Anniversaries are the kind of counting I like most.
Birthdays, special days, and ordinary days.
Come to think of it, every day is an anniversary of another day.
Spring comes around year after year as long as you live to see it.
My father used to count the stairs he had to climb to get to our 6th floor apartment. We didn’t have an elevator then. The elevator was built years later. There was a chair on the 4th floor landing. You could sit on the chair and take a breath. There were 28 stairs to climb from one floor to another. 28 X 6 = 168. For years, my father counted 168 stairs every day, at least once a day.
Lately, I’ve become conscious of my own counting habit. This is my 40th blog entry; I take at least ten breaths holding a yoga posture; I keep time when walking; I make regular inventories of songs I’ve learned to play. I am also conscious of my budget.
Counting makes me feel secure.
Why?
I guess, I count because I am a product of our culture. Our culture measures everything and compares things to each other based on “objective” measurements.
Quantifying is easier then qualifying for the purposes of comparison.
We live in a competitive culture. The numbers show us what’s better, stronger, expensive, valuable…
We often make up numbers to prove the validity of our arguments.
People get elected based on made up numbers of votes they received.
And then wars start!
Countless people get killed.
“Coltrane was a man on a mission. During his time with Miles Davis, he confronted and defeated his addictive demons, a victory he attributed to “a spiritual awakening” that prompted a lifelong commitment “to play music that would make people happy”. Not just make them happy, in fact, but elevate them to another plane. For Coltrane, music became more than mere entertainment. It was also the means by which he pursued an ecstatic personal quest, every time he played.”
From The Economist, Sept 28 2006
“In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry.
So often men trip by being in a rush.
If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means.
By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear.
Very few people learn this.”
John Steinbeck, East of Eden, Chapter 21, 1952
According to BBC Hugo Chavez is promoting Chomsky.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5379650.stm
I wonder if there has been a considerable increase in Bible sales since W took over.
Something special is in the air. The moon is new. It’s the Jewish new year, Muslim Ramadan. An eclipse happened couple of days ago. The daytime now is shorter than the nighttime (in the northern hemisphere).
One fellow I crossed on the street wanted to give me a hit with his shoulder. He missed it. I heard him spit out some hateful words. Another came with a small white paper in his hand. I thought he wanted to find his way. It was a set-up. He wanted my money. He kept saying “allah-u-akbar”. I must have looked like a believer to him.
All this in 10 minutes.
I returned home.
Times like this are better in front of the TV.
Sometimes, other people hold fantasies about who we are. They think we are good managers, or good cooks, or great musicians, or whatever…
It’s possible that we are not aware of other people’s fantasy of who we are. Fine, as long as the fantasy survives peacefully…
It may also happen that our fantasy of ourselves and other people’s fantasy of who we are matches perfectly. The danger in this case is that we become vain. Eventually, our vanity may kill that fantasy. Good riddance.
The worst case is when other people’s fantasy conflicts with our own fantasy of who we are. This can be devastating to our ego.
Only those who hold “power” can survive this conflict. Their power scares everybody off and silences their opinion.
Even though others know “the powerful” are not what they think they are they dare not say it.
Worse, they try to benefit from this situation. They become sycophants.
History books are full of men who have been able to impose their own fantasy of themselves onto others.
The death toll has been very high. And it keeps rising.
When I was a kid I used to play “boat captain”, “bus driver”, “soldier”, “cowboy”… these were fantasies of me.
I came out of these fantasies only if my brother or my parents came into the room abruptly, and caught me being who I was.
The major part of the reality of my childhood was made up with play.
Play is real as long as you know you’re playing.
Sometimes it happens that you’re not aware you’re playing.
I wonder if as an adult I am aware of playing the persona of my fantasy.
Who am I playing today?
A writer, musician, photographer, filmmaker, businessman, pilot, poet, boat captain…
Who are you playing today?
On my walk, I came face to face with a woman who had only one arm. She was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt.
I couldn’t help but look at her shoulder. There was no arm. There was a scar. I saw her looking at me. I looked away. It all happened in a second.
I was confused. I still am.
What was it that made me look away?
Why did she wear a sleeveless T-shirt? Why shouldn’t she?
Why did I look? Why shouldn’t I?
It was awkward but that’s how facing the reality is sometimes.
I faced the reality of a one armed person awkwardly.
What else could I have done?
There is that time in the morning, almost awake in bed, you are “not informed”.
Anything might have happened on earth, near or far, when you were asleep. You don’t know. And really, it doesn’t matter that you don’t know.
Your not knowing has no effect on an earthquake, or an army incursion into a neighboring territory, or a wall being built along some arbitrary border.
If you don’t know, it is because you’re fortunate. These events happened without you being involved. You should be thankful.
When you wake up and get informed, I mean, when you read or see what you’re offered as “news”, you start having a sense of knowing.
That sense of knowing is more dangerous to your wellbeing then the sense of not knowing. By knowing, you’ve become a participant in the story you have been fed.
You’ve become responsible, in some way, about what happened, and what you’ve been told about what happened.
You are a witness to something without really witnessing it and without the possibility to intervene.
You are sucked in and you are left out at the same time.
They say, “Be the first to know”. What for?
I believe that being “informed” abuses human Trust, Compassion and Empathy.