whose harm is it, anyway

What is harm anyway? There's the obvious nightmare catalog of war, insurrection, repression, torture, and unimaginable, and all-too-observable, endless permutations of physical, mental, social, etc violence, passive or active. And everything in between along a continuum of horror. There's that. There are also ever more subtle acts or omissions of harm, a seemingly infinite inventory of our inhumanity.

But what about the debates that people wage, even on Planet Harm?

Debates about blame, responsibility, history, cause and effect, will, evil, social structures, philosophies, religions, anarchies?

What about cloudy or murky (in the eyes of some) instances of alleged harm? (Mere mention of the word "alleged" sparks debate in some circles.)

The gesture of holding the door open for someone: is it gallant, condescending, ahistorical, sexist, ageist, arrogant, presumptuous, kind, or neutral?

And the rebuff of such a gesture: is that a shade of harm in the form of hues yet named?

The list goes on. The lists go on. (Whose lists?)

The look from one to another, anonymous or intimate: affection, objectification, lust, compassion, anguish, remorse, regret, rage, curiosity, sadness, charity, solidarity, sincerity, lovingkindness . . . ad infinitum.

The same with the written word, the spoken word. The same (multiplied exponentially) with words or parts of words or emojis transmitted by short message service, or SMS, which we all call "text."

The same with the word or words not said.

And then there's the harm of history, the stain and weight of ancient or recent sins, horrors we inherit, a heritage that can't be disappeared, that we cannot escape, even if by association and lineage. 

So, we on Planet Harm live and breathe all this; it's our atmosphere. Some of us plead acceptance; others pray for amnesia; yet others cry for conversion, a magical metanoia; many crave escape (and they find it but only in passing, momentarily).

We Harmlings are standing on a plank over a crevice. We dream of wings. 

We Harmlings push a rope that is slack from use.

The elders sang sagas of a deus ex machina, a dea ex machina, come to the rescue.

We lost the words but remember the melody.

What now?

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? 

 

as if possessed

we called it a loan so give it back

you got behind on your payments, didn't you

so did I so did I, I did

return to sender became our mantra

who owes whom, you said

we signed no papers

I didn't owe nobody nothing triple negative

we lost count not that we ever counted

 on anything

payments you ask what payments

no cash no credit no receipts

no currency no coin of the realm

and now they're talking repo

as in repo man or woman

as in repossess a heart take it back

as if a heart could be possessed, owned, loaned

in possession of one's faculties

self-possessed

forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

possession is nine tenths of the law

search and seizure as if possessed

breach the peace

round up your posse

reply by replevin

in other words give back

what never was  

the night dawn

before the dew burns off 

drip drop

where did that pendulous drop of moisture go, the one blogged about yesterday?

no question about it, or is there?

The Planet* gave me some space for words and musings, mostly questions.

Thanks, period.

* as in Planet Valenti

L'eau de lune

"I read the news today, oh boy . . . "

Actually, I didn't read the news; I heard it on NPR. (Who reads news anymore anyway? Sad.)

The news I refer to is that scientists studying stuff brought back decades ago from the Apollo missions have found molecules of water (water-bearing minerals, more accurately).

One scientist said, "This is not your grandmother's water." It's not oceans, or even puddles, or even liquid. Nor is it solid or gas. It is something else.

And surprising.

Surprising.

One scientist said she was so surprised she thought her instruments needed to be calibrated.

Water. We thought we knew you. We thought we understood intimately this building block of life. In our thirst for knowledge, we thought the word "water" in its infinite connotations and denotations quenched something. We were cocksure that, well (pun intended), water was at least wet, and close to solid in the frozen north, as solid as "meaning." But, alas, Water, we hardly knew you.

Water. Just a word, just a concept.

And how many other watery definitions will slosh down the drain of certainty as our world, our cosmos, rocks us with surprise?

How many other words turn out to be just like, um, water?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Hamlet," Act 1 scene 5

Vision Fission Fusion

The other day, my Zen Calendar had this quotation:

"As a man is, so he sees." -- William Blake

I dare say, au contraire:

As a man sees, so he is.

It's odd that a zen calendar wouldn't see things that way, the latter way. After all, see the whole universe in one drop of dew on a blade of grass. That sort of thing. I remember a line in one of John Updike's Rabbit books, Rabbit Is Rich, I believe, something like, "When you feel better you see better." That too. Or vice versa. It might all sound counterintuitive, but it's the same thing as: "You can act yourself into a new way of thinking." When I first heard that, I thought they were crazy, but it has turned out to be empirically true for me and many others.

To Womb It May Concern

Peace begins

in the Womb.

I saw that on a bumpersticker today.

We like our philosophy or theology simple in America, simple enough to fit on a bumpersticker or a T-shirt. I can't complain about that. I've written a peer-reviewed technical paper touting the wisdom of simple messages for complex material.

Peace begins in the womb. (Why the uppercase W? Is it a subliminal message from W, the Prez? Is it saying that that anatomical part has higher grammatical ranking than, say, the heart, the penis, or the elbow? Is womb uppercased as a proper noun per order of some feminist manifesto?)

I suspect the message is trying to make a comment regarding the abortion vs. pro-choice debate. (I happen to oppose abortion and don't know anyone who expresses gleeful support of that act. I also happen to recognize we live in a pluralistic society. In passing, let me add that pro-life, for me, also means opposition to the death penalty and support of a myriad of social programs to nurture life [human life, that is], once it is on this earth, programs that are often opposed by the "lower-my-taxes-I-hate-government-except-when-convenient-to-me-me-me-so-called-conservative crowd.)

Anyway, back to "peace begins in the womb."

Does it?

Does this refer to playing Bach for fetuses? (Feti? Is there such a word?) Or the nap time of people-to-be in utero?

And, honestly, doesn't peace really end in the womb?

Come on. Was anything ever more peaceful than those days, those good ol' days back in the womb?

After all, that's why we humans invented the fetal position.

Free Will Hunting

Scientists are arguing about whether humans possess free will. A recent popular article by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times about this stated the view of cognitive scientists, science philosophers, and bookies (just wanted to see if you were still reading). It said free will is nothing more than an illusion, a monkey riding on a tiger's back.

Well, that conveniently explains the rationale for the phenomenon of spanking the monkey, doesn't it? We can't help it.

Whew.

What a relief.

Why didn't anyone tell me this? Why didn't anyone tell me this, say, in any year from 1965 onward?

So, all you who foolishly made New Year's resolutions: beware.

Give up.

I kid, but the article quoted scientists, philosophers, priests, paupers, sex addicts, neurologists, compulsive eaters, alcoholics, physicists, strippers, cab drivers, ballerinas, and talk-show hosts. (I made up most of that list. But interviewing such folks would undoubtedly have made for a much more interesting and less-snoozy piece.)

What about good?

What about evil?

What about dieting? Or cheating? Or heroism? Or being late for work? What about deciding to do the "right" thing? Or not doing the "wrong" thing? Most of the "experts" quoted said it's all an illusion. You think you are making a decision, but your brain has already decided even before you are aware of it.

Will power is only the tensile strength of one's own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce. -- Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) Italian poet, critic, novelist, and translator.


We defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'Tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616) British poet and playwright.

We run the full range here, folks, from the silly to the sublime.

Carry on.

Laugh. Or....

Else.

You have no choice.

Or do you?