Index 
Joie de Vivre Law Morality Senses Souls Thought Process
Morality I have often heard, “A man is only as good as his promise.” I say, “Not so, he is better than his promise”, God forgives all sin because his house is not divided into promisors and liars, not even separate rooms in the castle of heaven, not even bathrooms. (After a 9-hour sleep, and reading the paper (½ so far) “Dear Abby” has 2 “letters” in the Sun Times today, one from “Grateful” grandpa lamenting “don’t tell a child they are being bad, because we care!” and another complaining about a daughter abusing her old mother, written by another old mother. Abby’s advice to grandpa was ridiculous and would greatly increase his misery, but the advice to the complaining mother repeated exactly the “sin” pointed out by grandpa. She said, to paraphrase, “Maybe the daughter had a has a “hard, stressful life”, so maybe we can ‘understand’ here situation.” And do what? Forgive her abuse? A version of “let him without sin, cast the first stone.” Abby is a hypocrite. She cast a stone at the Grateful grandpa for casting a stone at the daughter who cast a stone at her mother. Law Every “law” casts a stone, every “should” casts a stone, every “need” above food and shelter casts a stone. Please Abby be aware of your castings when you tell me, a reader, I need compassion and patience.” I appreciate your offer, but not your insistence, therein you cast your stones. I am one of the “frail, elderly parents” you say “need” what you say they need. And now to conjecture far beyond the letter. Once a political (moral) “need” is established the right to “community” resources is awarded to those that say they can alleviate the “need”, or so many wrongly believe. And the power of the state is rightly directed, I believe many believe, to confiscate personal resources earned no doubt with the help of “community”. So “community” is just taking back its “fair share”, and reallocating the “fair share” based on “best” alleviating “community needs”. And here I think the sand foundation begins to shift. Because there are insufficient resource to eliminate all “needs”, we can only partially address all of them or totally some of them chosen by percentage of priority. After we’re done allocating resources among community needs, the “needs” are still in need of attention. The fact that “us” are persistent shows that many community “needs” are not required, only desired. So how is food a “need” then. Hunger persists, we persist. Hunger is not a need, food is. Hunger is only a warning.  Animal Souls I just watched a young child pick her way through the puddles and ice along a partially cleared sidewalk outside my window. I marvel at her ability to scan the environment, weigh the options, and choose one that optimizes her trade-offs among stability, wetness, and expended energy. Her responses are adjusted from plans made a few step earlier updated at every step. She is JUST a child. Then I saw the neighbors’ cat walk along the same path, just as well, perhaps better, at least better* for the cat......*for those who attribute measure on the good end of the good-evil spectrum | Joie de Vivre Tonight is Friday night. Millions will watch the game tonight, games like I played:, basketball games, theater games, drinking games, card games. Games where the number one rules is “follow the rules.” I sat alone and watched a game without rules, still going on. A game where an icicle the size as a baseball bat becomes a gun, then a sword, then a magic wand. A game where stairs off the back porch become mountains and the trees in the backyard, enemies. Then back down the stairs again, this time a slide way, the trees guiding spirits steadying his balance. No rules, invented at the moment, tossed away, then re-entering the play. I’ve played both ways. I prefer no rules, now. The boy who invented this rule-less game? He’s back inside now. He invented this game while carrying out his chore of clearing the porch of 8 inches of snow. He did his chore while fighting bad guys and skiing for a “world record downhill run”. Senses Zeus and Iris painted the world today, as every day. Today they used black and white. Every dark cloud underside is coated in a soft white blanket as greys of the underside fade into apparent blackness. Your palette today was black and white, thank you for the rarity as well as the commonness. Tomorrow, even yet today, the balck will wash away the white restoring the greys to their “proper” respect, promising to be against a blue background, washing away the homogenizing white as well. Thought Process Descartes Method: "Observe, generalize to explain the observation by existing or new deductive theory , deduce a consequence from the generalization, arrange a test (new observation) of the deduced consequence", compare test results to the existing or new deductive theory, if the match within measurement errors is acceptable: stengthen the existing or new theory, retest; if not, existing theory or new theory is weakened, but you can try again (e.g. Higg's Boson). This reduces to “Observe, generalize, observe ad infinitum or ad deus." (are infinitum and deus the same?) At times I refer to Chung Tzu the early Daoist or Taoist or whatever, the one who told the story of the butterfly, quoted at the start of Bellah’s fine book “Religion in Human Evolution”. In reverence I retell it here in my own words. One day I awoke and remembered my dream. I dreamt I was a butterfly flitting free, using my huge wings to ride the slighted ripples in the summer breeze. Then in the dream I tired, lit upon a branch, folded my wing together, and drifted off to sleep. While asleep in my dream as a butterfly I had a dream I was a human awaking from a dream I was a butterfly. When I woke up, I was confused for an instant whether I was a butterfly or a human. I guess I as Bellah might add “Once understood, it’s hard to get rid of the idea". The story is the denial of all humanly accessible truth, includingly denial in the possible “other world” of “ideas” or denial of their denial; this one stuck and has yet to be refuted except by exhortation. |