a list, not a litany

Suppose you have had enough? You are tired of the harm cycle. What can you do?

The short answer: I don't know.

I know, that's disappointing.

If I were asked (and I haven't been), what would I myself putatively do to halt the harm? 

(Can you imagine legions of demonstrators brandishing placards with the words HALT THE HARM instead of STOP THE STEAL? [Can a placard be brandished?])

A list, though not a litany:

• Do nothing. (Maybe the harmer or the harmful conditions will expire, tire, surrender, grow bored or disillusioned, or have a change of heart.)
• Try something, anything, different.
• Take up a new habit.
• Act as if.
• Practice a charm.
• Ask for help.
• Accept the help.
• Go deeper into the circle.
• Go undercover.
• Trick them.
• Employ magic.
  
• Pray.
• Ingest pharmaceuticals.
  
• Build a new social infrastructure.
• Surrender.
• Redefine harm.
• Accept the status quo (until it changes).
• Enlist allies.
• Turn the circle of harm into an oval, then a square, then a rhombus, then a triangle.
  
• Innovate circle-breaking technology.
• Self-induce a hypnotic trance, a hypno-selfie.
• Practice mental telepathy with harmers and harmees.
  
• Convert to their side.
  
• Undergo electroshock therapy.
  
• Deploy tanks and other heavy armor, physically, metaphysically, or both.

DISCLAIMER: Let's be clear: the author of this blog makes no claim or pretense to being any kind of authority or expert, professional or otherwise. In short, I have no advice or recommendation(s) to make about anything. So, why bother? Good question. I am merely listening to myself muse, seeing if the microphone works, testing to see how successful I am as a tightrope walker.

 

turning points

How many turning points do we get in this life? I do not know. You may say that every moment is one. Understood. But how often do we dare to disturb our own universe, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot? I concede there are the obvious turning points, the walking-down-the-wedding aisle moments, or the deciding not to do so. For all we know, there are even greater turning points, and we did not recognize them. Or perhaps we did. Firsts, as in kisses, cigarettes, drinks, drugs, days on the job, words exchanged, or silences. Lasts, of the same. And more. As well as less.

Life is a mysterious journey, is it not? Especially when we are in the thrall of turning points we may be blind to.

O Wisdom, O Wisdom, grant us wisdom.

If I were a sociologist . . .

. . . I would tell my students to think big, and originally, even if they started small, and unoriginally. I'd challenge them to come up with a grand research project, something like: why do groups of humans flock to do certain things and why? Oh, I know, studies have already explored that. But dig deeper. Watch people at a store or at a mall. What are the influences of smell or building design or age or race or clothing or crowdedness or gender? There's lots to explore. And lots to learn about humans as individuals and in groups.

Postscriptum de Poste Riceroni Recondite

A poetic postscripted post-it regarding my previous post:

The if is

Infinite think of the alcoholic who

Savors oblivion yet does

Not drink it the one

Who says enough is

Not in my vocabulary enough

Only translates to more

Riding the same razor

Track of murder, mayhem, and valor

If only they knew.