Merry Xmas!

Unveiled

Scarf sailing in joy,
Upon hearing bells rung,
Beanie on head so young,
Mittens holding toy,
In among carols sung.

Racing little girl,
Snowman barely missed,
Elven boys dismissed,
Making angel swirls,
Unaware of frost mist.

Snow fur surrounds distant trees
Antled deer stand in rain freeze
Fear a little, dusk is close,
Points a little, the carrot nose,
To her house go her running toes.

Down stairs at midnight,
God bless her safe soul.
So deep her hand stole,
Stocking in firelight,
Found nothing but coal.

A thundering noise behind the tree made her gape,
She felt something was terribly wrong with this song.
A red round devil whispered coming into shape,
Didn't you know Santa is just Satan spelled wrong.

Forward Thinking

Let me tell you something about forward thinking, it's great for writing books and making movies but it makes everyday life harder and harder till u get to the point where u don't care enough to do anything or u do everything without caring about it.

My Follower Liquid

I was new and Liquid a.k.a. Suzanne was one of the very first to support my blog. Attentive, Appreciative, Amazing.

The View In My Window Never Changes

Unique. How unique we all are. Any two of us, are we ever same? Any two fingerprints? Any two animals? Any two books? Any two humans? Any two anything? All two marked in different ways. We take pleasure in such differentiation. It brings meaning to our existence. How unlike 1984 we are. Bravo! Bravo! I am not you. You are not me. We may have the same job, the same number of kids who go to the same school, the same suburban life. But! ...  But! We are not the same. And that is what i can take solace in, what i can keep as my own. My own is what satisfies my need to be an individual. The separation is what gives my mind peace and holds it from asking questions such as the meaning our larger existence. Because if i was to expand my thinking, if i was to expand my thoughts to larger matters, the differentiation i experience would start to decrease. And i don't want to do that. No sir!

Plenty of artists of our time have portrayed the similarity in the suburbs of America. The critical declarations of how we all fall into the system and lead similar and meaningless lives. Fade into state wide, country wide and worldwide and we can see our art generalizes the human race. Depictions of war, love and rejuvenation. It trans passes nations and continents.  All the while we still fight for individualism since the reflection brings despair and belittles our singular being.

I heard this story of an astronaut once. He was called Tom. Like all good astronauts, he went to space to explore the universe. Being from a quaint little street, in a quaint little town, he wanted to come back to Earth and enlighten the world with his adventurous discoveries. Tom floated away in the cold and empty space, searching for something new, something different, something unique that he could take back to his planet. He floated past Mars, sure of himself that he would find what he was looking for. The red planet drifted past him or he drifted past it, he didn't know. Was it not the same either way? But he hadn't found anything yet. Realizing it would be a longer journey than he had realized, he eased himself on his back and prepared for the trip. Swimming past Jupiter, his mind began to wander and his body grew tired. Tom's eyes began to close and just before he could succumb to sleep, something flashed before his eyes! He jerked himself awake and stared. It was Saturn. The rings were swinging so fast and the planets gravity was drawing him in. Tom struggled and kicked his legs and arms trying to get away. But Saturn was still drawing him in. He was getting closer and closer and he knew his end was near. But Tom wouldn't have it, he arced his body away from the planet and with one great thrust, kicked his legs and swung his arms pushing away. Breaking from Saturn's gravity, he sped away so fast in the darkness that blackness overcame him and he passed out.

Tom floated away into uncharted regions of space, past his known galaxy. He was too far away from it when he awoke. Examining his surroundings, he thought, 'No matter, i will pass another galaxy soon. One that i will recognize. ill stop there and get my bearings.' Being a patient young man, he waited. Some years passed and our Tom grew older. Yet he waited in the knowledge of encountering knowledge. He saw small stars here and there and remembered his childhood days on Earth till in the vacancy of the dark universe his thoughts stretched unimaginably long and he became lost in them, forgetting time and space. Time passed till one day Tom bumped into a tiny broken-off chunk of an asteroid the size of an apple and his consciousness woke. 

He looked left and saw stars and galaxies in the distance. He looked right and saw stars and galaxies in the distance. Up and down, everywhere he looked he saw the same till he couldn't tell right from left. Tom panicked, he hurried in one direction but he couldn't get closer to what he saw. He turned and headed in another but never managed to get nearer there either. Spiralling, he slowly began to realize how vast, empty and open the universe was. Every physical thing he had known now seemed to be the size of the seed of an apple. 'If i was on earth looking at the universe it would look exactly the same as if someone else was looking at the universe from another galaxy!' Tom thought. 'Everything looks the same from any point in the universe! There's no difference!'

The understanding calmed Tom and he floated once more, this time without purpose or direction. 'I couldn't bring anything unique back to Earth,' he despaired. 'There wasn't anything unique to bring back.'

Only a little more time passed till Tom smiled a knowing smile. He thought, 'But, no one knows that there is nothing unique in the universe... Only i do. Ha ha, am i not unique in that way...?'

"Talking About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture."

I was listening to a wondorous arrangment by Clint Mansell yesterday and i thought to myself, oh how i wish i could convey this music in words to someone else. Convey how it makes me feel. And the more i thought about it, the harder it seemed to get.

Then i thought about the old addage, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I thought some more. The saying is about description. Take a passage from any Charles Dickens book, the author has a unique unparalled talent for describing scenes and setting the stage. I remember, colours and smells from his descriptions years after having read them. What took Dickens hundreds of words to convey, a similarly talented artist could paint and we would get the same scene through a picture.

However, the saying is more than just about description. I kept on thinking about Dickens and i realized, not having read his work in years, i could not remember the exact scene, location or its place in the book, but i did remember those colors and smells and how it felt. The addage is also about feeling. The emotions Dickens aroused in me could be done through a picture, only if the artist was as talented at his art form as Dickens was at his.

And this took me back to music and my Clint Mansell piece. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many pictures are worth a single piece of music? If we took three equally talented artists at their own forms of art, would music not rate higher than a picture? Or does that depend on personal taste? Personally i would place the time music takes to convey a scene and feeling to be shorter than a picture or a painting.

Now for the hard part, I'm going to try and explain in short words how Clint Mansell's 'Stay With Me' makes me feel and i hope you'll share some of your most emotionally arousing songs and say a few words about them. So, 'Stay With Me.' Lonliness. Something lost perhaps, overall encompassing insignificance of a busy planet in the wider universe. Quite of the night, being able to think in the silence. Appreciating the time you have, it doesn't last long.

Now i wonder what Mansell was thinking when he wrote it and how different my perception is. Comparing the two would a delightful self revelation.

"As for me, All I know is that I know nothing"

The beginnings of philosophy, irrespective of the philosopher, emerge from a desire to know. To know, in hopes that knowing will make us wiser, in hopes that it will allow us to make better decisions everyday.

The pursuit of this knowledge is nothing short of an odyssey. A journey that is something similar to a bell curve skewed to the left. We start knowing and it seems we know more and more rapidly. We climb high, seemingly spurred on by an unknown force which we soon deem to be our own impressive intelligence only to arrive at a point where either climbing seems to be so much harder or we have reached the top and there is nowhere left go but down.

The title quote as you have undoubtedly known is from none other than Socrates who, among the many gifts he left us also handed us the Socratic Problem. Typical.

Some may be surprised to know that Socrates never claimed to have attained wisdom. The jobless, wine swilling, philosopher (if only I could be so lucky) simply claimed to know the path which one must take in order to achieve wisdom. And he summed up his journey with the following two quotes: 

"True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us."

"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."

Not that it means we should not try and go further down the path, nor does it means there is a further path to go down upon. It simply means it is very hard to actually know anything for certain.

Let's take a more current look at the mess i've written above. Personally, at a young age, i started out not knowing much but as i went into my teens, i felt i had the answer for everything. My attitude among friends, towards parents, even teachers was quite arrogant. Supreme in my ultimate knowledge, i knew school was for losers, there wasn't much need to go to it. I knew money would come regardless thanks to my superior intellect. I knew my parents were generally wrong and once again i knew i was smarter than them. I think most of us took this general path. Atleast i hope so, otherwise i was one rotten kid. Somewhere along the way at university level, i began studying philosophy. Years later, the best answer i have for questions is, "It depends."

Self analysis of what one knows and what one doesn't leads us to closer to the truth we are. It can all sound as if it applies to higher moral questions worthy of disussion in the greatest Greek forum but it actually lies in the simplest of things we do not think about. 

Here are some things i thought i knew, things i was certain about only to find i had no idea about them at all:

1. I knew I'd fall in love only once after which i couldn't be happy again. I am happy with someone else now.

2. I knew i would never smoke like my dad did. I'm a smoker now and he quit years ago.

3. I knew for certain my best friend and i from childhood would be together for life. I have no    idea where he is.

4. I knew the Rams would never win a game... but i digress.

5. I knew i'd die someday... but if its possible i know it more and more each passing period.

Be kind enough to post and let us know what you knew for certain that you don't anymore and then think about what you know for certain now and how sure you are about it.