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Saturday, April 7, 2012
Vacation
I'm on vacation this week, dogsitting in Playa Del Rey for my daughter at her apartment on the beach. It's about the closest to luxury I'll ever come, and even though I wound up being sick for most of my time here, the tradeoff of bronchitis for an escape from the weekly, monthy and yearly tedium of my normal life is one I'll welcome EVERY TIME :) It's been all about drinking, napping and watching TV against a picture window backdrop of sand and sea, the sound of gulls and pelicans, the smell of sea breeze, cuddled up with two adorable pups and doing as close to absolutely nothing as I can. Sucks to be you.
So, I was just walking back from the corner Mexican restaurant with some food, avoiding the weekend traffic jousting for the limited parking along my little street, and about halfway home I came across a small group of beachgoers pointing at something on the ground between two parked cars. Laughing and making little jokes, like "Whoa, that thing's ugly!" It was a baby possum, still struggling to survive even though I'm sure it was dying. Falling on its side, walking in circles, with what I perhaps mistakenly interpreted as a silent scream pasted on its little mortal face. Surrounded by giants, its indignity a source of amusement for people who probably work as hard as I do trying to scrape out a living on this hellish pebble hurtling through space. Hoping, perhaps, that their humanity has somehow granted them some existentially significant loophole that elevates them above a dying baby possum's status in the eyes of God, whom they say sees every sparrow that falls, though I'll be damned if I can understand why He never bothers to hold them up.
Here are some SAT words and their definitions related to the word 'vacation':
vacuous: a "vacuous" stare is one devoid of any intelligence whatsoever, sort of like when a cow stares at you
vacate: to vacate an area is to go away from it, hence emptying yourself from it
void: a "void" is empty of anything whatsoever; of course, words like "avoid," "unavoidable," and "avoidable" all have to do with emptying from one's overall experience as well
devoid: is something is "devoid" of matter, there is nothing in it
vacuity: total absence of matter; a vacuum; nothing there (a vacuity of brains)
vacant: a "vacant" lot has nothing in it
evacuate: to "evacuate" an area because of a natural disaster is to "empty" it of all its citizens
And a little poem (substitute 'possum' for 'bird'...it's easier to recycle than to write new stuff these days *shrug*)
Little Bird
Little bird sitting on a telephone line,
watching the sun set for the very last time.
What do you see?
Will you tell me?
Have you little bird visions of little bird things,
like little bird angels plucking harps with their wings?
Or, of little bird demons, dressed in plumage of red,
come to escort you to hell when you're dead?
Are your little bird memories marching past in review?
A little bird montage 'gainst the sky's orange hue:
Of the time in the nest, swaying high in the boughs,
when your yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows were nows,
all lived out in a circle of nurture and need,
where the only imperatives were to sleep, and to feed.
Then, the shove in the back,
and the breaking of trust,
as a mother bird did
what a mother bird must.
And you fell toward the earth,
but your terror grew wings;
and you learned, all at once,
why a little bird sings.
From your new vantage point soaring high in the air,
did you pause to consider the ones way down there?
Or, were you so taken with grandiose vistas
that you never thought once of your brothers and sisters
who were bound soon to follow, or to fail in their try
of setting up residence in the kingdom of sky?
Did you ever say goodbye?
As your pages of days turned to chapters of years,
was your little bird tale plucked away by your fears?
Or, did you live legends of courage, and flair?
Were your nights spent alone, or were you half of a pair?
Did you feather a nest?
Did you raise your own brood?
Would you do it again?
Would you say it was good?
Do you recall all your folly, and the lessons you learned,
as the world moved below you, and the wheel of time turned?
Are you filled with regret for the choices you made?
Did your little bird god hear your song when you prayed?
And now, you are here, and the last sun has set.
The memories are fading; it is time to forget.
Your feathers are mottled, your wings have grown weak.
There's a mist in your eyes. There is rust on your beak.
Yet, just for a moment, you stand straight and tall.
Your lungs fill with air, and you cry out a call.
Thus spent, you fall...
Little bird drops from a telephone line,
falling into tired, failing hands that are mine.
But, I hold him still...I always will.
So, I was just walking back from the corner Mexican restaurant with some food, avoiding the weekend traffic jousting for the limited parking along my little street, and about halfway home I came across a small group of beachgoers pointing at something on the ground between two parked cars. Laughing and making little jokes, like "Whoa, that thing's ugly!" It was a baby possum, still struggling to survive even though I'm sure it was dying. Falling on its side, walking in circles, with what I perhaps mistakenly interpreted as a silent scream pasted on its little mortal face. Surrounded by giants, its indignity a source of amusement for people who probably work as hard as I do trying to scrape out a living on this hellish pebble hurtling through space. Hoping, perhaps, that their humanity has somehow granted them some existentially significant loophole that elevates them above a dying baby possum's status in the eyes of God, whom they say sees every sparrow that falls, though I'll be damned if I can understand why He never bothers to hold them up.
Here are some SAT words and their definitions related to the word 'vacation':
vacuous: a "vacuous" stare is one devoid of any intelligence whatsoever, sort of like when a cow stares at you
vacate: to vacate an area is to go away from it, hence emptying yourself from it
void: a "void" is empty of anything whatsoever; of course, words like "avoid," "unavoidable," and "avoidable" all have to do with emptying from one's overall experience as well
devoid: is something is "devoid" of matter, there is nothing in it
vacuity: total absence of matter; a vacuum; nothing there (a vacuity of brains)
vacant: a "vacant" lot has nothing in it
evacuate: to "evacuate" an area because of a natural disaster is to "empty" it of all its citizens
And a little poem (substitute 'possum' for 'bird'...it's easier to recycle than to write new stuff these days *shrug*)
Little Bird
Little bird sitting on a telephone line,
watching the sun set for the very last time.
What do you see?
Will you tell me?
Have you little bird visions of little bird things,
like little bird angels plucking harps with their wings?
Or, of little bird demons, dressed in plumage of red,
come to escort you to hell when you're dead?
Are your little bird memories marching past in review?
A little bird montage 'gainst the sky's orange hue:
Of the time in the nest, swaying high in the boughs,
when your yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows were nows,
all lived out in a circle of nurture and need,
where the only imperatives were to sleep, and to feed.
Then, the shove in the back,
and the breaking of trust,
as a mother bird did
what a mother bird must.
And you fell toward the earth,
but your terror grew wings;
and you learned, all at once,
why a little bird sings.
From your new vantage point soaring high in the air,
did you pause to consider the ones way down there?
Or, were you so taken with grandiose vistas
that you never thought once of your brothers and sisters
who were bound soon to follow, or to fail in their try
of setting up residence in the kingdom of sky?
Did you ever say goodbye?
As your pages of days turned to chapters of years,
was your little bird tale plucked away by your fears?
Or, did you live legends of courage, and flair?
Were your nights spent alone, or were you half of a pair?
Did you feather a nest?
Did you raise your own brood?
Would you do it again?
Would you say it was good?
Do you recall all your folly, and the lessons you learned,
as the world moved below you, and the wheel of time turned?
Are you filled with regret for the choices you made?
Did your little bird god hear your song when you prayed?
And now, you are here, and the last sun has set.
The memories are fading; it is time to forget.
Your feathers are mottled, your wings have grown weak.
There's a mist in your eyes. There is rust on your beak.
Yet, just for a moment, you stand straight and tall.
Your lungs fill with air, and you cry out a call.
Thus spent, you fall...
Little bird drops from a telephone line,
falling into tired, failing hands that are mine.
But, I hold him still...I always will.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
To Have Known You
In sleep, remain
And know my love
Outshines the pain
Of losing you
Rest in peace, Little Voice/ElleV
Last in a long line of four-legged friends
Lost, but never forgotten
Forever loved
Monday, March 12, 2012
Risk and Responsibility
Back in the late ‘80s, I was living in Tustin, Ca., and my house was right underneath the approach corridor for planes landing at John Wayne Airport (formerly Orange County Airport). Sometimes the jetliners would come in so low that you could see passenger faces staring out the windows. I was standing out in the driveway one evening when a particularly big one came soaring over, and I yelled for my wife to come out and see. We oohed and aahed for awhile under the descending mist of jet fuel exhaust, then looked down just in time to notice that the front door of the house had been left open, and our six month old daughter was barrelling through the doorway in her walker. Right toward the two high cement steps that led from the driveway into the house (or vice versa, in her case). Like a bat out of hell I started toward her at a dead run, just as the wheels of her walker tipped over the first step. Over she went, and everything cranked down into slow motion as I desperately launched myself in her direction, sliding prone across the asphalt-and-gravel driveway in my shorts and t-shirt, and somehow managing to slide my extended hand between her infant skull and the pavement just as- I swear!- her hair touched the ground.
Forward several years. I now had two daughters, the younger of which was around 3 or 4 years, I think. We were walking along the shore at Newport Beach, shoes off, kicking along in the shallows. Nice day, no tide to speak of. I remember the kids were toddling along behind me, just a few feet, picking up shells and whatnot. Then out of nowhere, a tall wave rose up RIGHT AT THE SHORE, hit the beach...and my daughter was gone. Just that quick. All I could do at that point was try and extrapolate from the position she’d last been standing, dive in and hope for the best. I couldn’t see a damned thing under the churning aftermath of the wave, but somehow my extended hand (there’s that extended hand again...how iconically symbolic!) automatically closed around her heel, and I managed to yank her out of there like a wet fish.
Forward another several years. I was driving a speedboat in the dead of winter on Lake Powell. Snow falling on the water. Nobody else on the lake. We’d gone 50 miles out from the marina to see Rainbow Bridge, a beautiful and amazing natural rock formation, a giant arch carved by flowing water over millions of years. I was driving on the way back in, doing around 50 knots on a surface so smooth and glasslike that it felt like we weren’t moving at all. We were about 5 miles from the marina when I saw some grass sticking up out of the water, and it was about then that I noticed someone had trashed one of the guide buoys meant to keep boaters in the middle of the channel. I turned to my friend and said something like, “Hey, I think we’ve got a prob...”, and that’s when the boulder seemed to rise up right in front of us out of the snow and gloom. It was probably 20 feet across, and sticking up out of the water maybe 2 or 3 feet at the highest. If I’d noticed it a bit earlier, I probably would have tried to turn the boat, we would have come into it sideways, and all of us would be dead, probably not even missed until the next day or so out on the deserted lake. As it was, it all happened so suddenly that I had no time to react, and that’s what saved us. I simply held the wheel and drove straight into the rock, which launched us high into the air and delivered us on the other side, maybe 100 feet or so down-water. My daughter, who was wrapped up in several layers of clothes and was sleeping in the back of the boat, was tossed up into the air and hit her head on the canopy. Thankfully, since she’d been traveling the same speed as the boat and as there’d been no change of direction, she came right back down in her seat, a bit flustered but none the worse for wear. Even more miraculously was the fact that the boat had suffered no damage, not even to the prop! It seems the moss- slicked rock had had much the same effect as a ski ramp...weird, huh? To this day I tell people we ‘James Bonded’ over the boulder:)
These are a few of the more dramatic sort of incidences that probably all parents experience from time to time. Par for the course, as it were. Of course, none of these events were initiated on purpose; at least, not in the direct sense. Then again, I knew from experience that these things happen, and so in perhaps a less-than-direct sense I caused them all; or at least, was definitely an agent in their cause, providing the innocent lambs for sacrifice upon the world’s altar of existential Russian Roulette. One might certainly argue that since no harm was done, and especially since my own actions prevented said harm, that my culpability is somehow erased; but, really, this is nothing more than a form of special pleading to justify delivering new lives into the arena of existential risk in the first place, an argument that’s extended - and quite ambiguously, I might add- dependent on the whys and whens and wherefores of a tangled skein of philosophical and cultural justifications so convoluted as to become laughable at times, if it weren’t all so damned sad.
Do I regret the risks I’ve taken with my children, directly purposeful or otherwise? In retrospect, I’d have to say ‘no’ for the most part. As so many of AN’s opponents point out, risk is part of what makes life worthwhile; at least, for the living. Of course, the reason I don’t particularly regret the risks with my kids is because they came through them unscathed. It would be a far different story if my children had died; or much, much worse in my view, tragically harmed in a way that would have significantly robbed them of the joys which are to be found in this life. And then there’s the fact that the risks continue to this day, and will continue until the day they die, and that some of the downsides to these risks might involve horrible, life-shattering suffering that might even cause them to curse the day they were born, as so many do and have always done. And everything bad that happens to them, including the eventual decline in their health, and their fortunes, as well as their deaths, is ultimately my fault. Why? Because I brought them to this place, knowing full well that nobody gets out alive.
As I sit here writing this, my dog, Little Voice, is slowly dying. Her respiration is shallow, and in the last few days she’s lost the ability to walk. On my next day off, I think, I’ll bum a ride from my ex and deliver her into the finality and utter peace of non-existence. I’ll go in with her, like I’ve always done, and tell her how much I love her as the needle is inserted and she closes her eyes. It’s as good a way to die as there is, I reckon, although it still makes me feel like a murderer every time I have to go through it. I hope I’ve given her a decent life, and that she’s been relatively happy. These last 13 years have gone by so quickly, in my mind I still see her as the puppy hiding under the Christmas tree. I’ll try to get some thoughts together on this subject as soon as I can. Until then, take care one and all.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Whys and Wherefores
From 'Watercooler Conversations':
http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/56929-is-it-unethical-to-have-children/I often find myself wondering what human characteristic pushes a person over into the antinatalism camp. Is it empathy, or perhaps a less experientially derived sense of sympathy? Are aesthetics involved here, reflected in a simple distaste for certain universal biological processes, an attitude perhaps culminating- at times- in misanthropy, egregious or otherwise? Maybe it's basic logic, that 'raw reckoning' our anonymous poster mentions, an ability reinforced, perhaps, with enough intestinal fortitude to follow the bouncing ball from a to b without turning away from legitimate though distasteful conclusions.
I don't know if any of you have already come upon this thread from May 2011 yet, but it's an excellent example of a discussion of the ethically serious imposition of the risks attendant to birth. I found this quote from the user "Marat," to be the most poignant:
"You see enough images of young hemodialysis patients screaming so loudly that the window panes rattle when their new fistula is needled for the first time to connect them to the dialysis machine, or whimpering like beaten dogs and begging the nurses to stop since they would rather die than endure the pain, all the while knowing that that pain will be repeated three times a week for the rest of their lives (barring a transplant, which is becoming an increasingly rare luxury), and you just shrink back from the indescribable horror of life and wish that no human had ever lived."
The word "antinatalism" never comes up once in the thread, interestingly enough. Is it too presumptuous of me to think that this is because a bare minimum of human decency and raw reckoning with the facts of life without distortions leads one to its conclusions?
Is a certain threshold of personal exposure to profound and/or protracted suffering essential to the antinatalist's rarefied worldview? At times, this certainly seems to be the case. On the other hand, I've meant plenty of sympathizers to the basic concepts of AN who are able to extrapolate what broken glass and razorblades in the intestinal tract can accomplish without actually swallowing such stuff themselves i.e. 'duh!'.
In the end, I don't suppose there's a one-size-fits-all profiling technique for picking out the latent antinatalists among us. It's a strange and complex alchemy going on between too many sets of ears to count, at least from where I sit, which is why I've never been particularly interested in narrowing the message for fear of seeming controversial, or even {gasp!}radical. There are as many approaches as brain stems, and different folks react to different messages...differently. But whatever the case, it still gets to me when somebody like 'user Marat' gets it, especially when they're able to voice their epiphanies as eloquently as he has.
Thanks for the post, anonymous...my, we certainly have our fair share of anonymouses around here! :)
On another note, I've picked up where I left off a dozen years ago with 'The Tails of Grandfather Rat'. If I lived in the UK, they might even arrest me for it! Wish me luck.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Another Breakthrough at Slippery Slopes Inc.- A Government Subsidized Corporation
Scientist: EUREKA! WE'VE DONE IT!
Administrator: What have you come up with?
Scientist: We've developed a new strain of carrot, possessing a mind AND feelings!
Administrator: Incredible, Jenkins! Do you know what this means? Why, soon we'll have a whole new workforce, one that will be so grateful for their new existential status that they'll probably be willing to work for less than minimum wage.
Scientist: Well, sir, there might be a slight problem in that regard. You see, even though they can think and feel, they can't exacty, erm, move around much. Some HAVE managed to roll back and forth an inch or so on a smooth plate...erm...I mean, surface; but by and large they just sort of lie there and contemplate their rather limited condition.
Administrator: And how do you know this, Jenkins?
Scientist: They're wired in to several sophisticated monitoring devices, sir, and we've become very proficient in retrieving and interpreting their mind states, including their various thoughts, moods, ideas, beliefs, hopes, aspirations...that sort of thing. And then...erm...there's the other thing.
Administrator: What's that, Jenkins?
Scientist: Well, erm, several team members, including myself, have been having somewhat disturbing dreams of late, increasing in frequency as the project neared completion.
Administrator: What sorts of dreams, Jenkins?
Scientist: Well, mostly they're dreams filled with carrots screaming, crying and begging to die.
Administrator: Hmm, that's not good, not good at all! Tell you what, Jenkins. I think you and your team have earned R and R time. What say we send the lot of you off to the Poconos. A little skiing will do you all a world of good, I'd say. As for the project, I think we've reached the point that we can present our results to the oversight committee for the ol' rubber stamp, and start thinking about mass production.
Scientist: Well, sir, I wanted to talk with you about that. I'm not so sure I can in good conscience stand behind this project any longer. I mean, it seems a little like we're playing God here, and to what end?
Administrator: Jesus Christ, Jenkins! Just what the hell are you saying?
Scientist: I'm saying, sir, that for basic morality's sake we should put these poor carrots out of their misery, and shut down the project.
Administrator, For God's sake, son, get a hold on yourself. You're talking murder here! What gives you the right?
Scientist: But, sir, these carrots are living miserable existences! Sure, some of the have managed to create rather complicated belief systems involving afterlives with rewards and punishments, but these are simply the reactions of desperate minds reaching out for ANYTHING that might ward off the terror of their existential plight. Plus, erm, there's the other thing.
Administrator: And what's that?
Scientist: It seems that one of the team members fell asleep during her break in the lab, and left the TV on. Martha Stewart was on, and she was making...carrot rosettes. They know what they're in for, sir.
Administrator: Now, now, Jenkins. You're overreacting. We'll simply teach the carrots about how their deaths contribute to the overall welfare of life in general; you know, all that circle of life crap. And you know, that afterlife ideation stuff should play right into our hands. I'm thinking something along the lines of 'Jesus loves the little carrots, all the little carrots of the world. Singled out or in a bunch, He just loves them when they crunch. Jesus loves the little carrots of the world.' Whaddya think?
Scientist: I think I'm going to be sick...sir.
Administrator: Have a carrot, that'll cure what ails you!
Scientist: Well, even though it seems you're determined to keep these carrots alive against their will, won't you at least think about abandoning the project for the sake of future carrots.
Administrator: Jenkins, how can a smart guy like yourself commit such an egregious logical fallacy? Those 'future' carrots you're talking about don't exist yet, so how can you possibly talk as if we're somehow morally culpable for the horrors they might face in some imaginary tomorrow? Let tomorrow take care of itself, is what I say. And until then, let the beta carotene flow!
Administrator: What have you come up with?
Scientist: We've developed a new strain of carrot, possessing a mind AND feelings!
Administrator: Incredible, Jenkins! Do you know what this means? Why, soon we'll have a whole new workforce, one that will be so grateful for their new existential status that they'll probably be willing to work for less than minimum wage.
Scientist: Well, sir, there might be a slight problem in that regard. You see, even though they can think and feel, they can't exacty, erm, move around much. Some HAVE managed to roll back and forth an inch or so on a smooth plate...erm...I mean, surface; but by and large they just sort of lie there and contemplate their rather limited condition.
Administrator: And how do you know this, Jenkins?
Scientist: They're wired in to several sophisticated monitoring devices, sir, and we've become very proficient in retrieving and interpreting their mind states, including their various thoughts, moods, ideas, beliefs, hopes, aspirations...that sort of thing. And then...erm...there's the other thing.
Administrator: What's that, Jenkins?
Scientist: Well, erm, several team members, including myself, have been having somewhat disturbing dreams of late, increasing in frequency as the project neared completion.
Administrator: What sorts of dreams, Jenkins?
Scientist: Well, mostly they're dreams filled with carrots screaming, crying and begging to die.
Administrator: Hmm, that's not good, not good at all! Tell you what, Jenkins. I think you and your team have earned R and R time. What say we send the lot of you off to the Poconos. A little skiing will do you all a world of good, I'd say. As for the project, I think we've reached the point that we can present our results to the oversight committee for the ol' rubber stamp, and start thinking about mass production.
Scientist: Well, sir, I wanted to talk with you about that. I'm not so sure I can in good conscience stand behind this project any longer. I mean, it seems a little like we're playing God here, and to what end?
Administrator: Jesus Christ, Jenkins! Just what the hell are you saying?
Scientist: I'm saying, sir, that for basic morality's sake we should put these poor carrots out of their misery, and shut down the project.
Administrator, For God's sake, son, get a hold on yourself. You're talking murder here! What gives you the right?
Scientist: But, sir, these carrots are living miserable existences! Sure, some of the have managed to create rather complicated belief systems involving afterlives with rewards and punishments, but these are simply the reactions of desperate minds reaching out for ANYTHING that might ward off the terror of their existential plight. Plus, erm, there's the other thing.
Administrator: And what's that?
Scientist: It seems that one of the team members fell asleep during her break in the lab, and left the TV on. Martha Stewart was on, and she was making...carrot rosettes. They know what they're in for, sir.
Administrator: Now, now, Jenkins. You're overreacting. We'll simply teach the carrots about how their deaths contribute to the overall welfare of life in general; you know, all that circle of life crap. And you know, that afterlife ideation stuff should play right into our hands. I'm thinking something along the lines of 'Jesus loves the little carrots, all the little carrots of the world. Singled out or in a bunch, He just loves them when they crunch. Jesus loves the little carrots of the world.' Whaddya think?
Scientist: I think I'm going to be sick...sir.
Administrator: Have a carrot, that'll cure what ails you!
Scientist: Well, even though it seems you're determined to keep these carrots alive against their will, won't you at least think about abandoning the project for the sake of future carrots.
Administrator: Jenkins, how can a smart guy like yourself commit such an egregious logical fallacy? Those 'future' carrots you're talking about don't exist yet, so how can you possibly talk as if we're somehow morally culpable for the horrors they might face in some imaginary tomorrow? Let tomorrow take care of itself, is what I say. And until then, let the beta carotene flow!
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