America in 2021

  There are a couple of reasons for not wanting to write about reality. For one, many would say it's a deep rabbit hole and going down it is pointless. To which I guess I say, pointless is as pointless does.  Two would be, fiction is more profitable. Nevertheless, what might it mean this idea of reality?   Well, it seems that the direct idea is what is apprehended.  That does presupposed a apprehending method or device, and it is often okay to just say mind.  Reality is apprehended by mind.  So one way of looking at it, is the connection between mind and reality.  I'm not going to do that. I am simply going to get into two different approaches to dealing with reality.  The first describes reality as being built up of smaller bits of what I am going to call, reals.  This is really quite a popular approach, because if you grind it up into bits, those bits are a littler easier to consider.  The other very powerful notion connected to t...

  As in the previous post I will try and examine these closely linked ideas, which I might say again has occupied the attention and thought, in  various ways, of many generations. First I might mention some " sources " of power which might be somewhat obvious.  I am only going to mention two, the moon and the sun.  But of course there are a great many things that we can refer to as sources.   But we experience the the relationships between power and control a lot.   Three pretty obvious examples would be a stove, a car, and a furnace.  Before furnaces of course there was simply " fire ".   Well, many people have had experience with the power in a car, in the absence of  control,  and the unpleasant results of that.  Likewise many people have experienced unpleasant results of the absence of control in relation to what's going on  with a stove, and likewise with a furnace. This combination of ideas , are expressed ...

  So, I am going at this mostly from the point of view of , what kinds of meanings can we associate with this combination of words: existence and God. I have addressed this somewhat, it in what I might call an " ad hoc " , non-rigorous or some might say shoddy, even B.S. proof here: 2020/06/episode-5-proof-of-existence-of-god.html This is a bit different in that I am mostly commenting on this  combinations of words. So, to begin, it's kinda of like the north and south of a magnet.  It sticks together.  And then, there is a historic context, in which many noble and courageous  people have sacrificed their lives in connection with the idea.   That one, of course, is quite a " long " story, involving most of the history  available to us, now.   But, I think, personally, that it has some immediate meaning in lots of people's lives.  They may deny it, for example, but the denial has some significance at least for them.  And of cours...

  What make the hard problems so hard?   It seems like in all the varieties of disciplines and life choices we run into those " hard " problems.   There are some people who find a hard problem and spent the rest of their lives, sometimes, working at it. Usually it connects to expressing or creating.  Often you try to find the solution or mixture or balance of things.   I would call, " how do we live together and feel good about that ",  one of those problems.  It could be between individuals and it's often between groups, people with diverse interests or life styles, that is.  Sometimes that will reduce to , how do I live with myself? You would kind of think, we'd have an idea about how that works since we have been living with it so long.  It does seem to me that we are learning a lot more about, what things don't work so well. Some how this particular hard problem, is almost like hard with in hard, the exterior hardness being...

  So this is based on a simple idea.  Is it more likely for someone who identifies as liberal/conservative to dissemble? My guess is someone has studied this and there may be an answer.  The deeper subject is whether or not that arbitrary individual is more honest, because that is a much more difficult , or deeper issue. Well, I don't know, and probably won't want to know, because I like to consider that in an average day I will tend to act liberally a few times and act conservatively another couple of times, and therefore my dissembling will average out.  I really like to think of it like this.  If you see a performance of live music you will notice that some people tend to perform from the left side of the stage, and some from the right, and some maybe more in the center.  It works better that way.  Ultimately it is the coordination of those different positions that allows the performers to succeed in what they are trying to get across. There is that...

I have often been concerned with the very confusing relationship between what is called " conservative " and the alternative " liberal ".  I can't say very much about what this relationship is exactly.  That is not at all clear in my mind but I thought I might address another issue which is communism and capitalism.  And so, when I was younger, when I first read " I Robot ", I had a pretty clear memory of being extremely frightened about communists because they had big bombs and they wanted to drop them, on well, me, and my city, and I actually did not know clearly what a " communist " was, although I did read  something about that in the newspaper.   And of course when I got a little bit older, we fought a war about it.  A very disturbing war, that many people today would just as soon forget.  At that time, I knew a bit more about it, but I could not say I understood it.  And honestly today, pretty much the same thing. Of course, when I thin...

 So, if people respond or different groups respond to different kinds of logic, then in what ways can agreement be reached. I would like to think that this process might be easy, but honestly I don't think that would be a fair analysis of the situation.  It is most likely not some kind of a formula, although that might exist.  Certainly it requires an understanding that the differences and similarities inherent in the varieties of different groups often based on localities, and distinctions  create significant differences. So, the issue comes down I think, to a great extent about how we deal with complexity.  Recognizing the level of complexity in our national and international environment, should not be a source of despair or discouragement, but in fact  should be recognized as a form of strength and resiliency in our collective nature. Anyway, it's Monday, which comes of course after Sunday.  I think that is a good thing.  I don't think my , 'bu...

  My primary argument is that logic and/or reason is not a monolith, as much as we might like that.  The monolithic structure of logic works pretty good if we want to end a conversation quickly, by noting that the other parties  contribution is " not logical " or " not reasonable ". And sometimes that works. But if you consider daily life, different facets respond better to different logic.  For example, logic and reason are viewed somewhat different in say, medicine or law, or say in music.  So if it is not monolithic then how not monolithic might it be.  Arguing from the point of view of music, and allowing that songs have some kind of logic associated with them, then it seems pretty clear that there is a lot of different kinds of logic. I think logic sort of exists in the moment, in the situation and the logic that works at one time, might not work or work as well in the next situation. Well, so what?  This is a prelude to the idea that an expansive...

The question is a bit like orbiting a black hole, taking photos, knowing all along a minor navigational error , could send you into a " world " of hurt. Anyway,  one way to go is to translate it to - is ping pong easy.  However, you will notice that that question is not so easy to answer, either.  So, right off you want to pull out a coin, and flip it and there is your answer.   There are a few observations that may be relevant.  Like it seems pretty unlikely there would be " the blues " / blues music, as we know it if life was in some way particularly easy, the bowl full of cherries, you have heard of.  That of course is very hard to imagine, and particularly for me, because, as many people are aware, jazz evolved from blues. Of course, many might have a different view of that.  I have often expressed the view that without jazz, things would be a great deal different today. For example, maybe there would be no " hard chords ". Anyway, circling th...

 And so, a bit about truth. It's hard to find truth without context.  I suppose it does exist, but it would be a good deal harder to find.  Another thing that makes it difficult to find is the issue of honesty.  It's pretty hard to find " truths " , without some kind of honesty. And as you may know, honesty is not particularly easy.  We all need to work at that a little.   I think I may have mentioned that sometimes, truth hurts.

 Kind of a difficult topic, so to start out, I just want to point out that today is today, not tomorrow and not yesterday . That I am pretty sure of as to the rest, not so much. One thing that does seem pretty clear is that we are all stuck in our own heads.  That is kind of a human condition and you can view it as a good thing or a bad thing, but that is pretty much the way it is.  Some people I think may have a better view of things than others, and of course others will maybe have not so good a view.  But that does change. Anyway, about fear.  I can speak personally, that I experience a lot of fear.  Fear of falling, fear of going too fast or too slow.  Fear of not being at the right place at the right time.  Fear of relationships, losing them or maybe not doing the right thing in regard to them. I do think other people probably experience a lot of the same stuff. Right  now, I think that a lot of people are experiencing things like that....

  Well, I guess this is a " deep " subject, but non the less, I think if we just go back to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  we may get a taste for just how important a topic this is, by observing how important it was to him.  It was the foundation of what he built organizationally, in his career, which would most correctly be referred to as ministry. Of course, Dr. King was not dumb, in any stretch of the imagination.  He was however quite determined, methodical, and focused in his efforts.  I might add quite energetic. However, he did know that he was up against it, so to speak. It wasn't like humanity had discovered violence in the 1940's. We do have quite a history of it, in fact,  history wouldn't be the same without it.   So, what does this all mean?  What makes us happy, which is the state we strive for, in fact included in the idea of what the U.S. government is involved with, then we must strive for compassion and empathy ( it would tak...

 You can sort of say that these are two separate ideas. First:  What a Wonderful World   is the title of a song, made popular by the literally and figuratively and pretty much any way you want to put it Louis Armstrong.  Amazing  musician and performer.  However, the world is wonderful without the song, because it's the only one "we" got.  Therefore, it's best for us all to think of it as wonderful.  You think? But basically about history, you know, or we think we know, Alexander is known in history as The Great, was at the minimum quite an interesting character.  I think he is well know for " conquering the world ", or at least what he could find.  That seemed to have stalled out, and he had to make a " swift " get-away back to Persia, which was safe haven.  He died.  In history he is often derided because the " empire ", he forged, fell apart quickly after his death. However, at the least he founded the city of Alexandri...

 

  I am going to try to avoid religious type words , and focus on words that relate more to our government, and stuff. So, the thing with words is: in general we use them and we don't always know what they mean exactly, but because we have an emotional connection we use them, and perhaps even forcefully, but not always effectively. Of course, there is also the school of thought that as long as you spell them right, you can use them any way you want. However, there are two IMHO, books which address some of this pretty well and they are Wholeness and the Implicate Order , David Bohm and The Human Use of Human Beings , Norbert Wiener.  Of course, there are undoubtedly more. So for example, " We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal " .... So objectively my first reaction to this is, --- ARE THESE GUYS NUTS --- You got " self evident " you got " truths " you got " men " and you got "equal ",,,, You find thi...