tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84848150828478942182024-03-11T21:53:52.450-07:00Hosea's BlogOne's wallow won't make a Summa!Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.comBlogger1431125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-9566627740883241062024-03-06T19:26:00.000-08:002024-03-06T20:37:19.490-08:00Echo chamber<p><span style="font-family: arial;">This morning I had a Skype call with Marie. She had been out of contact for five days. When we started the call she was troubled. By the end of the call she said I had cheered her up. So far, so good, I guess.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But God in heaven, what an unsatisfactory call!<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHH0fbe4TSLaelUbbHNxDSgUrEKTRQ0Q1cp1W9GDg84-1bJ8UXdzFGQBaAzEUwEaOWxMHM0WIXKQL2hNpYywfER6yIvVfFKD_ArJggtMULcL8GGpaKeHf1GAfALh3LCi2repuHbi5ZcLOpzaMpGJW-OsKxgPilUBjbzg_RH1qtf2O_KwEO5By0awJ6sp9a/s768/The_Schoolmaker.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHH0fbe4TSLaelUbbHNxDSgUrEKTRQ0Q1cp1W9GDg84-1bJ8UXdzFGQBaAzEUwEaOWxMHM0WIXKQL2hNpYywfER6yIvVfFKD_ArJggtMULcL8GGpaKeHf1GAfALh3LCi2repuHbi5ZcLOpzaMpGJW-OsKxgPilUBjbzg_RH1qtf2O_KwEO5By0awJ6sp9a/s320/The_Schoolmaker.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">A couple weeks ago she and I had been talking about a book that had come across her radar (I no longer remember how): <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/schoolmakersawne0000mcmi/mode/2up" target="_blank">The Schoolmaker: Sawney Webb and the Bell Buckle Story</a></i>, by <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/03/03/laurence-mcmillin-1923-2005/" target="_blank">Laurence McMillin</a>. I told her I'd read it, and that the subject of the book seemed to be a fine gentleman in the best Southern tradition. I said some other things too, and she secured a copy.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Webb" target="_blank">Sawney Webb</a> was born in North Carolina in 1842. When he was a boy, his family owned slaves. As a young man he fought in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Army" target="_blank">Confederate Army</a>. Later he settled in Tennessee, spending the rest of his life there. He was a schoolmaster, and some of his students—even some of his favorite students—said, did, and wrote mean or cruel things about Black people. Sawney was not a violent man himself, and <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-webb-family-hist/17895598/" target="_blank">he refused to join the Ku Klux Klan</a> because its members wore masks. But he lived in Tennessee in the second half of the nineteenth century, so of course he had students and neighbors who were not so particular. And as he had a school to run (at the very least) he could not afford to be at war with his neighbors.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Marie was shocked—<b><i>shocked!</i></b>—to learn that Sawney's family owned slaves when he was a little boy, that there were White people in the South in the nineteenth century who were cruel to Blacks, and (apparently) that Sawney spent his life educating his students and raising his family rather than crusading for social justice. This is the news that upset her so badly that she dropped out of communication for five days and (so she told me) had a hard time sleeping all that time. Her voice almost cracked into tears as she explained to me how upset she was.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Bloody hell. Marie is over sixty, like I am. I could understand being that shocked and upset if she were twelve, or even if she were (say) sixteen and outrageously sheltered. At sixty? <b><i>Inexcusable</i></b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Let me qualify that. It's <i>inexcusable</i>, but perhaps not quite <i>inexplicable</i>. As an aside, Marie also explained that she expects all the most violent episodes of the immediate post-bellum period in the South to repeat themselves on a nationwide basis now that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for President. (I think I may have suggested before that Marie suffers from an acute case of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome" target="_blank">Trump Derangement Syndrome</a>. I allude to it briefly <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/political-failure-conversation-in-paris.html" target="_blank">here</a>, for example.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8LIv-5g1Ga8emzP4CqFRU0OHbzLeaOfSiahUqaxzIEtK9JUOYTrJH-fq1QCFokHM5pNWzotRHR_M-fFtQ4ilvpvxuyclvg-Pwjbk7xxykTwe8wrXL7zCre9-7obonm9aWoj-1aJymAlM4fINTv-lanxIv8WXjwNun7K5MniDF-Kr-EOwKz57lFpL-SKIX/s1200/boy-in-echo-chamber-article-image-internet-matters.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8LIv-5g1Ga8emzP4CqFRU0OHbzLeaOfSiahUqaxzIEtK9JUOYTrJH-fq1QCFokHM5pNWzotRHR_M-fFtQ4ilvpvxuyclvg-Pwjbk7xxykTwe8wrXL7zCre9-7obonm9aWoj-1aJymAlM4fINTv-lanxIv8WXjwNun7K5MniDF-Kr-EOwKz57lFpL-SKIX/w640-h336/boy-in-echo-chamber-article-image-internet-matters.png" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />So I talked. I explained that the world is not divided into Good People and Bad People, but that everyone is capable of either. I explained that everyone is born into a historical context, and you have to take that into account when evaluating them. I explained that <i>we are no better</i>: we <i>too</i> have been born into a historical context, and people in the future will <i>condemn us harshly</i> for things <i>we currently believe to be virtues</i>—all because times change. (I don't know <i>which</i> of our modern virtues we will be condemned for, but I'm sure it will be something. Hang around for another 200-500 years, and you'll see.) And in the end she said she felt better.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But I'm still troubled. Haven't we had this exact conversation before? It feels to me like we have. And if so, why are we having it again? I mean … I really don't understand why I need to have it at all with an <i>adult</i>. It feels like the kind of conversation that I should be having with <i>teenagers</i>, or at worst with <i>teenagers cosplaying as adults</i>. But in any event I sure don't understand why we should have to discuss it <i>twice</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This afternoon I emailed Marie exactly that question, phrasing it as non-judgmentally as I possibly could and allowing that maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. Maybe we haven't discussed it before. So far I have not heard back, but it's been only a few hours.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I guess I'll see what she says. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-7907727268815497592024-03-02T21:29:00.000-08:002024-03-06T18:12:06.157-08:00Am I become Death?<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Back on New Year's Day, I did a Tarot reading for myself for the year. Much of what it told me was unexceptional. My immediate situation was pegged as waiting (8 Wands reversed), exacerbated by indecision (2 Swords). The basis of my situation is that I'm acting like a scholar (Page of Pentacles) by thinking and writing, both here and in my professional blog under my real name. And so on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZ7mf7x-ved9AOXkm96HzRwHhqyf_UKdMsjPtly6e3_mIQHnGVhVyHYuOduLlky-Vnz4errovkDUPO8JBU8MUu8YaS5-xe4nytzaL9_zhImYgr1brKeEZZ3tNbU0w5RxLcKEAsRo6eNtBw7dv6fKwT7kWvrt5dKv5C9Q6UFAv2Fy1bDndxw5DC4Or_4Xg/s1158/death.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="689" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZ7mf7x-ved9AOXkm96HzRwHhqyf_UKdMsjPtly6e3_mIQHnGVhVyHYuOduLlky-Vnz4errovkDUPO8JBU8MUu8YaS5-xe4nytzaL9_zhImYgr1brKeEZZ3tNbU0w5RxLcKEAsRo6eNtBw7dv6fKwT7kWvrt5dKv5C9Q6UFAv2Fy1bDndxw5DC4Or_4Xg/w119-h200/death.jpg" width="119" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Now my Self card was Death. At the time, I read this as advice that I would see major changes in my Self this year, because I have always read that card as "major change." But I wonder if there might not be more going on?</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Over on the <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Patio</a> I just finished a pair of articles which propose that humans thrive best under conditions of adversity, scarcity, and conflict—not peace and plenty. (You can find <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2024/01/rousseaus-challenge.html" target="_blank">the first one here</a>, and <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2024/03/rousseau-rats-and-cuckoo-clock.html" target="_blank">the second one here</a>.) And last night, after I finished writing and posting the second article, I started to think about it with respect to my own situation. I have enough to eat and drink, and a roof over my head, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/retirement.html" target="_blank">all without working</a>. <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/are-you-going-to-live-alone-rest-of.html" target="_blank">I live alone</a>, so I don't have to fight with anyone over the breakfast table. For the most part, except for some writing once or twice a week, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/becalmed.html" target="_blank">there's nothing special that I need to do</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2024/03/rousseau-rats-and-cuckoo-clock.html" target="_blank">John B. Calhoun subjected a population of rats</a> to those exact same conditions, the rats died.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And so I began to wonder, <i>Does the Death card have a double meaning for me right now?</i> Yes, of course it generally means "major change." And of course anyone learning the Tarot is always warned not to read it as <b><i>death</i></b> simply and straight-up, because that will terrify the person you are reading for. But I start to think that maybe it means something a little more complex, something like this:<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>You have a choice before you this year. You can change how you are living, or not. If you <u>do</u> change how you are living, it will have to be a major change to make any difference; and major changes are represented by the card Death. On the other hand if you <u>don't</u> make a major change, the way you are living is <u>already</u> a form of death! Every time you nap in the afternoon instead of writing or exercising, it's a way of choosing unconsciousness—a little death (and not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort" target="_blank">the fun kind</a>!)—instead of full engagement with life and the day at hand. Every time you drink too much at night and watch YouTube videos, it's a way of escaping from your lived experience. Make these choices often enough, and you will die without achieving <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/04/magical-thinking-for-win.html" target="_blank">any of the things</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/09/blog-post.html" target="_blank">you wanted to do</a> with this <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/freedom-is-overrated.html" target="_blank">freedom you have now</a>. And if you really never get any exercise or any social stimulation, that <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/did-i-need-to-hear-this.html" target="_blank">real physical death</a> will come sooner rather than later. That's what happened to Calhoun's rats, after all.</i></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Just bloody wonderful.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yes, I remember <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/thoughts-on-failure-5-hiding.html" target="_blank">how poorly my dad handled his own retirement</a>, when he didn't actually <i>have</i> to go to work to keep food on the table. I also remember that it is not enough simply to identify a bad outcome, in order to avoid it. You have to <i>want</i> to do something different—in fact, to <i>will</i> it—and that's not always so easy. I've talked about that distinction a number of times before. (I can find three such posts in the last year-and-a-bit: <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/i-find-out-what-i-really-want-2.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-to-know-your-will.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/willing-and-wanting.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The longer I think about it, the more I think this card fits, with the reading I've given it here. And no, of course I don't <i>want</i> to die soon. Now if only I can find a way to <i>will</i> that I live, and live productively. Maybe I need to fling myself into a cauldron of </span><span style="font-family: arial;">adversity, scarcity, and conflict? Gosh, I hope there's an easier way than that!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXczqWc8AVadLKsBIRHS-Z9NyuX-auCP3CvGe2XBLSQKTpXyNbBfY2jshuikYpcHppV3LOvUeZvpAVrB5Uknyi6sq1bPCYPOwvvyfKS10O0FlH8BrGhhlZl6Co_-0cPv32rs4k5b2kCtCzjSnnfVOyYb4nNhGqHJMhmeVfTQuTC8Xo-d8fnkPclqACS_gC/s894/61cvMcSqDdL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="894" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXczqWc8AVadLKsBIRHS-Z9NyuX-auCP3CvGe2XBLSQKTpXyNbBfY2jshuikYpcHppV3LOvUeZvpAVrB5Uknyi6sq1bPCYPOwvvyfKS10O0FlH8BrGhhlZl6Co_-0cPv32rs4k5b2kCtCzjSnnfVOyYb4nNhGqHJMhmeVfTQuTC8Xo-d8fnkPclqACS_gC/w640-h640/61cvMcSqDdL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-67113206912811517452024-02-22T22:51:00.000-08:002024-02-22T22:51:30.228-08:00What games did I play as a child? part 3<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgXDckJkcKvsqn4XJ8iK4yBq-yKmcA7QQ-fCrxdke4b7Q1Jx_1NM7mTDVxEqEN6UWzD3_cDqOdTbsyLhZBS9qZFdYgzQYGA8X3bFhRJaiTDXumyUyM-ARMKErIXmv8FFKKy85RvYUbZzdYkTTAG5D3Wfnv3OSIgpYdZj1xyyvP7innlmM5VQDI2thOMUEa/s3612/jimmy-carter-gettyimages-515412420.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2404" data-original-width="3612" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgXDckJkcKvsqn4XJ8iK4yBq-yKmcA7QQ-fCrxdke4b7Q1Jx_1NM7mTDVxEqEN6UWzD3_cDqOdTbsyLhZBS9qZFdYgzQYGA8X3bFhRJaiTDXumyUyM-ARMKErIXmv8FFKKy85RvYUbZzdYkTTAG5D3Wfnv3OSIgpYdZj1xyyvP7innlmM5VQDI2thOMUEa/w400-h266/jimmy-carter-gettyimages-515412420.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">This post follows on from two that are nearly ten years old, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/what-games-did-i-play-as-child.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/what-games-did-i-play-as-child-part-2.html" target="_blank">here</a>. There's no sense in which it is important. In fact, it would probably never have occurred to me to write it at all if I hadn't drunk an entire bottle of cheap wine with dinner. But that can send your mind down <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-vino-veritas.html" target="_blank">interesting byways</a>.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/what-games-did-i-play-as-child.html" target="_blank">Ten years ago I explained</a> that <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/movie-meme-6.html" target="_blank">Dale</a> and I used to make up pretend countries. In principle these were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation" target="_blank">micronations</a>, though I hadn't learned the term yet. It was silly, but fun. Back when I wrote about this before, I fit this game into an understanding of my adult life by saying "(Making up useless systems. Check.)"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But there was another side to it that was odd. Sometimes several of us would all join a single country, and then we would debate what its political structure ought to be. My experience of this is that usually I was outvoted. I'd have some idea that I thought was really cool, and I could never persuade other people that it was nearly as cool as I found it. So far, this is pretty consistent with my self-understanding later in life. (See all my discussions of <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/sister-failure.html" target="_blank">Sister Failure</a>, for example.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The <i><b>weird</b></i> part—the part that <i>contrasts</i> with my adult self-understanding—is that even when I was totally incapable of convincing anyone else to vote for any of my ideas about how this or that micronation ought to be organized, I was usually elected President anyway. At the time, this seemed normal and I never thought about it. Today, in retrospect, it is a great puzzle.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Marie, after meeting Son 1 and Son 2, has started to talk about a phenomenon she calls "the Tanatu charisma." This is the same whatever-it-is phenomenon that makes it <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/sixfold-trivia.html" target="_blank">impossible for me to blend into the wallpaper</a> even when I try my damnedest. Maybe that's what this game displayed … already at work, long before I was old enough even for college. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-37941322557583463872024-02-04T12:39:00.000-08:002024-02-04T12:39:30.012-08:00Intoxicology <p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRybx816kvDt6DVg9j2aZmsnHgAjkPNP2vkuJ0LSBk-zmzSZovtDhJ4dG0zZXOS7u6thGyLl8jIbeawcEIHx9mx3qyYOis1xXBByPIsbxzKpol18T411ArcYZzNOIdeR32s-Bxjrzgzvlnfjl03OpFrxEjm5TaE18EhDstp6ySBOG0oCztszwSn3gtQflD/s1280/poison-1481596_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRybx816kvDt6DVg9j2aZmsnHgAjkPNP2vkuJ0LSBk-zmzSZovtDhJ4dG0zZXOS7u6thGyLl8jIbeawcEIHx9mx3qyYOis1xXBByPIsbxzKpol18T411ArcYZzNOIdeR32s-Bxjrzgzvlnfjl03OpFrxEjm5TaE18EhDstp6ySBOG0oCztszwSn3gtQflD/w400-h225/poison-1481596_1280.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I woke up yesterday morning with a hangover, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Later in the morning I finally dragged myself out of bed and puttered through a whole list of errands all day. Because I was away from home until late afternoon, I managed to avoid my midday nap (which I seem to need most days). Finally had something to eat about 5pm. (Dinner? Breakfast? Both?) Dessert at 7:30. Read for a while, dithered on the Internet, and went to bed a little after 10:00. I drank no alcohol last night.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This morning? No hangover. (<i>Well, duh.</i>) And I was able to get up earlier. (<i>Yeah, not staying up till after midnight will do that.</i>) We'll see whether I need the midday nap, but so far the signs are hopeful.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I want to watch the nap, as a marker. I had gotten to the point where I pretty much had to have one every day, where my head would be foggy and in low-levels of dull pain until after my nap. This was regardless how much coffee I had in the morning. Not until yesterday did it occur to me that this might be connected to whatever I'd had to drink the night before. So it will be an interesting experiment to see if cutting out the alcohol for a few days also cuts out the need for a nap. If so, that would be a pretty clear indicator of causality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On the other hand, I also notice that the amount I drank the night before last would have counted as a pretty normal amount for much of the last year. Normally I don't expect to reach for the Tylenol until I've had <i>half again</i> that much … or <i>twice</i> that much. Maybe I'm getting old. Or maybe the stuff is actually toxic. That's the root of the word <i>in<b>toxic</b>ate</i>, after all.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Things to notice.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-14183952128508821572024-01-30T23:06:00.000-08:002024-01-30T23:06:59.876-08:00The unbearable weight of being Stagg R. Leigh<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPsW9yEel3o3RyGCerPfxQSmUNkC3GDrQXN4im9F0-abkBZXDAOVjZzMdlpjSNS7fAnr5xsNea-loAaqKFekP3WJB7G3Mwja1OTGQzPJWj3xGNIXB_kg8H-1rDkS5RDwkPYVMxnum5Q1pETzpi_r6TkhwKvoqpFg2sYbXtBbhFBciv5_CTClcTVlk-Wz8/s435/stagg-r-leigh.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPsW9yEel3o3RyGCerPfxQSmUNkC3GDrQXN4im9F0-abkBZXDAOVjZzMdlpjSNS7fAnr5xsNea-loAaqKFekP3WJB7G3Mwja1OTGQzPJWj3xGNIXB_kg8H-1rDkS5RDwkPYVMxnum5Q1pETzpi_r6TkhwKvoqpFg2sYbXtBbhFBciv5_CTClcTVlk-Wz8/s320/stagg-r-leigh.JPG" width="242" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I guess I'm I glad I'll never hit the big time.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A couple nights ago, I went out to see "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23561236/" target="_blank">American Fiction</a>." Incidentally, it's a great movie, and one that works on many levels. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it now.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But in particular, I was emailing with Marie earlier this evening. I mentioned the movie and told her I'd liked it. She went online and found a trailer, and said it looks like "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/" target="_blank">The Producers</a>." I replied that it is nothing at all like "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/" target="_blank">The Producers</a>." (Not to say anything against "The Producers"! It's the funniest movie ever made. But "American Fiction" breathes a whole different air.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So I started to think to myself, <i>What do I like about it so much?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><b>Fair warning: In what follows there are likely to be<span style="font-size: medium;"> SPOILERS!</span> So don't read any farther unless you have already seen the movie or just don't care.<span></span></b></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Partly I loved the satire. On the whole the movie is as much a drama as a comedy, but the comedic bits are hysterically funny. At one point a panel of judges is evaluating a roster of books for a prize. There is one book (by a Black author) that the three white judges love, but the two Black judges hate. The vote is 3-2, so the book wins a prize. After the vote, one of the white judges explains to the two Black judges, "I think it is </span><span style="font-family: arial;">really</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> important to uplift Black voices with this prize" …</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> even as he had </span><i style="font-family: arial;">completely ignored</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> the voices of the two Black judges on his panel. There's a strong hint that a lot of the white attention to Black authors or personalities is equally performative and equally unaware.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Partly I think the family relationships are drawn very delicately. The adult siblings care about each other, but they've made very different choices in their lives and they've grown into very different people. Also there are unresolved issues left over from when they were younger. So when they get together for a family event, the interactions are … warm but prickly, if that's a thing. Caring but awkward. The relationships are subtly drawn, and I found them easy to believe.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The main character (nicknamed "Monk") provides our point-of-view, but it's clear that he is not always an easy man for other people to like. There are aspects to his personality that make sense to us (the audience) because we see the world through his eyes, but that obviously make other people feel less than comfortable around him. Again, this is skillfully done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And then there's the subplot in which he writes a book under a pseudonym, a book that takes off and becomes a runaway success. For various reasons Monk can't simply come clean and admit that he is the author. At the same time, it becomes emotionally harder and harder to keep up the deception. We see the deception cost him a relationship. His brother (who doesn't know about Monk's secret book) talks about <i>his own</i> life as a formerly-closeted gay man, and about what <i>that </i>deception cost <i>him</i>. He tells Monk, "People want to love you. Let them love all of you." We see that Monk wants to, but just can't.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So what about me? What about this identity, "Hosea Tanatu," that has written close to 1500 posts here over the last 16 years, plus another 70-some <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">over on the Patio</a>? If I ever publish something that hits it big—I mean, if <b><i>Hosea</i></b> ever does!—I'll be in exactly the same position as Monk. Do I tell anyone? There's a reason that I hide these things under the name Hosea. No, of course I don't want to tell anyone. But then, how easily can I keep it a secret? If I publish something that becomes famous, if everyone is talking about it, if money is rolling in … how easily can I keep up the pretense that it has nothing to do with me? And what does it mean for all my relationships if I keep everyone—<i>everyone!</i>—at arm's length like that?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suppose it's a good thing that I'm <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/linkedin-on-tribalism.html" target="_blank">already</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/did-i-need-to-hear-this.html" target="_blank">disconnected</a> from other people! And of course there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that anything I write will ever hit the big time. As I said back at the beginning, I guess I'm glad. (Yes, this kind of solemn and subdued affect is exactly what "glad" looks like.) </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEX60EO_szCYDNSNgo6EDoqfTJuFoSBE2w31iF2xwHkRoQEiJKlwCHmWjd7zO8n8mZBaxMJKJRUdecuhNtF6y7srDdsPeYS2jZL5E4gtb0zEkkVcGDrk_RprcR3vVDh6zWCw7_LSupPgQSaoZ-PC0NlM-qRJLZr-igskCgJSSAZmCv6tbbbHMScVFTCduE/s800/206118315_american-fiction_cMEjtv_t800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEX60EO_szCYDNSNgo6EDoqfTJuFoSBE2w31iF2xwHkRoQEiJKlwCHmWjd7zO8n8mZBaxMJKJRUdecuhNtF6y7srDdsPeYS2jZL5E4gtb0zEkkVcGDrk_RprcR3vVDh6zWCw7_LSupPgQSaoZ-PC0NlM-qRJLZr-igskCgJSSAZmCv6tbbbHMScVFTCduE/w640-h426/206118315_american-fiction_cMEjtv_t800.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-63921461761384560372024-01-29T22:45:00.000-08:002024-01-29T22:45:07.102-08:00Freedom is overrated<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Freedom is overrated.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIKlcvEMy4H1oDMBFhut_MMS4l-HXDfU5O_5HIcYQylBLtU0tg_oHLHYv3FSUT6RdQtzadWc-m2CpWS4VVB_cZFmLK315pTaSaX1TsMIFg8FO1_fFqBJCVi9I3PR5OrCXFQEB9TGJSYk1dNsGvoT2pTNE79P5Pyshe811WngqPn6-KezqKQjoVf2x_XwP/s1500/photo-of-man-leaning-on-wooden-table-3132388.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIKlcvEMy4H1oDMBFhut_MMS4l-HXDfU5O_5HIcYQylBLtU0tg_oHLHYv3FSUT6RdQtzadWc-m2CpWS4VVB_cZFmLK315pTaSaX1TsMIFg8FO1_fFqBJCVi9I3PR5OrCXFQEB9TGJSYk1dNsGvoT2pTNE79P5Pyshe811WngqPn6-KezqKQjoVf2x_XwP/w400-h266/photo-of-man-leaning-on-wooden-table-3132388.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I guess I've talked about this before, not always in those words. I find only two places where I have said <i><u>literally</u></i> this: <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-does-freedom-have-to-do-with-it.html" target="_blank">here in 2010</a>, and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/becalmed.html" target="_blank">here in 2023</a>. But <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/if-failure-is-freedom-then-freedom-is.html" target="_blank">my post here, arguing that freedom is failure</a>, comes pretty close to saying the same thing.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I first figured it out by watching Father. Back when he owned our family business he had a terrible time of it: I talk about that some <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/on-being-boss.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/on-being-boss-part-2.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and probably in other places too. At the time, I thought he was being imprisoned by the business; and it was plainly killing him. When he finally sold it, I thought, Now at last he'll be able to do all those things he has wanted to do for so long!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But he didn't. He'd start one project, and then he'd start another, and then he'd email crazy conspiracy theories with his old Army buddies, and then he'd stay up to watch the Late Show, and then … on and on and on. [I have no idea how far he got on any of these projects, but <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/my-object-all-sublime.html" target="_blank">Mother would like me to find out</a>.] But he never got anything actually <i>Done</i>, because he didn't <i>Have To</i>. He was free—as free as anyone I've ever known.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It didn't make him happy. Not having to go out and see people on a regular basis just made him sour and solitary. (<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/29048-days.html" target="_blank">He died in 2015</a>, but compare also <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/did-i-need-to-hear-this.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, just for example.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2021/05/consulting.html" target="_blank">I worried that could happen to me when my job ended</a>, if I didn't get a regular full-time job to replace it. And, … well, you know, … it's hard to say I was wrong. Just in the last year I talk about that <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/becalmed.html" target="_blank">here</a> (after coming home from Scotland) and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/unproductive.html" target="_blank">here</a> (after coming home from France and then Thanksgiving).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Ironically, there's even an argument that this is true of <i>political freedom</i> as well. A few days ago, I posted <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2024/01/rousseaus-challenge.html" target="_blank">this over on the Patio</a>, explaining the argument that the best regimes in the world are places like Niger, Uganda, and Angola—none of them "free countries" <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices" target="_blank">by any normal metric</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It's funny. We feel a natural irritation when someone tells us what to do. <i>Who do they think they are? <b>I'll</b> decide what I want to do!</i> But when we have that freedom—well, for some of us, at any rate, it doesn't make us happy. I bet that's true for many of us. It's probably true of me, not that I'm about to surrender my freedom. It's easier to surrender my happiness.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Freedom is overrated. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-68715349746810430232024-01-28T00:15:00.000-08:002024-01-28T00:15:47.638-08:00Did I need to hear this?<p><span style="font-family: arial;">It's late at night. I've been drinking too much. I should be in bed. So I clicked on a recent clip on YouTube from Bill Maher.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And this is me. It's totally me. So is this going to kill me? Do I need to worry about it? Was this just some random video, or do I need to take it seriously?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Inquiring minds want to know ….</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nj-qk2QMUk8" width="320" youtube-src-id="Nj-qk2QMUk8"></iframe></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-66439018508480061132024-01-27T12:51:00.000-08:002024-01-27T12:51:17.722-08:00Willing and wanting<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Willpower is a funny thing. <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/discipline-whats-that.html" target="_blank">Ten years ago I wrote</a> about how true self-discipline is not "violent self-mastery through an iron will," but rather a form of "<i>informed, intelligent self-manipulation</i>" that "understand[s] yourself well enough to know what you have to do to set up conditions so that you will naturally act in the way you need to act." I still think that's not far wrong.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcH3_xKj2tbVbgIuhBoTLGjtNlHnltJ_QJpR8jZUy7GmPdEzcTLIGl7p8bug5cPA7kqVEmX1fOX3xfhyphenhyphen8PUrgMR5ATHY4auj7W3HI7IILJCoZFvxiVMk_CXjc0CTRmxWXsQbMb5QqEZLAH6tn4KFbvxKvIGSOmTpV-qRWaC8ktm0kuXbAvAtcDQVbx8vOX/s610/rewire-your-brain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="610" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcH3_xKj2tbVbgIuhBoTLGjtNlHnltJ_QJpR8jZUy7GmPdEzcTLIGl7p8bug5cPA7kqVEmX1fOX3xfhyphenhyphen8PUrgMR5ATHY4auj7W3HI7IILJCoZFvxiVMk_CXjc0CTRmxWXsQbMb5QqEZLAH6tn4KFbvxKvIGSOmTpV-qRWaC8ktm0kuXbAvAtcDQVbx8vOX/w400-h300/rewire-your-brain.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">But of course the catch is in getting started in the first place. Like the old joke goes, you have to really <i>want</i> to change. And if you don't, I'm not sure what clever hacks there are to make it happen. How do you make yourself want to do something that just leaves you thinking "meh"?</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So for example, I've put on something like 25 pounds since <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/day-14-flying-home.html" target="_blank">coming home from Scotland</a> last spring. Maybe I should go exercise? Yeah, sounds like a great idea; I'll do it tomorrow. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Some of that weight gain is surely connected with my drinking in the evening. Maybe I should cut back? Or … you know … just <i>stop</i>? Hmm. Interesting idea. Let's discuss it over a whiskey-and-water.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There are a lot of things on my to-do list, and every day they get slid to the next day because I spend too much damned time on Twitter or otherwise browsing the Internet. Maybe I should close Twitter, or even delete my account? Well let's not get crazy here. Sure, I'll minimize the screen and go do something productive … right after I refresh the feed one more time and read these last few posts.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Lately Marie has done a bunch of reading on healthy eating, and has been sending me recommendations. Brussels sprouts are <i>good</i>! (Actually I eat these a fair bit.) Eggs and meat are <i>bad</i>! (So the eggs and sausage that I had for breakfast yesterday is out?) And so on. And sure, I've heard a lot of this advice before. From time to time, I've even eaten that way. So I know I can do it, because I once did. Isn't that good enough? Oh, … I see, … you want me to do it <i>again</i>. And <i>keep at it</i>. Hmm. Well we can talk about it, I guess.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And so on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Making yourself do something that you want to do (but have trouble breaking a contrary habit) is a question of figuring out hacks so that you will naturally fall into doing them. But when you don't even care enough about the improvements to bother thinking through your habits or setting up the hacks? How do you make yourself want something that just doesn't interest you that much?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suppose fear is one way. My father ate wrong his whole life until his heart attack and quadruple bypass; but that scared him into vegetarianism and a love of salads. I'd like to avoid that kind of extreme wake-up call.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But avoiding an extreme wake-up call means deciding I want to live differently.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe tomorrow.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-49438645859300418752024-01-22T20:08:00.000-08:002024-01-22T20:08:13.259-08:00When did you start ...? (A follow-up post)<span style="font-family: arial;">Just about ten years ago, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/when-did-you-start.html" target="_blank">I posted a rumination</a> about what age people lose their virginity, and what age they start <i>regularly</i> fucking. Among other things, I posed the question whether these things travel in families? If your parents lost their virginity early (or late), did you do the same? How about your kids?<span><a name='more'></a></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZdIAaFp0mUAZCRh3k56YIaVy5sZZwEa5x0KVp5Q5Pb5rf2-KpqwHu_ILiEB1snJvDRWJMh0O-W1tjKN7EU_LoIfBJkA9mZeRD6erVPm4Ls82erY56Oi7ynrI9A7baJlaFezHfTcApv0zAJ-nTOeUtJ1q4kHvqAAeh05ly8XbHD6PKf_AEBIOQVR0BQxX/s570/dysfunctional.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="570" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZdIAaFp0mUAZCRh3k56YIaVy5sZZwEa5x0KVp5Q5Pb5rf2-KpqwHu_ILiEB1snJvDRWJMh0O-W1tjKN7EU_LoIfBJkA9mZeRD6erVPm4Ls82erY56Oi7ynrI9A7baJlaFezHfTcApv0zAJ-nTOeUtJ1q4kHvqAAeh05ly8XbHD6PKf_AEBIOQVR0BQxX/w400-h219/dysfunctional.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">It was an interesting line of thought, but not one that I bothered to pursue after writing a post about it. Then this afternoon I happened to stumble across an article online that sheds a little empirical light on the question. "<a href="https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/being-poor-doesnt-have-the-same-effect" target="_blank">Being Poor Doesn't Have the Same Effect as Living in Chaos</a>" by <a href="https://substack.com/@robkhenderson" target="_blank">Rob Henderson</a> argues that "environmental unpredictability" during childhood is a critical relevant factor: "<i>In short, how often the kid moved, how frequently the adults in the kid’s life appeared and disappeared, and how frequently his mom changed jobs. How chaotic was the kid’s life?</i></span><span style="font-family: arial;">" The article goes on like this:</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial;">"... the researchers wanted to know how these two factors (childhood poverty and environmental unpredictability) influenced 5 outcome variables:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Age at first intercourse</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Number of lifetime sexual partners at age 23</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Criminal acts</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Aggression (e.g., “I deliberately try to hurt others,” “I destroy things belonging to others”)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Delinquency (frequency of lying/cheating, breaking rules, setting fires, stealing, drug use)</span></span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Researchers found that childhood poverty (harshness) was not significantly associated with any of the 5 outcome variables.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">In contrast, there was a significant correlation between childhood unpredictability 4 of the 5 outcome variables—number of sexual partners, aggressive behavior, delinquent behavior, and criminal behavior. For males, but not females, instability predicted having sex at an earlier age.</span></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So what does this do to my original speculations? Well, I think these results suggest that I was not exactly <i>wrong</i>, but maybe just a little <i>muddled</i>. If people who grow up in chaos are likely to exhibit the dysfunctional behaviors listed, then that means also that they are pretty likely to reproduce a chaotic environment when they have their own children. After all, not only do criminality, aggression, and delinquency stir up chaos by themselves, but they make it more likely that the offending parent will be jailed (or killed) and that the child will be shuffled off to someone else's care. But even in the best of cases this means that the child grows up with less predictability and more chaos.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In other words, there is some significant likelihood that parents who lose their virginity early will <span style="color: #999999;">(exhibit other chaotic behaviors as well, leading to a chaotic home environment when they)</span> have <span style="color: #999999;">(their own)</span> children who in turn <span style="color: #999999;">(having grown up in a chaotic environment)</span> lose <i>their</i> virginity early; and likewise <span style="color: #999999;">(but the other way around)</span> with parents and children who lose it late. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When I think about Wife's family (<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/lonesome-traveler.html" target="_blank">looking at them from the outside, like a tourist or an anthropologist</a>), many of them led chaotic lives. And God knows Wife's mother had turbulent storms inside her that could break out at unpredictable times and in unpredictable directions. And while Wife's life has been more orderly than the lives of some of her siblings, it is also true that she has (or <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/what-happened-to-her-anyway.html" target="_blank">had</a>) a profound capacity for <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Wife%20loses%20it" target="_blank">mayhem</a> and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-weekend-that-wife-was-arrested.html" target="_blank">willful destruction</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So what about the boys? I don't see the same chaos in them. Neither one has been arrested; they are kind and considerate, and for the most part dedicated rule-followers. <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/01/son-2-has-girlfriend.html" target="_blank">Son 2 was 23 when he took up with Beryl</a>; I don't know about his personal life before that point, but at any rate that means that (whatever it was like) he was able to keep it quiet. I know nothing whatever about Son 1's personal life. So it seems like the inheritance of chaotic behavior has been broken.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I guess it was a good thing to send them to <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/boarding-school-1-why.html" target="_blank">boarding schools</a>. And maybe I was able—somehow, to some limited extent—to <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/blast-from-past-my-mother-would-have.html" target="_blank">shield them</a> from some of the craziness and extend an umbrella of normality over them. Whatever the cause, they seem to be doing well as non-chaotic adults, and I'm grateful.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-37387438314878076422024-01-19T11:58:00.000-08:002024-01-19T11:58:24.589-08:00Of course it's political!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="555" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFuVYrPiM44MVGJ2qDwiXUvwnsPs9qymRkx5tnpM2eUiTBVJP4BZ8VrUWW0ncsBNPKrVaU4IO6tK2J4rlaaKALvTTgnH1ZA4KGZHuZ_iQZm9USMWpISXYpCYPJYvzto2QJYCs0A4WRC-_xTDn41nugxmyw5LS082wv2LxwjioJNowEeVAWYKvq02Bsd3iI/w324-h400/mcgowan-political.JPG" width="324" /></span><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxDT7Ru3C0Df3jY3WbLK_QhMYQaCwp7NdaEj32kyHnnayBF5I0b05CVfOgSftIhaQ3q2_ZGtLF-p0d_wa94FA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFuVYrPiM44MVGJ2qDwiXUvwnsPs9qymRkx5tnpM2eUiTBVJP4BZ8VrUWW0ncsBNPKrVaU4IO6tK2J4rlaaKALvTTgnH1ZA4KGZHuZ_iQZm9USMWpISXYpCYPJYvzto2QJYCs0A4WRC-_xTDn41nugxmyw5LS082wv2LxwjioJNowEeVAWYKvq02Bsd3iI/s686/mcgowan-political.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Just saw this post on LinkedIn. Someone argues that gender fluidity is spreading across the globe and then cautions, "This is not a political matter."</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course it's a political matter. If it's not being caused by politics, then what's causing it? Biology? Doesn't change that fast. Social attitudes, values, cultural preferences? Those are all just part of politics writ large.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/901325267" target="_blank">She links to this video</a>, where she talks about the rate at which these changes are taking place. Nothing else besides politics moves that fast.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-3269144065569145442024-01-17T16:17:00.000-08:002024-01-17T16:17:11.610-08:00Gender role test<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi46IN6UPZgyd2oFXXyLoBdHEgMNhz1DSoZdZjKN7-6uR-yXi7xaDdsz6-glHdje6Eq0lA50U4G4PKxSQ4NNnkHgrM1X7UNr1MxyppEsniMd2jH7q0ivm4t1_1DSgEqa80e6f0pd6U11A5V0S_lBJphaIYQhTRdUXwihVC-exq1Z42YexLOOwBeOqDbgnSO/s735/gender%20role%20test.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="376" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi46IN6UPZgyd2oFXXyLoBdHEgMNhz1DSoZdZjKN7-6uR-yXi7xaDdsz6-glHdje6Eq0lA50U4G4PKxSQ4NNnkHgrM1X7UNr1MxyppEsniMd2jH7q0ivm4t1_1DSgEqa80e6f0pd6U11A5V0S_lBJphaIYQhTRdUXwihVC-exq1Z42YexLOOwBeOqDbgnSO/w328-h640/gender%20role%20test.JPG" width="328" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile, I found a "<a href="https://www.idrlabs.com/gender/test.php" target="_blank">gender role test</a>" online, courtesy of some outfit called <a href="https://www.idrlabs.com/" target="_blank">IDR Labs</a>. Guess how I scored? </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">(Right away I remembered having once written <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/maybe-im-girl.html" target="_blank">this post here</a>.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Or maybe all these generalizations are just a little silly.</span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-44310235620321857452024-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:002024-01-17T15:46:14.323-08:00Was Tacitus talking about my marriage?<p></p><span style="font-family: arial;">This morning I was reading <a href="https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/the-america-that-almost-was-and-yet-dea" target="_blank">this article by Charles Eisenstein</a> (highly recommended!) and I stumbled across the following quote:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwu1D0GUFou77GiMhUfnAUTHSDpmM85FxiZ-9IfdjJ1WBnMweDxrey287WK-0mqYOt-Aojy860SLmv9oOmEVwiX2_gwl_J9fbx_oF7HPnxPvArzzE0tV_kB_TpJRKzr0xO66uwQ-rZxC4KEO89ZENeQlfVZrx1RvbWuzfhIHTuHeqvDr3MC6UpbdueQPec/s1200/Quote%20from%20Tacitus%20via%20Eisenstein%20-%20square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwu1D0GUFou77GiMhUfnAUTHSDpmM85FxiZ-9IfdjJ1WBnMweDxrey287WK-0mqYOt-Aojy860SLmv9oOmEVwiX2_gwl_J9fbx_oF7HPnxPvArzzE0tV_kB_TpJRKzr0xO66uwQ-rZxC4KEO89ZENeQlfVZrx1RvbWuzfhIHTuHeqvDr3MC6UpbdueQPec/w400-h400/Quote%20from%20Tacitus%20via%20Eisenstein%20-%20square.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></span><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And … sure, I know he (Eisenstein, that is, not Tacitus) is talking about the relationship between the American government and the American people. But I can't help wondering whether these same principles also explain Wife's intense anger and animosity towards me for so many years? The idea would be consistent </span><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/word-i-thought-id-never-hear.html" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">with this post</a><span style="font-family: arial;">, at any rate. Maybe there are others like it too, but I'm not going to hunt for them right now.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-59583069160785813402024-01-09T09:14:00.000-08:002024-01-09T09:14:51.446-08:00LinkedIn on tribalism<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I saw this morning a post on LinkedIn about tribalism:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN56aEtiBW8pkjGRwJ44i9aVUC4HvUKF5OOqQ1_JE1E9CKlgcOAJg2uhFnPBi60aTmnHMHSL6qTE3UYftF6pYjF6rYCNu5IhCZ7rkyYdlyTvdg8a5R83rQRwak_B-OjXQefZLnqGWdVefwe3xARV6dq0OQr01gR4YlvIVo3vrG2I2quOkNkKGTe43mlSVT/s555/tribalism.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="555" height="566" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN56aEtiBW8pkjGRwJ44i9aVUC4HvUKF5OOqQ1_JE1E9CKlgcOAJg2uhFnPBi60aTmnHMHSL6qTE3UYftF6pYjF6rYCNu5IhCZ7rkyYdlyTvdg8a5R83rQRwak_B-OjXQefZLnqGWdVefwe3xARV6dq0OQr01gR4YlvIVo3vrG2I2quOkNkKGTe43mlSVT/w640-h566/tribalism.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Right away it put me in mind of T. E. Lawrence, at least <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/" target="_blank">in the movie</a>.</span></p>
<div style="padding-bottom: 56.25%; position: relative; width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><iframe frameborder="0" src="https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3861f5af-5ecf-4642-bc19-4be0697e3603/embed?autoplay=false&responsive=true" style="height: 100%; position: absolute; width: 100%;"></iframe>
</span></div>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe there are advantages (if only a few) to aligning with nobody. (<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/political-failure-conversation-in-paris.html" target="_blank">Reference</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/political-unreliability.html" target="_blank">any number</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/11/no-opinions.html" target="_blank">of my</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/lonesome-traveler.html" target="_blank">earlier</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-consummate-outsider.html" target="_blank">posts</a>.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-81800555370677672522024-01-05T23:27:00.000-08:002024-01-05T23:27:26.243-08:00On the incommunicability of political conversion<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Two years ago <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/01/thinking-about-death-in-new-year.html" target="_blank">I got a phone call out of the blue from an old college friend Cassius</a>, to tell me that K—a mutual friend back in the day, with whom I had absolutely not kept up any contact—had recently died. Cassius and I went on to have a long talk about a lot of things, catching up on 37 years of past history. (Besides <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/01/thinking-about-death-in-new-year.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-news-from-cassius.html" target="_blank">see also this one</a>.) During this talk (among a lot of other topics) Cassius filled me in on what had happened in the interim with K and Mrs. K. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">K and Mrs. K had gotten together while I was still a student. K's previous girlfriend had been a good friend of mine (but never <i>my</i> girlfriend), and the woman who later became Mrs. K had been a radical political lesbian. (I remember one spring festival on campus where she wandered around topless; her overall frame was small and her breasts were proportionally sized, but they were beautifully formed.) But somehow she and K hit it off … and then fell into bed together … after which K ended things with his former girlfriend to focus on one woman at a time. Not long thereafter K and his new girlfriend moved in together, and in due course they married. That's how far my knowledge went before I talked with Cassius.<span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What I learned was that since then, K had found work in some lucrative corner of the computer industry, and was able to retire at around the age of 50 (so roughly a decade before I did) to a life of elegant leisure and collecting art. Also, some time during the intervening years the K's had migrated from the left-wing politics which had been conventional on campus (back when we were all undergraduates) to something that Cassius characterized as right-wing. He didn't go into a lot of detail, but I assume this meant that they voted Republican rather than Democratic.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Cassius did say that once—only once—he asked them about their political migration, but that the conversation was not informative:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Cassius:</b> I don't get it. You used to be on the Left. What <i>happened</i> to you guys, anyway?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Mrs. K:</b> We finally <i>opened our eyes!<span></span></i></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Obviously this didn't explain a lot. And to judge from what Cassius told me, he never had a deeper or more meaningful conversation with them on the subject. He concluded that their politics changed when they started making a lot of money, out of pure self-interest.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suspect Cassius was wrong. Or at any rate I suspect there was more to the political conversion of the K's than naked self-interest and a desire for lower taxes. But I totally believe that Cassius <i>thought</i> it was a simple question, and I totally believe that the K's were unable to explain themselves to him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's why.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course there are a lot of reasons why someone might adopt this or that political position. But I think in many cases the "reason" is a little inchoate. More specifically, I suspect that in many cases someone's political commitments are made up of dozens or hundreds of <i>pictures</i>—mental snapshots that show the world to be <i>a certain kind of place</i>. And once it is clear to someone that the world is <i>Like This</i>, it is an obvious corollary that the best political position is one which treats it <i>Like That</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What this means, though, is that a political commitment is never a <i>primary</i> choice. It always depends on a certain understanding about the <i>Facts of the World</i>. And if this is true, then when someone changes his political commitments it is because his understanding of the world changed <i>first</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In principle, this should mean that when someone asks, "Why did you change your political position?" the correct answer is to provide him with several years' worth of snapshots—bite-sized pieces of information—to show him how your understanding of the world has changed. Then when you are done, the question, "Why did you vote for Candidate X instead of Candidate Y?" answers itself. Once someone understands what kind of world you think we live in, he cannot possibly be surprised at how you voted.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But nobody ever does this. By definition, the conversation would take years. Instead, the most natural way to answer the question is to say something snappy that relies on your current understanding of <i>How Things Are</i>. And for anyone who already sees what you see, that's plenty good enough.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The problem is that the person challenging you <i>doesn't</i> see what you see. This is guaranteed by definition: if he <i>did</i> see what you see, he'd already <i>vote</i> like you do; and in that case he wouldn't be asking you this question because the answer would be obvious to him. So when you give your snappy answer based on your clear recognition of things that <i>look</i> to you like <i>obvious facts</i>, none of it makes any sense to him at all. He <i>doesn't see</i> the facts you do, so your references make <i>no sense</i> to him, and your snappy retort falls <i>flat</i>. All he can understand for sure is that you don't see the world in the way that looks <i>obvious</i> to him. Since his view of the world is indeed so obvious to him, he <i>assumes</i> it is universal. Since you apparently do not share his understanding, he concludes either that you are <i>stupid</i> or that you are answering <i>in bad faith</i>. It does not occur to him that there might be genuinely valid ways to understand the world besides his own; and, sadly, your snappy response doesn't give him enough to work with.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The net result is that you cannot communicate to him why you have changed your mind. Maybe if there were some way to communicate to him all the hundreds of mental snapshots—and personal experiences—that have reshaped how you see the world … <b><i>maybe</i></b> in that case you might have a chance. But otherwise, I think it must be very, very difficult.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Most of the time, let's call it "incommunicable."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEe5KKcEljzPE_L0a_zOjVwF3KvxtEFyacO-8MuBXN7wV1I8hsjiF_hBW_NhvuALfrUV1NgfZUFM-Ad1TDhcKumSolUdBlKc-EwVHX-BanMWWEJRv9bbWM2_iXkHVoneHecYJ1siQ3uvTVBVzivvUErnJBlsX4GKviewpafpAUb_JERygFahH_8L0At0h/s897/left-right.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="897" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEe5KKcEljzPE_L0a_zOjVwF3KvxtEFyacO-8MuBXN7wV1I8hsjiF_hBW_NhvuALfrUV1NgfZUFM-Ad1TDhcKumSolUdBlKc-EwVHX-BanMWWEJRv9bbWM2_iXkHVoneHecYJ1siQ3uvTVBVzivvUErnJBlsX4GKviewpafpAUb_JERygFahH_8L0At0h/w640-h430/left-right.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-57956326867396096312024-01-01T21:39:00.000-08:002024-01-02T09:33:47.753-08:00Meeting my Shadow<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Last night during dinner I had an encounter with my Shadow. The Jungian kind. Perhaps I'd better start again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I haven't read very much Jung, and I'm no expert in the tenets of Jungian psychology. Most of what I know about the Shadow archetype, I've learned from reading <a href="https://www.ecosophia.net/" target="_blank">John Michael Greer</a>—for example, <a href="https://www.ecosophia.net/what-evil-lurks/" target="_blank">in this essay here</a>. See also this YouTube video as a quick summary:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OhzBo0dZNpY" width="320" youtube-src-id="OhzBo0dZNpY"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />But his description has always been a bit difficult for me to apply to myself. </span><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Your Shadow consists of all the parts of yourself that you don't like. OK, so far, so good. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">But specifically they are things you hate so much that you refuse to acknowledge that they are part of you. This makes it harder, because I freely acknowledge many of the unpleasant sides of my own character. <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/06/pretending-to-be-better-or-worse.html" target="_blank">I talk about them in this venue, not infrequently</a>. Do I have to rule out all of those?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Because you can't admit that your Shadow characteristics are part of you, you project them onto your enemies. Gosh, do I have enemies?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">And whenever you see someone else exhibit one of these behaviors, it makes you crazy.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I wasn't sure what that left me. But it turns out that's because I have a bad memory.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBTdLPMO3_UO9URj6PSo742zX9oK40ItI5qbmge5XNRrtAdlCOpqTxBDyMgpbJ7BsSO-NTWBd0OmvKUWiMOJKz0TqKt44e918enlzUlIijghQxsepQOJb-XJL0HA6h4zSWnz-LsqRvaVbf2gwhHG_p-QJj_yxr8hadda4rUvdos5xfvqnJc69AyJcfsgjf/s4280/Hypnose_(Schneider).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4280" data-original-width="3168" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBTdLPMO3_UO9URj6PSo742zX9oK40ItI5qbmge5XNRrtAdlCOpqTxBDyMgpbJ7BsSO-NTWBd0OmvKUWiMOJKz0TqKt44e918enlzUlIijghQxsepQOJb-XJL0HA6h4zSWnz-LsqRvaVbf2gwhHG_p-QJj_yxr8hadda4rUvdos5xfvqnJc69AyJcfsgjf/w296-h400/Hypnose_(Schneider).jpg" width="296" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">A couple days ago, or thereabouts, Marie sent me an email about a problem she was having at work. Partly this was to get my sympathy, of course, but partly it was to get my advice. She knew it was the kind of problem that I used to address professionally back before I more or less retired. But the place she works is very different from any of the places I ever worked, in a number of important respects. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So my first reply (I envisioned this to be one of a series) said: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #38761d;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #38761d;">"Here's how we used to handle this sort of thing at my companies, but tell me more details about what's going on at your place."</span> </span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Her response was, in essence: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"Oh my God, I feel so ashamed! Obviously we've done <i><b>everything wrong!</b></i>"</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Oh dear. Deep sigh.</span></p><p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: arial;">"Well no, that's not what I meant. Your workplace is different from mine; of course you do things differently. And the solutions we used at my work could never work for you, for lots of reasons. So let's just discuss for a while. It's all fine."</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">That's what I wrote back. But meanwhile I spent all evening ranting to a fictitious Marie in my imagination. (It was late at night and I hadn't eaten yet, though I <i>had</i> started drinking. Both facts might have contributed to my mood.) My internal hollering went something like this: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>For heaven's sake, <b>read</b> the damned email! I explicitly <b>said</b> I wasn't criticizing you. And even if I <b>were</b> criticizing you—even if I <b>did</b> say you did it all wrong—<b>who the Hell cares?</b> The worst you can do is fail, and <b>we all fail.</b> Failure is nothing special. Grow a <b>spine</b>! Stand up and <b>stare me down</b>!</i></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Over and over.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The monologue mellowed after I got some food into me. After dinner I puttered around a little more on the Internet. And then, just after I turned out the light and was climbing into bed, I suddenly realized: <i>Wait, I do that too!</i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_W8oywoihS_s7ZMvHQZJPUyrRutcqFeljZqGWBwuwUFzerfLeGSY1OoPkYK7HiXuO4lNNtlyKvWJhFsfOE1o6j1GCkfRNw5eEXg7UtybGJ5GqEQAOmJf4wrl9WJ9yf9wb9WEPBYrsKfFr_TV_FH1MMSuOTJr2l3RslDabnv9q4hifw8eU-Y98CqH21NXo/s4991/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne_-_The_Drinker_(Le_Buveur)_-_BF189_-_Barnes_Foundation.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 2em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4991" data-original-width="4096" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_W8oywoihS_s7ZMvHQZJPUyrRutcqFeljZqGWBwuwUFzerfLeGSY1OoPkYK7HiXuO4lNNtlyKvWJhFsfOE1o6j1GCkfRNw5eEXg7UtybGJ5GqEQAOmJf4wrl9WJ9yf9wb9WEPBYrsKfFr_TV_FH1MMSuOTJr2l3RslDabnv9q4hifw8eU-Y98CqH21NXo/s320/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne_-_The_Drinker_(Le_Buveur)_-_BF189_-_Barnes_Foundation.jpg" width="263" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I've talked to you about my own cowardice and fearfulness:</span><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/its-time.html" target="_blank">It's Time</a>:</b> "So I silently scolded those who got a divorce for lacking the courage to soldier on in the face of adversity, while all the time I clung to fantasies of flight and then castigated myself for my own cowardice. I guess there is nobody so self-righteous about avoiding this or that sin as the man who secretly craves it with all his heart."</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/am-pragfriedhof.html" target="_blank">Am Pragfrieghof</a>:</b> "Or maybe not. Remember who I am,<br />"A staid and quiet, timid, fearful man,<br />"too shy for such Odysseosity."</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/movie-meme-3.html" target="_blank">Movie meme, 3</a>:</b> "That makes her the harridan who dominates the marriage; and me the timid, henpecked nebbish who hates his lot in life but goes along with it anyway."</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">You can find plenty of other references by searching, though often the comments are incidental reflections in the context of a different discussion.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Or think of all my discussions of <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2014/06/asceticism-and-fragility.html" target="_blank">fragility</a> and "<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/mood-2.html" target="_blank">Mood 2</a>." I've talked about <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/waves-of-fragility.html" target="_blank">what it feels like inside</a>. But also <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/you-can-be-downer-on-anything.html" target="_blank">I know it frustrates other people</a>, people who have to interact with me. I've seen the same fragility portrayed in movies (<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/lawrence-again.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and recently <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-fragility-of-self-absorbed.html" target="_blank">here</a>) and it is always dysfunctional. And God knows, when I have to deal with it in somebody else it enrages me: look at this story I'm telling right now about Marie, or stories <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/like-lump-of-clay.html" target="_blank">like this one about Wife</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Cowardice. Timidity. Fragility. Depression. "Mood 2." You can probably add in a certain amount of my drinking too, come to that. I've certainly discussed how alcohol can treat my anxiety: for example <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/drinking-too-much.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/anxiety-part-2-have-drink.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2020/09/unhappy-hour.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And I've written enough about <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/search/label/anxiety" target="_blank">anxiety</a> to make it a search key.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">All these words seem to orbit around the same space, more or less. They relate to each other. And after last night, I'm confident that they represent part of my Shadow, in a Jungian sense.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By a curious synchronicity (Jung again!) I ran across the following remark on Twitter this morning:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIMQMywQMkAck96ifHkYk3f2fH81qbXfKW1T5uoK7u6S17jPMltvBDkmxxMN_iejgIyWrXJifOB_2sNEcNuL3UKest_fj7O1rBbx9N2ZK9407mVue6js7-ngST_3-9X9lqa044l-LD7aF0JtiyDBtluKQ-gUQgVguv1dbWhUGtC_hrWM9H7delevLbhApo/s540/why%20orson%20welles%20hated%20woody%20allen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="540" height="568" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIMQMywQMkAck96ifHkYk3f2fH81qbXfKW1T5uoK7u6S17jPMltvBDkmxxMN_iejgIyWrXJifOB_2sNEcNuL3UKest_fj7O1rBbx9N2ZK9407mVue6js7-ngST_3-9X9lqa044l-LD7aF0JtiyDBtluKQ-gUQgVguv1dbWhUGtC_hrWM9H7delevLbhApo/w640-h568/why%20orson%20welles%20hated%20woody%20allen.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />I guess it's a good thing I'm neither famous nor funny. I'd hate to be thought </span><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/arrogant.html" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">arrogant</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-1207099959214657422023-12-30T23:00:00.000-08:002023-12-31T01:17:13.534-08:00Christmas at home<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Just a few words about Christmas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We collected at Mother's house on the 24th—that's me, Brother, and SIL. Brother and SIL spent hours cooking for the next day. I got there later and brought a shitload of wine. I … actually don't remember what we had for dinner the night of the 24. I know we had to improvise something at the last minute. We all joked over having a house full of food and "nothing to eat"—nothing that wasn't already slated for the next day, that is. But we scraped together something. And we had wine to drink—I'd brought plenty, so there was some for that night too. After dinner, Brother and I put up the outside lights along the front edges of the roof.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC34iTW7ahaOQ-OX_uIBKmlJl7t7nWoF6ubGtZRCVNl6p3Rz4g4GkFdZH_8aAJTXUqAl4_J0lw8SHgVOxS_RpUQ3f-B9NYPwB5t5faXuyKZDzDNpHOji37bPCzwA_17DpVBpwbkR9Ob2aj20rVgeG73VUg5NgbTp6qgjY-ls0p-uWRLHje3T1E5aKRo4We/s980/xmas-wine.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="980" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC34iTW7ahaOQ-OX_uIBKmlJl7t7nWoF6ubGtZRCVNl6p3Rz4g4GkFdZH_8aAJTXUqAl4_J0lw8SHgVOxS_RpUQ3f-B9NYPwB5t5faXuyKZDzDNpHOji37bPCzwA_17DpVBpwbkR9Ob2aj20rVgeG73VUg5NgbTp6qgjY-ls0p-uWRLHje3T1E5aKRo4We/w400-h278/xmas-wine.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The morning of the 25th, we had coffee and fruitcake for breakfast. I wanted something a bit more solid and finally found some bread and cheese to make myself a primitive sandwich. Brother and SIL cooked some more. Mother and I helped set up decorations. Son 2 called in the early afternoon, and wished us all a Merry Christmas while passing on a quick update of his news. (Son 2 and Beryl were spending the holiday cocooning with each other; likewise Son 1 was spending the day with Wife, but <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-year-later.html" target="_blank">I had already visited them</a>.)</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Ironically, after bringing all that wine, I drank almost nothing on the 25th: a few ounces at the very end of the day. But that's because I had drunk quite a lot the night of the 24th, so I felt like death warmed over for a fair bit of Christmas Day itself. I don't remember if the others drank less than I did on Christmas Eve, but nobody else was particularly abstaining on Christmas Day. Clearly I just goofed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Some time around 2:00 pm or so, we began the first courses of this huge meal Brother and SIL had prepared. We continued to nibble our way through it until the sun had almost set, a few hours later. We had agreed beforehand to forego buying any gifts for each other, although in the end Mother got a couple of tiny things for each of the rest of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After all the food and the wine (well, except for me) we were all pretty tired and fell asleep. Mother and I woke first, and began cleaning up the food and the dishes; then Brother and SIL woke a while later, and pitched in as well. (But of course they had done all the cooking.) Then about 11:00 pm, they left to go home. Mother and I fell each in our own bed and slept soundly.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I had planned to go home on Boxing Day. But in the event, Mother and I talked … and then we talked … and talked some more. I helped her with a couple of simple chores around the house. We napped in the mid-afternoon. And suddenly it was getting dark! Wow. Maybe I didn't need to go home that day after all.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Over dinner on the 26th, I remember we discussed politics. Colorado had recently banned Donald Trump from appearing on the state's primary ballots. Mother explained that she was worried about a Trump victory, and so cautiously supported the Colorado ruling. I told her I saw it differently: first, that Trump will not make himself a dictator because any aspiring dictator would have made his move in his first term (thus avoiding the risk of losing the next election); and second, that therefore it is a very bad look to throw people off the ballot. That's what Bad Countries do. I pointed out that Trump's legal problems have <i>gained</i> him support; and I added that if I thought Trump were as devious as Richard Nixon* (which I don't) then I could almost believe that he had set up his legal troubles on purpose in order to increase his support in advance of the election. I'm not sure Mother agreed with the overall picture I sketched, but she certainly agreed with a few of the details.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUGBz7o3M1JzDTavE19eCmk3g-WXo0CFwuSrNeKhZm7S6p3fUTVMT91M8xci8MXkbE-5eIVmkpAy9ekMwWWr2jTKHGTRrx_K9y1_CQNW1QbKZgJZ7O7MJ4-GqkjWZxSIv9DypShwuhPhVc_bE1p1HwrcgXHiABHBklhTh9PP2_LWo7js5He8aqFI3zBR45/s1000/An-elderly-woman-by-some-flowers-with-her-adult-daughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUGBz7o3M1JzDTavE19eCmk3g-WXo0CFwuSrNeKhZm7S6p3fUTVMT91M8xci8MXkbE-5eIVmkpAy9ekMwWWr2jTKHGTRrx_K9y1_CQNW1QbKZgJZ7O7MJ4-GqkjWZxSIv9DypShwuhPhVc_bE1p1HwrcgXHiABHBklhTh9PP2_LWo7js5He8aqFI3zBR45/w400-h266/An-elderly-woman-by-some-flowers-with-her-adult-daughter.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The next morning, I told her for sure I'd have to leave. So after breakfast I started collecting my things. But once again we started talking, and so it wasn't until somewhere around 2:30 pm that I finally drove away. In the meantime, we talked some more. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">One of the things we talked about was money, and what's going to happen to her property when she dies. I explained that I've written a letter to Son 1 and Son 2 explaining what to do about my financial accounts when I die. (I've discussed this letter briefly <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/go-public-again.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-case-i-die.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/fear-of-flying.html" target="_blank">here</a>.) Also, I added that in principle I update this letter once a year. (I'm not always very punctual, but that's the idea.) And I told her that <i>they know where this letter is</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Back when they were still in high school and were staying with me as part of the custody calendar between me and Wife, I told them all about it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They said, "Why are you telling us something so <i>morbid</i>?" </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I explained, "Precisely because <i>you don't need to know</i> right now. I'm <i>not about</i> to die soon, so it's <i>just information</i> with no emotions attached. You can file it away in your memories, and then when the time comes you'll remember where to look for it!"</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Mother thought this was a great idea. And she expressed some sadness that she's never been able to have these conversations with Brother and SIL (who live, after all, a lot closer to her than I do). She said she has tried to raise the topic several times, and every time they change the subject as fast as they can. They are simply not comfortable talking about her death or what comes after.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But this is silly, I told her. Every single one of us is mortal. The only thing we know about our futures <i>with certainty</i> is that we will die. That doesn't mean we <i>hope</i> for it, of course! I said that for all any of us knew, she might do like the French king <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV" target="_blank">Louis XIV</a>, who outlived not only his son but his grandson. And if indeed she lived so long, I told her I would rejoice. Still, it's only common sense to prepare for the day you die.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe she and I can discuss this more in the future. Maybe she and I can put together a letter like thee one I've written for my sons, to tell Brother and me what to do and which way to turn when the inevitable finally comes to pass. In the meantime, it was a good conversation if only because we finally opened the topic.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By mid-afternoon it was time for me to leave. And I got home as it was getting dark.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It was a quiet Christmas, but a good one. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">__________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">* <span style="font-size: x-small;">I <i><u>don't</u></i> believe Trump is as devious as Nixon. He might be as <i><u>smart</u></i>—I have no way to judge that. But I don't think his character leans in the same direction.</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-91854277952882432712023-12-29T15:25:00.000-08:002023-12-29T15:25:25.053-08:00Dictionnaire d'amour<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2xuHUGPQhSAv-d7UTb95mGXZWW7E0P6B-oPTMD0dzE2Hl_AwtkEuhA3e95fH-m1Gl8kahOltw6LV90_mnuUsWAEeY9SQDM_UV3HgLw8nY_a5awgGXEmNUMFmgm1GHddTIB3l9rOMM5eJB1dszTdmDnWAgszsV0PU9R4KXL2wi7pAkpUZUbrMi74zzog-/s450/9780593157886.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2xuHUGPQhSAv-d7UTb95mGXZWW7E0P6B-oPTMD0dzE2Hl_AwtkEuhA3e95fH-m1Gl8kahOltw6LV90_mnuUsWAEeY9SQDM_UV3HgLw8nY_a5awgGXEmNUMFmgm1GHddTIB3l9rOMM5eJB1dszTdmDnWAgszsV0PU9R4KXL2wi7pAkpUZUbrMi74zzog-/s320/9780593157886.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">"I sometimes wished someone would invent a <i>dictionnaire d'amour</i>—a lover's dictionary listing all the weird and wonderful ways in which humans show their love. An inordinate number of men choose to repair things; other people frantically rebuff compliments, and still others stubbornly conceal their love so as not to pester anyone. A dictionary—yes! Of course, it could never be comprehensive."</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: arial;">⸻ from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_George" target="_blank">Nina George</a>, <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623466/the-little-village-of-book-lovers-by-nina-george/" target="_blank">The Little Village of Book Lovers</a></i>, p. 24</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I got this book last week, as a Christmas present from Debbie. So naturally I have to wonder, … is "buying someone a book of fiction in which the story is actually <i>narrated</i> by Love" one of these "weird and wonderful ways" that would show up in such a dictionary?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">See also choices like <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/visiting-debbie-4-and-another-movie.html" target="_blank">this movie here</a>, not to mention <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2019/11/not-actually-wrong.html" target="_blank">our further discussion here</a> or any of the posts that come after it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-13588185210926128812023-12-23T21:36:00.000-08:002023-12-23T21:38:33.955-08:00A year later<p><span style="font-family: arial;">A little more than a year ago, I visited Son 1 and Wife in <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/progress-of-kind.html" target="_blank">Chapter Two of this long post here</a>, to bring them their Christmas presents and check in. Today I did the same thing. This is the first time I've seen Wife since that visit, and it's close to the first time I've seen Son 1, as well. (He came to town once during the summer for something else and asked if he could park at my apartment because parking was going to be hard to find. We probably exchanged a dozen words—surely no more than two dozen—while he was coming and going and using my bathroom.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So I looked back at that post before writing this one, to compare and contrast. Sure enough, I can do both.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The clutter is still there. Wife's stuff still dominates the public areas. That part hasn't changed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3OFEFPMgni77YuZaSKpMLufSWMk3Yztas4z4wWZ7B4z44w4kMWSg6EgFFbfmxQj2IQKNA63o4LQv58qGWc8By1idSqYwtMlac8OKfszxFG2Z_FIgkGJaYKptNw39e7mhrWTSKEKxgegWUzyDRE-rUTQ3AQ2iY6rmjel_aevcMsiBJGmXLzd3T7ME80_aN/s2119/images-463488867-1-1662060268.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="2119" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3OFEFPMgni77YuZaSKpMLufSWMk3Yztas4z4wWZ7B4z44w4kMWSg6EgFFbfmxQj2IQKNA63o4LQv58qGWc8By1idSqYwtMlac8OKfszxFG2Z_FIgkGJaYKptNw39e7mhrWTSKEKxgegWUzyDRE-rUTQ3AQ2iY6rmjel_aevcMsiBJGmXLzd3T7ME80_aN/w400-h225/images-463488867-1-1662060268.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">But her jewelry business, which was purely notional a year ago, seems to be actively under way. It's not hugely profitable yet—she said that she grosses around $1500 in most months before taxes or expenses (and about twice that in December because of Christmas orders). Assuming she gets to keep 60% of that, which sounds generous, that's still below the poverty line. But I had <i>expected</i> that she would never get it off the ground at all. She has had so many ideas in the past that went nowhere—I mean, <i>after</i> she spent the money to buy all the materials—that I assumed this would be just one more in the series. So I am happy to learn that I was wrong.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">She seemed in good spirits. Oh, she told me the bad news about her latest medical diagnosis. (I don't remember what it was, but her medical diagnoses are always bad news.) She told me about the dental work that she needs, and how it won't be covered by insurance. Then she interrupted herself and said, "Not that you care about any of that!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But the fact that she had absorbing work to do, and that it was paying her <i>something</i>, seemed to buoy her spirits.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The most remarkable contrast with last year—and I didn't realize <i>how much of a contrast</i> it was until I re-read last year's post—was that Son 1 stayed with us the whole time, actively engaged in the conversation. In fact, much of my conversation was <i>with him primarily</i>, and not her. And I stayed there not for one hour but for almost three. I don't know if he is happier <i>at an existential level</i> than he was last year, but he seemed happier at a <i>pragmatic level</i>. We talked about his work, and how similar it is to the work I used to do. (This was nobody's intention, but somehow <i>just happened</i>.) After he had told several stories about the mind-numbing bureaucracies at <i>his</i> work, I told him a story about how I had handled a particular bureaucratic problem once at <i>my</i> work. He grinned in all the right places, and then mused, "Gosh, I wonder if that's where I get my own approach to bureaucracy?" Wife chimed in, "Son 1, you get so much from your dad it's not funny!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The original idea had been that Son 1 and I would go out to breakfast. He texted me first thing in the morning to say that both he and Wife seemed to be coming down with some kind of bug, so he suggested that we skip breakfast. But I could still come by to drop off Christmas presents. While I was there, I observed no signs of illness in either of them. So I don't know what that was about. But about the time I was ready to go anyway, Son 1 said he really needed to rest because he wasn't feeling great. We left open the possibility of having breakfast in a couple of weeks, which would be a big improvement over how little I've seen him in the last year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We'll see.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But it was an unexpectedly pleasant and positive visit. I'm grateful for that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-58180390602131301372023-12-22T22:23:00.000-08:002023-12-22T22:31:29.994-08:00Paying for Paris<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm going to post this in real-time, the evening I write it, and not back-date it to go with the rest of the Paris posts. It wasn't really a "theme" during the vacation itself. And it only got resolved in the last few days. So it can sit out here in December as an outlier.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Two weeks in Paris aren't going to be cheap, no matter how you do it. We went in November (not "high season" and therefore cheaper). We stayed in "cheap and cheerful" accommodations in the Quartier Latin, rather than more upscale tourist digs. We <i>didn't go</i> to the Moulin Rouge, or any other expensive entertainment. And still, it … wasn't cheap. Paris never is. <span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxWdtlfNOpBSCTEyS53_KvLIeA37uF7ttvoy6omIlcoWh_YTVKrMvasSCHvLAmScqTuffBKrsunHWkkVhjfmkdMDcOL0PkZRg7LEmjAZEUEIwKQlwBqyzBpuclDrmI6hROck-SzgFytl6J6AxaGntHHMIvJ6mrY622EWtxFwNupTZLp-vU4gtrqb_mktUu/s960/sml_611105914-1443144686-euro-money.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxWdtlfNOpBSCTEyS53_KvLIeA37uF7ttvoy6omIlcoWh_YTVKrMvasSCHvLAmScqTuffBKrsunHWkkVhjfmkdMDcOL0PkZRg7LEmjAZEUEIwKQlwBqyzBpuclDrmI6hROck-SzgFytl6J6AxaGntHHMIvJ6mrY622EWtxFwNupTZLp-vU4gtrqb_mktUu/w400-h225/sml_611105914-1443144686-euro-money.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Each of us bought our own plane ticket. But for the sake of simplicity, I made all the arrangements. And for the most part, while we were on the ground, I paid all the bills. Marie bought her own souvenirs, of course. When she had agreed to pick up X or Y for someone back home, she bought those. But I paid for all our joint expenses: the hotel, the Metro passes, admission to all the sights, all of our food. That stuff. I told her we'd settle up when we got home.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So naturally, once we got home she started asking me, "What do I owe you?" When I was slow to answer, she mailed me a check for $500 as a "first installment" and then insisted that I deposit it so that she could keep track of her bank balance. (<i>Gosh, sweetie, have you ever thought of using a <u>checkbook</u>?</i>)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I had the data. Once all my credit card charges came through (since of course my receipts were in euros and not dollars) it was a straightforward task to add up that our joint expenses came to a total of $4520.17. Half that is $2260.08. So presumably her share—minus the $500 she had already sent me—should have come to $1760.08. That's just arithmetic.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But it took me a month before I could decide what to tell her. And when I finally did, it went like this:</span></p><p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: arial;">The longer I think about this, the fewer advantages I can find in keeping this an open topic. If you find yourself with spare cash you should probably stuff it in your emergency pouch to guard against the next time something unexpected happens to your car or your cats. (God forbid either of those!) I don't see where you benefit by sending it to me.</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In other words, "Never mind. I'll pay it. Run along and play."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But why?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At an emotional level, the answer is <i>chivalry</i>: I'm the guy and she's the girl, so I'll pay our joint bills. But there's more to it than that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When we first started seeing each other (or <i>dating</i>, or <i>fucking</i>, or however you want to describe it), she made a point of wanting to be treated as a financial equal. (So did D, as you might recall, before she welched on the deal.) In fact, Marie told herself a story about my marriage that placed a lot of weight on Wife's financial abuse of me, so it became <b><i><u>terribly important</u></i></b> to her that I not see her as a financial leech. After I picked up the tab for dinner a few times out of sheer habit, she went all sulky on me and then we had to have a Long Talk over email to straighten things out again because she had been telling herself the most hateful things. Sheesh. OK, fine. You want to be a financial equal? We can do it that way. Whatever.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">_____</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Then two years ago—almost three, really (March 2021)—she sent me the email that I describe <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2021/06/feels-like-long-month-part-2.html" target="_blank">in this post here</a>, telling me that she couldn't afford to keep paying for flights to come see me, and accepting all the blame for the situation in a brilliant display of passive-aggressive magnanimity that plainly meant (reading between the lines) that it was <b><i><u>all my fault</u></i></b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd been wondering when that shoe was going to drop. Waiting a full five years was pretty clever, because it definitely put me off guard.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We bickered about that for a while. I think I paid for her next flight to come see me, but we kicked down the road the more general question of principle about how to handle expenses in the future.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">_____</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The next year (summer 2022), we agreed to split our mutual expenses for the vacation at her family's summer cottage. Because we rented a car for the week, and because I wanted to buy the optional insurance (which has helped me before), those expenses added up quickly. Her share amounted to a little over $600, and she sent me a check before the end of the summer. But only a couple of months later, she let me know in a panic that <i>her landlord was asking her to renew her lease early</i>, and <i>her rent was going up</i>, and <i>they were going to start charging her for her cats</i>, and <i>she'd abruptly decided to look online for other housing in her area but couldn't find anything as cheap as what she already had</i>, and <i><b>ohmygod-what-was-she-going-to-do???</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Gosh, sweetie, I have no idea. Good thing you're a financial equal, ain't it?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the end, I refunded her the amount she had paid me for "her half" of our vacation expenses; and with the extra $600 in her bank account, she calmed down.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">_____</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now it's 2023, and in principle she "owes" me almost three times as much money as was in question a year ago. What am I going to do? Take it from her? I'd have every reason to accept it—two thousand dollars is a non-trivial chunk of change. But at this point I'm convinced that if I do, she's going to have <i>emergency car repairs</i>, or <i>emergency veterinary bills</i>, or <i><b>some damned thing is going to come up</b></i> to jeopardize her financial equilibrium. And I'm going to have to listen to all the angst, all the fear, and all the chaos, until I cave in and give her back her money.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Screw it. I'll just let her keep her damned money, and pay for all the rest of the trip myself. Sure, maybe it's chivalry. Or maybe I just have no confidence in her ability to handle her own finances. "Run along and play."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">_____</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Marie's reaction to my offer was pure gratitude.</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I apologize; obviously I misunderstood. I had thought that it was inconvenient for you to shoulder the whole cost of our wonderful trip and that you WANTED me to pay my fair share, and that the awkwardness came from determining what would be fair.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial;">Now it sounds like you'd rather make Paris be your gift to me financially as well.</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial;">If that's how you want it to be, I will accept gratefully. </span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial;">I'd probably never have gotten off my butt and actually made it to Paris were it not for you; I certainly can't imagine a better companion, or that I would have done so much that I loved without you at my side. So Paris is already something you gave me; now you've given it doubly.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suppose it's just as well that she can't read my mind, and doesn't understand the reasons behind my gift. Oh well, the gratitude is sweet, Sure, I'll take it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-85661981854180985572023-12-18T16:39:00.000-08:002023-12-18T18:00:01.487-08:00"Odiosa Ergo Vera"<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Just found this on Twitter. I don't know if I believe it, but I love that the author bothered to put it in Latin. (<a href="https://twitter.com/FromKulak/status/1736893265834602699" target="_blank">You can find the original here</a>.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="@FromKulak" target="_blank">Kulak</a>'s First Principle, eh? Fine by me.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKvbM1TgqGytsEY9HZ99UOdtva5-xuR4nK0ud6bIvejiMKZBN_vbim_3YxsJUxa3eVwbhZ3TOo9USRQEbLEKuUb7BXGwQJH94NvZB8sVVFEBOwNvnh3m4hQb80LKEc3OOFfdu92l_5RDV3O023f3tzx9IQwnGVXjP5PwlINbCGehOAsKEeS_YygQ7fZOr/s605/Kulaks%201st%20principle.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="605" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKvbM1TgqGytsEY9HZ99UOdtva5-xuR4nK0ud6bIvejiMKZBN_vbim_3YxsJUxa3eVwbhZ3TOo9USRQEbLEKuUb7BXGwQJH94NvZB8sVVFEBOwNvnh3m4hQb80LKEc3OOFfdu92l_5RDV3O023f3tzx9IQwnGVXjP5PwlINbCGehOAsKEeS_YygQ7fZOr/w640-h292/Kulaks%201st%20principle.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-47802821934652075292023-12-17T01:51:00.000-08:002023-12-17T02:01:13.439-08:00Unproductive<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've fallen into a pattern in my days that's really unproductive.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I get up late, because I stayed up too late the night before. Sometimes I'm mildly hung over. That is to say, I'm not <i>badly</i> hung over—not to the point where my <i>head hurts</i> and my <i>mouth feels foul</i> and <i>living is unpleasant</i>. No, not at all. Nothing like that. Just to the point where I'm <i>sluggish</i>, and <i>unimaginative</i>, and <i>uninspired </i>… just to the point where I <i>can't quite muster the gumption</i> to do anything more ambitious that to doomscroll* Twitter.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I drink coffee, but it doesn't help. I eat, but it doesn't help. Some days I nap, but it doesn't really help. I never leave my apartment except maybe, occasionally, to check my mailbox or go buy groceries. (Gosh, with all this activity I wouldn't want to miss a meal!)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Then finally, somewhere between 5:00 and 8:00 pm, I make dinner. Once I have dinner, I let myself have a drink. Or two. Or four, or six. (Or more, but <i>only rarely</i> and <i>who's counting?</i>) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And then suddenly I have energy and endurance.** Then I don't want to go to bed. I might spend more time doomscrolling Twitter (though with renewed energy and engagement) or I might decide to post to this blog. Like I'm doing right now, at 1:15 in the morning. (Forgive me: by the time I actually post this it will be closer to 2:00.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course that means that by the time I go to bed, I'm going to have to sleep late if I want to get any sleep at all. And the cycle repeats.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">If I really wanted to take control of my life, … gosh, what would I do? </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd delete my Twitter account. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">And pour down the drain all the alcohol I have in the apartment. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">And set up some kind of accountability program, to make sure that I exercise regularly at the gym. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd spend scheduled blocks of time writing the things that I have to publish every week … to say nothing of all the random thoughts that I've always said I would write up "if I only had the time," or all the posts I have already promised for this blog.*** </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd visit Mother way more often, to make sure she is well.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There is literally not a snowball's chance in Hell that I will ever do any of this. Sloth and failure and drinking are a lot easier. But, … you know, … there's always an option. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">P.S.: If you see a connection with <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/becalmed.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, dating from three weeks after my return from Scotland … well, … you're not wrong.**** </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">__________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">* <span style="font-size: x-small;">I love the word "doomscroll," but there seems to be some disagreement about its definition. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomscrolling" target="_blank">Wikipedia restricts the meaning</a> to "</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: courier;">spending an excessive amount of time reading … negative news online</span><span style="font-family: arial;">," and sometimes I skip past certain categories of negative news in order to focus on something more bland. Does that mean I need a different word? Maybe, but wait a minute. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doomscroll" target="_blank">The Urban Dictionary gives multiple meanings</a>, but some of them are more generous than Wikipedia's: they include (among others) "</span><span style="font-family: courier;">When you start scrolling and just can’t stop. You’re doomed cuz you can’t stop yourself</span><span style="font-family: arial;">," and "</span><span style="font-family: courier;">Doom is the attitude of the person scrolling. It could be cat videos, but the person is scrolling because they are incapable of doing otherwise, and the only happiness they are capable of is in refreshing their newsfeed.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">" <b>Aha! Yes, that's it!</b> These latter two definitions <i>absolutely</i> capture the sense in which I mean the word.</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">** <span style="font-size: x-small;">So in that case should I start drinking in the <i>morning</i>, to get the energy for the day? Probably not. Marie tells me her mother used to drink in the morning, and it was never the harbinger of a productive day.</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">*** <span style="font-size: x-small;">A few days ago, for example, I finished the narrative about Paris, up to <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/day-14-departure.html" target="_blank">Day 14 when we came home</a>. I have a number of other "think-pieces" to write about Paris—I'm not sure how many, but perhaps as many as ten—but I haven't written <i>any</i> of them yet. Soon, I hope. Of course, when I write them I will schedule them for November right after our return. So it may be hard to tell when I actually got around to applying my fingers to the damned keyboard.</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">**** <span style="font-size: x-small;">At this point it is about four-and-a-half weeks since I got back from Paris. At the equivalent point since my return from Scotland, I was somewhere around the time of <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/debbie-and-paranormal-part-2.html" target="_blank">this post</a> and not really done with my self-imposed quagmire yet.</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-1927576338524589892023-12-14T01:11:00.000-08:002023-12-14T01:11:09.899-08:00What's wrong with the Five Mindfulness Trainings?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUU2MK5Y9Ey2wuPSU0qnDJJjG5-r02tY43IEDe5a7-YkH5bXnNT2Fvq5y692wmdgoBZtw4ou-jvKo1Nu5GoAUR_8q7X6n_xVdB3PV-XH0ZSWGjhOuJj6RjKEGd_J8V7XmbiuxZQTwde3QVXU4SOgYhOropH9zrgWmSufYXu4p6F8Ylkpmqq12bfiJ23it/s600/thay-1-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUU2MK5Y9Ey2wuPSU0qnDJJjG5-r02tY43IEDe5a7-YkH5bXnNT2Fvq5y692wmdgoBZtw4ou-jvKo1Nu5GoAUR_8q7X6n_xVdB3PV-XH0ZSWGjhOuJj6RjKEGd_J8V7XmbiuxZQTwde3QVXU4SOgYhOropH9zrgWmSufYXu4p6F8Ylkpmqq12bfiJ23it/w400-h400/thay-1-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Last night, the Unitarian Sangha that I belong to recited the <a href="https://plumvillage.org/mindfulness/the-5-mindfulness-trainings" target="_blank">Five Mindfulness Trainings</a>. This is something we do every month or two. The Five Mindfulness Trainings are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh" target="_blank">Thích Nhất Hạnh</a>'s recasting or interpretation of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_precepts" target="_blank">Five Buddhist Precepts</a>. They also serve as the entryway into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Interbeing" target="_blank">Order of Interbeing</a>. (See also <a href="http://orderofinterbeing.org/" target="_blank">this link here</a>.) So they are kind of a big deal for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Village_Tradition" target="_blank">Plum Village Tradition</a> of Buddhism.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Overall, or at a high level, I don't really have a problem with the Five Mindfulness Trainings—that is, if you see them basically as injunctions to be a nice person and don't look too closely at the details. But you all know me by now. When have I been able to avoid looking at the details? And when you subject them to that level of scrutiny, … well … there are <i>issues</i> with them. <i>Problems</i>. Things that <i>don't make sense</i>, or that <i>really should be worded a different way</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Things that I can't fully agree with.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, any member of the Plum Village Tradition will be quick to tell you that the Five Mindfulness Trainings are <i>precepts</i>—often they take this to mean <i>suggestions</i> or <i>advice</i>—and not <i>commandments</i>, strictly speaking. In principle they won't insist that you stick to every jot and tittle; but they will tell you that the closer you can come to abiding by these, the less suffering you will feel in your life and <a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2014/04/pleasures-pure-and-mixed.html" target="_blank">therefore the happier you will be</a>. Well and good. At the same time, I don't feel that most of them want to hear the flaws—the misconceptions or simple errors—that I find in them. So you're going to have to hear them instead.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">One note before I begin: Thay* rewrote the Five Mindfulness Trainings from time to time. For all I know, the community might continue to rewrite them now, <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/01/death-of-buddha.html" target="_blank">after his death</a>. The version that I quote below is the version we use these days in the Unitarian Sangha. The version you can find by following the link in the first paragraph above is already different. But I want to quote a fixed version, so that my criticisms will make sense. After all, if they corrected all the mistakes I point out here—and if that latest, corrected version were the only one you had access to—you'd wonder what on Earth I was on about! 😀 </span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The First Mindfulness Training: Reverence For Life</span></h2><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So, just to be clear I'm fine with the goal of reducing the levels of violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world. That's an example of what I mean when I say that "Overall, or at a high level, I don't really have a problem with the Five Mindfulness Trainings." But the First Mindfulness Training says so much more than that! And so I am left wondering: <b><i>How do we eat?</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Notice that it is not enough simply to be a vegetarian, as many Buddhists are. Thay's training does not merely proscribe the killing of people and animals, but also of plants. Nor do the plants themselves get off easy, because Thay also wants to protect the lives of minerals—and I'm pretty sure that the plants themselves are guilty of eating minerals. If we seriously cannot "support any act of killing in the world," then it cannot be acceptable for us that anyone <b><i>eats</i></b>: not we ourselves, not other humans, not animals, and not plants.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But if I do not eat, then I die. If I prevent someone else from eating, then I kill him. If I prevent an animal from eating a plant, I kill the animal. If I prevent a plant from eating a mineral, then I kill the plant. So if indeed "I am determined not to kill," then I cannot stop anyone from eating.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In short: the only way to obey this precept is, among other things, simultaneously <i>not to permit eating</i> and also <i>not to forbid eating</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This is impossible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Following the First Mindfulness Training is impossible.**</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Note that there is actually a way to resolve this awkwardness within the bounds of a strict and consistent morality. Suppose that every killing were sanctified, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Necans" target="_blank">in the classical pagan way</a>, by making it a sacrifice to the gods? Such a restriction should still help decrease the levels of "violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world," because presumably the immortal gods would not accept killing someone for, say, political or ideological reasons. But we could still eat.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It is also remotely possible, under such a dispensation, that if for some reason our life was—one day—required of us, we could with a clean conscience go to the fire with joy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But of course Buddhism does not condone sacrifice. Oh well.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Second Mindfulness Training: True Happiness</span></h2><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and reverse the process of global warming.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Here is another teaching that I wish I could endorse. To be clear, I'm not in favor of stealing. And the lines about being happy in the present moment by remembering that you already have enough could have been uttered by Socrates. I wouldn't breathe a word against any of that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Only, why did he have to bring "global warming" into it? Do we really have to commit ourselves to reverse global warming? <b><i>Bad news, dude, but that's above my pay grade—and <u>yours</u>!</i></b> I suppose someday I should write a post about my evolving thoughts on global warming, or "climate change," or whatever you are pleased to call it today. But in brief:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">We don't have the math to understand how the climate really works.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Therefore we don't understand what input causes what change in the climate. Everything we say on the subject is just guessing.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">It's not up to us to save the Earth. The Earth is way bigger than we are. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[citation needed?]</span> She was here long before we evolved, and she will be here long after we are extinct.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The same is true of Life on Earth. We are not nearly powerful enough to destroy Life on Earth.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">It is true that if the Earth gets a lot warmer, rising sea levels will mean that many big coastal cities will be submerged. That sucks. But, you know? Shit happens. It won't all happen overnight. Let's plan to deal with it.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course it would be great if we didn't have to deal with moving a lot of major cities. But is the alternative really any easier? The alternative, remember, is to change the behavior of <i>eight billion people</i> in <i>profound and significant ways</i>. And honestly, we have no idea whether even that would be enough. Remember what I said about how we don't have the math to understand climate? That means we don't know what it takes to <i>prevent change</i>, just like we don't know if we are even <i>responsible for any change</i>. <b><i>We just don't know.</i></b> And even if we did know, the political obstacles to changing the behavior of eight billion people are so extreme that they make the whole idea laughable. </span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In other words, most of the Second Mindfulness Training is pointed in the right direction. But committing to "reverse the process of global warming" is impossible.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Third Mindfulness Training: True Love</span></h2><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Knowing that sexual desire is not love, and that sexual activity motivated by craving always harms myself as well as others, I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without true love and a deep, long-term commitment made known to my blood or chosen family and my friends. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Seeing that body and mind are one, I am committed to learning appropriate ways to take care of my sexual energy and cultivating loving kindness, compassion, joy and inclusiveness – which are the four basic elements of true love – for my greater happiness and the greater happiness of others. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Practicing true love, we know that we will continue beautifully into the future.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, you can probably anticipate the drill at this point. You know that I'm going to say I'm not in favor of the sexual abuse of children. That's true. I'm against it. (<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/long-and-angsty.html" target="_blank">Being involved with Marie</a> has helped me to understand this point at a deeper-than-theoretical level.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But other than that, am I really going to say anything in favor of the <i>brutal and nasty</i> kind of sex? In favor of sex with <i>strangers</i>? In favor of sex where "true love and a deep, long-term commitment" are <i>conspicuously absent</i>, and where it's all about <i>getting off</i> in the crudest and filthiest and most direct way possible?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Why yes. I am.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Not from personal experience, I hasten to add. My own personal experience is too sheltered, too tame, too domesticated for anything like that. (And now that I'm in my sixties, that fact is not likely to change.) I never lived a life open to the brutal and nasty kind of sex, and now I'm old enough to be well past it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But according to "<i>what I read in the literature</i>," yes, <i><b>sometimes</b></i> brutal and nasty and anonymous sex can end up as profoundly liberating and a great goodness for the people involved. (I mean <i>both</i> or <i>all</i> people, not one at the expense of the other(s).) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Not always, to be sure. But once in a while.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Since I can't talk meaningfully about my own experience here, let me give you some pointers to a couple of items in the "literature" that I referenced above.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The <i>Atlantic</i> article "<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/hard-core/8327" target="_blank">Hard Core</a>," about pornography and sexual violence.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/pornography-and-erotic-madness.html" target="_blank">My essay in this blog</a>, commenting on that <i>Atlantic</i> article.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/my_virginity_mistake/" target="_blank">This <i>Salon</i> article</a>, which explains that marrying as a virgin was (for the author) a disaster; but nonetheless, "sex can be amazing … with a bartender who only knows your first name, [or] a pilot you meet on vacation in Costa Rica."</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: arial;">And after those, gosh, browse through the links on the sidebar of this blog, in the section headed "</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Articles, sites, and other stuff</b>." See what you find. I think you'll end up agreeing that the world is much wider, and weirder, than anything envisioned by the Third Mindfulness Training.</span><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Fourth Mindfulness Training: Loving Speech and Deep Listening</span></h2><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to speaking truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I will practice mindful breathing and walking in order to recognize and to look deeply into my anger. I know that the roots of anger can be found in my wrong perceptions and lack of understanding of the suffering in myself and in the other person. I will speak and listen in a way that can help myself and the other person to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord. I will practice Right Diligence to nourish my capacity for understanding, love, joy, and inclusiveness, and gradually transform anger, violence, and fear that lie deep in my consciousness.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I have nothing to object to in this training. I wish I had understood these principles back when I was living with Wife. It might have saved me from saying <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/like-lump-of-clay.html" target="_blank">so many unforgiveable things</a> over the years. If only.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Fifth Mindfulness Training: Nourishment and Healing</span></h2><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: arial;">I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Parts of this training are really clever—sorry, I guess the approved Buddhist word is <i>skillful</i>. Parts of it are really skillful. To extend the list of toxic nutrients so that it includes "certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations"? Brilliant.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At any rate, I can think of conversations that have been toxic to me, not to mention a number of films. I don't play electronic games, but if I did I'm sure I could add some of those to the list as well. And likewise with the others.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As I say, it's brilliant. And of course the theory behind it is absolutely sound.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But the whole precept starts with alcohol. That was there before Thay started playing with it. The original Buddhist precept forbids alcohol. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And yes, I disagree with that. Of course you know I drink. You know that sometimes <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/09/lost-day.html" target="_blank">I drink more than is good for me</a>. It's a problem when that happens, and it would be better if I didn't do it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But I'm not prepared to rule it out. What's more, I don't believe that is just the voice of addiction talking. Oh sure, we all know that the human mind is endlessly inventive at justifying its own failures. People can come up with any number of creative excuses for what is no more than a pathetic failure of the will.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But I believe there is a case to be made for drinking alcohol. More than that, I believe I've already made that case, almost nine years ago in this very blog. <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-vino-veritas.html" target="_blank">You can find it here</a>. I just reread it, and I do believe it stands up. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So there you have it. Those are the points on which I disagree with Thay's Five Mindfulness Trainings. I guess it means I'll never join the Order of Interbeing. Hell, I guess it means I'll never be a Buddhist. The other people in the Sangha all seem to be good people. And of course I will always dearly love Debbie, who <i>started</i> the Sangha and who joins us now regularly through Zoom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But I just can't stop myself from niggling—at least in the quiet corners of my mind—over the details.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Typical, really.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">__________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">* <span style="font-size: x-small;">That's </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">a nickname for Thich Nhat Hanh—"</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Thầy</i>" is Vietnamese for "master" or "teacher". (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh#Names_applied_to_him" target="_blank">See here, for example</a>.)</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">** </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Note that I have not even addressed issues that are logically unproblematic but politically difficult. For example, most Unitarians tend to align politically with the Democratic Party. I bet most Unitarians support </span><a href="https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2022/05/whats-wrong-with-roe.html" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">the right to abortion</a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">. But abortion is killing. You can argue whether the thing killed is fully human yet, but it is certainly more complex than a mineral!</span> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-12079422537988246322023-12-10T23:06:00.000-08:002023-12-10T23:06:44.912-08:00The fragility of the self-absorbed<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieJhkL59T6RRcSh200r3cG-IHdnd2tLVm368120oQ9B2pxfywLGGrlk5Nu-7bEyUz1lj9OPta4WyR3XN-B957JP6EaGBohKFrp8iDvQi27L0EgMqAjtUQq3IPEvv0sYuwfs7rzv-hktVdb7gkfm5XR9lHRKr0Wm6d8cXLrIKG0Yd4oxzl2oo9dvkEru521/s1000/Maestro-1692117832-1000x671.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="1000" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieJhkL59T6RRcSh200r3cG-IHdnd2tLVm368120oQ9B2pxfywLGGrlk5Nu-7bEyUz1lj9OPta4WyR3XN-B957JP6EaGBohKFrp8iDvQi27L0EgMqAjtUQq3IPEvv0sYuwfs7rzv-hktVdb7gkfm5XR9lHRKr0Wm6d8cXLrIKG0Yd4oxzl2oo9dvkEru521/s320/Maestro-1692117832-1000x671.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">This afternoon I saw "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5535276/" target="_blank">Maestro</a>," with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Cooper" target="_blank">Bradley Cooper</a> playing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein" target="_blank">Leonard Bernstein</a>. It's not really a straight biopic (you should excuse the pun), but focuses specifically on his relationship with his wife Felicia … and therefore it shows us something of his many affairs (without cataloguing them or always bothering to give us names). Men and women both, of course, although it looks like the men outnumbered the women. At one point he meets friends on the street in New York: they are a young couple carrying their new baby, at whom Lenny coos and makes suitable noises. Then he bends down as if to address the baby very seriously and says, "You know, I've slept with both your mommy and your daddy!"</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I also found myself thinking about the dynamics of having any kind of a relationship with a very self-absorbed person. Lenny appears to ignore Felicia for years; but when she gets sick (she died of cancer in 1978) it hits him like a pile-driver. And I reflected that Wife <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-guess-i-failed.html" target="_blank">fought tooth and nail</a> for decades to be "<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/on-lying.html" target="_blank">free</a>" of what she saw as my overbearing domination; but when I said "<a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/and-so-it-starts.html" target="_blank">OK fine, I'm going</a>" she <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/exhausted.html" target="_blank">crumpled</a> and was <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/just-checking-in.html" target="_blank">utterly lost</a>. It's not an easy dynamic to understand.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, Wife was never a world-famous conductor, either.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It's late, and I can't think of anything insightful to say. So I'll stop here. Maybe I'll think of something more in the next few days. But the comparison did strike me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-12046787628555504162023-12-05T09:29:00.000-08:002023-12-14T01:11:41.007-08:00Why not to bring your whole self to work<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Way more articulate than anything I've said on the subject. Agree 100%.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">You can find the post on Twitter <a href="https://x.com/sometherapist/status/1732086967725326384?s=20" target="_blank">at this link here</a>.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUQn6RBeLpF-UZjKXFaQuNcZu906dC6PeCH89q3AZYk0yxhUFAqIZoGV_L7M9_RNtk6zQ2fvqlUXqYg4F4cZBJHzQOpgeqWE7EUVZsCs_JjW6SVLH1l6uCZesGahEr7eBHW_G6GxohU_x2Mu1SsC01cu5_makWiw8qFrXefcSxiMCBYnKWhT6XyFu2EE8/s875/bringing%20your%20self%20to%20work.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="551" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUQn6RBeLpF-UZjKXFaQuNcZu906dC6PeCH89q3AZYk0yxhUFAqIZoGV_L7M9_RNtk6zQ2fvqlUXqYg4F4cZBJHzQOpgeqWE7EUVZsCs_JjW6SVLH1l6uCZesGahEr7eBHW_G6GxohU_x2Mu1SsC01cu5_makWiw8qFrXefcSxiMCBYnKWhT6XyFu2EE8/s16000/bringing%20your%20self%20to%20work.JPG" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> </span><p></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8484815082847894218.post-25170333358900962302023-12-02T01:46:00.000-08:002023-12-02T01:46:50.886-08:00Failure upon failure<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Decades ago, back when I was in school, I thought that "success" meant getting good grades and the approval of my teachers. That belief pretty much guttered out when <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-oscar-diggs-problem.html" target="_blank">I left graduate school with a stack of Incompletes</a>, partly because <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/contra-monachismum.html" target="_blank">I didn't really want to be there</a> and partly because <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/blast-from-past-wife-meets-boyfriend-1.html" target="_blank">Wife had a new boyfriend</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Time went on. After a while, I began to think that "Success" meant keeping my marriage together, doing OK in my job, and buying a house. Of course that belief ran aground when <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/its-time.html" target="_blank">I decided I had to leave the marriage</a>, and when <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-albatross-fell-off.html" target="_blank">we later sold the house</a>.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But during that time, I developed another belief—namely, that "success" meant being a good father, even in spite of everything.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What's a good father? It's hard to say. But the concept comes with a lot of baggage, images that you think should naturally cling to it. Images that suggest somehow your kids might want to have something to do with you once they are old enough to make the decision on their own.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yeah, right. Where am I today? Son 1 doesn't communicate with me unless (like <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/on-cannibalism.html" target="_blank">a couple nights ago</a>) I provoke the conversation by sending him something. And most of the time he doesn't reply even to those. I heard more from him <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/on-cannibalism.html" target="_blank">that night</a> than I'd heard in practically the last year rolled together.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Son 2 calls every few months. His calls used to be long and generous, lasting hours. The last few have been brief and clipped: long enough for him to report the information he has to tell me, and no more. Today he asked me for Mother's address, to send a Christmas card; once he had the address, he had to go. Click. End of call.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpeaefg1MbIBKJesdMgcB44aUHO6PBbyk4rC4Vyyef3X3z8jSHJX95oNMNAXVL2BaZaio-w-VkeRF7g6zZw-LfofkYQTMw6z6IanWQpm-tLt3pS6txmBfWoJp1cswTA9gNzWrnqt8iesC5b3nY9Q7DVHApzh9eYXNcWEkWIOwJg73_0fD21Q6S1YwRNV_S/s680/GASwk4JXoAAqvJa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="680" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpeaefg1MbIBKJesdMgcB44aUHO6PBbyk4rC4Vyyef3X3z8jSHJX95oNMNAXVL2BaZaio-w-VkeRF7g6zZw-LfofkYQTMw6z6IanWQpm-tLt3pS6txmBfWoJp1cswTA9gNzWrnqt8iesC5b3nY9Q7DVHApzh9eYXNcWEkWIOwJg73_0fD21Q6S1YwRNV_S/w400-h320/GASwk4JXoAAqvJa.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Also today I read <a href="https://x.com/MyrkvidWanderer/status/1730712480765149573?s=20" target="_blank">a thread on Twitter</a>, about King Sigmund of the Volsungs, who was indirectly responsible for the death of his son Sinfjotli. Many years later, <a href="https://x.com/MyrkvidWanderer/status/1730712534901022971?s=20" target="_blank">in his old age</a>, he had a second son—Sigurðr the Dragonslayer—and would die with great honor on the battlefield. So I guess that, despite all appearances, there's technically still a chance for me to redeem all these failures. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But in the meantime they sure do make an imposing list, don't they? Maybe <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/sister-failure.html" target="_blank">failure is worth</a> <a href="https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/thoughts-on-failure.html" target="_blank">meditating on</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>Hosea Tanatuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917520349940879544noreply@blogger.com0