathroom at 3:08 a.m., you check the iPad by your bed, more out of daytime habit than need or expectation. No emails, no notifications. Same with your pre-smartphone "device." No messages or calls silently announced (because you purposely dictate silence in the night hours, though that carries a risk of not learning of a dire need or catastrophe, personal or global). Arousing from a slumber, late, just before 8:30, you check again while lounging in bed, warmly enveloped under layers of flannel sheet, comforter, and thin quilt. Again, nothing. No white numeral embedded in the red alert circle in the upper right of the tablet's mail app; no announcement bars of missed calls or messages on the outdated unsmartphone that people mistakenly think is a Blackberry. You have your standard breakfast: Heidelberg Cracked Wheat toasted; three slices, all with Earth Balance Original spread, one with Welch's grape jelly; Simply Balanced organic black tea; a dash of whole milk; grapes. As is your custom, while you eat you partake of a digital fast, ignoring blips or pops or other notifications, which you make aurally available now that you are mobile and inching toward awakeness. After breakfast, you check again. Nothing. No emails, alerts, notifications. You attribute this to a legion of logical explanations (others' busyness, server issues, expirations, wifi seizures, unpaid subscriber services, spam, memory lapse, lack of directness or clarity toward the outside world), but after only the third day of this white space, this barren digital plain -- three infinitely long days, mind you! -- you begin to wonder who you were, or are, as you take a tissue and wipe the Richard-Nixon-like sweat that has begun to bead on your upper lip.

just for today

Soren Kierkegaard wrote, ". . . to be anxious for the next day is covetousness." This is found in "The Anxiety of Self-Torment." Think about it. It is a powerful message. To be anxious about other than today is to have a "feeling or showing a very strong desire for something that you do not have and especially for something that belongs to someone else," which is how Merriam-Webster defines "covetous." You can mull this on many levels. Tomorrow we do not have. To whom does tomorrow belong? (For that matter, can't we ask the same questions of today?) It's as if Kierkegaard is saying, "Don't be greedy. You have enough to worry about today. Don't borrow tomorrow's troubles." (I recognize that "greedy" differs in meaning from "covetous.") Still, there's a lot there to chew on. Isn't there? Just for today.  

blank look

I made a comment, one that was intended as a compliment, if you will. In return, he gave me what I would call "a blank look." He returned a look without comment, seemingly indifferent. Note to thin-skinned, oversensitive, "attached" self: you truly do not know what his response or reaction is or was. So, before you get all pouty and resentful, consider that the recipient of your remark may have been puzzled, perplexed, in agreement, in disagreement, either/or, both/and, neither/nor, thinking about his great aunt, suffering constipation, calculating an equation that could lead to a cancer cure, meditating on Descartes, have a hearing problem, not like me, like me, formulating a diplomatic response for another time, processing other data, undergoing a TIA or stroke, entertaining erotic and lurid thoughts about Marilyn Monroe (or Marilyn Manson), forgotten what I said immediately after I spoke it, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. And nausea is the point here. It is nauseating, what paces we put ourselves through when we are all up in our heads. The sickness unto self, as Kierkegaard put it. Cui bono? To what good?

this very day

this very day
Kierkegaard used that phrase
six years ago he died
my brother, not Kierkegaard
St. Andrew's Day
patron saint of Scotland
Thomas Richard Hayes
half brother
but nothing half about it
I wasn't there that moment
but weeks before
his patient lessons of golf to me
a non-golfer
the Florida sun
the pillowed dark dawn farewell
we knew
we loved
today
this very day
celebrating branch
vein
leaf
cloud
sun
raindrop
pulse

voice

I confess to a fear. I confess to the fear that I've lost my voice. Not the voice loss associated with laryngitis. Not that sort of -itis. I fear blogitis, the loss of my blogging voice. Having been Tweeting (or tweeting) away like a madman (MadMen? BTW, I await the return of that stellar AMC TV series), I wonder if I've gone to the word-well so often and so distinctly differently that I lost my Kokonuts voice, diminished my Laughorist persona, lessened my serial-comma loving stature, skewed my Kierkegaard-name-dropping identity. Of course, some would argue for marked boundaries of these voices, clear boundaries on the verges of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Blogger. Those "some" may be wise to counsel such; or not. Nevertheless, having glanced at the aforementioned words and having heard their cadence and rhythm and substance, or lack therof, I can rest restlessly assured that this voice is still full-throated. Warbling. Wandering.

Carry on.

As you were.

Laugh. Or...

Else.

out on bail

Were you stopped in your tracks by my last post, titled "arrested"?

Alas, no criminality is implied, inferred, intuited, imagined, initiated, conjured, conjectured, or ANTicipated.

I am out on bail, id est, carried free, unburdened, bucketed, transported away from the heart-stopping goldfinch vision of reality to the quotidian tasks of "this very day," a phrase of Soren Kierkegaard.

listlessness of lists

You see lots of lists this time of year, making them year-end lists.

Usually tidy numbers: 10, 15, 20. Rarely 17 or 11 or 12.

You see them on websites, in newspapers, in magazines.

You don't see too many null lists, though.

Here's one:




Fill in the blanks.

Now, THAT'S existentialism!

Carry on, Jevons

"Carry on, Jevons" sounds like the beginning of a British comedy of manners. To the manor born (not "manner," as people erroneously write), that sort of bit. Square jaw. Clenched. Smoking jacket. Leather-bound volumes. A glass of sherry (but none for abstinent moi).

But Jevons here refers to the Jevons Paradox. As David Owen (if you like smart contrarians, always look for him in The New Yorker) put it in "The Efficiency Dilemma," in the December 20, 2010, issue of The New Yorker magazine:

In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, “The Coal Question,” in which he argued that the bonanza couldn’t last. Britain’s affluence and global hegemony, he wrote, depended on its endowment of coal, which the country was rapidly depleting. He added that such an outcome could not be delayed through increased “economy” in the use of coal—what we refer to today as energy efficiency. He concluded, in italics, “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Some, if not most, economists and environmentalists assert that the Jevons Paradox has little effect in the modern world. But, as Owen notes, no one has ever really studied all the variables that go into a macro-study. And it would be impossible to calculate. Owen says the Jevons effect is essentially the history of civilization. It happens all the time, in many ways.

It's only common sense, isn't it? Cheap gas? Hummers galore. Expensive gas? Less driving, smaller cars.

Let's extend the Jevons principle into more metaphorical realms, if you will:

• More talk equals less thought.
• Less thought equals more talk.
• More blogging equals less originality.
• More sex equals less pleasure.
• More channels adds up to less entertainment.
• More money results in more poverty.
• More faith means more science.
• One leap of faith begets a dance of doubt.
• Two Kierkegaards tie one Buster Posey.
• Three pas de deux surprise a guillotine of guilt.
• Seventy-seven haiku hijack a hiatus of hilarity.
  

It is possible these are skewed conclusions, not proportionally propositioned or logically legislated.

That's okay. It's my venue.

In veritas veritate.

Age quod agis.

Or something like that.

As you were, Jevons.

20 answers

"The answer is in the question." -- Zen Saying.

Zen Calendar notation for September 28, 2010.

1. green
2. red
3. sometimes
4. half of infinity
5. the other half of infinity
6. sententiousness
7. serial comma
8. tabloid
9. aural
10. Kazakhs cordially courting Cossacks
11. perch
12. el Greco
13. Picasso but not Kierkegaard
    
14. Dali
15. a grid of intersecting boulevards masquerading as haiku prayer wheels
16. pious pies of colorful pi
17. patrician accents with square jaws on Sutton Place, Manhattan
18. soberiquets
19. anonononymity
20. silencio
    

silence

The sermon was about space.

And silence.

Space on walls in a gallery, allowing room for the paintings to live and breathe, as it were, or as it is.

The space between words or sounds, which call silence.

Oddly, he spoke of John's Gospel and the Word. And the Silence eternal before the Word. Then, curiously, the eucharistic prayer said something like, "Your Word has never been silent."

My lawyerly mind (I'm not a lawyer, though) said to myself, which is it?

Why can't my zen mind say: why does it have to be either/or (the title of a Kierkegaard work)? Why can't it be both?

(Grammar purists might tell you that the slash, or virgule, is used improperly above.)

Silence.