tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74746168158463367202024-03-18T20:27:28.272-07:00Still Blue Water BlogSOMETIMES PERSONAL,
SOMETIMES POLITICAL,<br>
SOMETIMES PRETTY MUCH A WASTE OF TIMEStillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-50626647469099959802015-05-21T08:21:00.000-07:002015-05-21T13:49:02.374-07:00Cars I have known and loved (and hated)When I was a kid I was kind of a car nut, and I can still name the make, model and year of just about any car I see from 1960 - 1972. I can tell the difference between a '63 and a '64 Pontiac without even thinking about it. When you're 10 your brain soaks up and retains all kinds of stuff. Sometimes I wish I had learned French or something else somewhat useful. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVImCIKtfQooQhn_P-q3Qo9l1dMqa3OTZ92O6ElzcwQXKYHFOQ9iTEReWbsRkcAiNqNzxRJTjmw3Q5e08d_yWTQG5KicT-kZzfNSQ-3_n-nOg5TLl9jiEIxwFpraDla080CEJs1dFF5Z3/s1600/car-66Impala.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Here are the cars that belonged to me and immediate family members, in order of the coolest to the crappiest. <br />
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1. Alf's 1966 Red Chevy Impala convertible "Alice". It had red interior, a white top, and add-on cruise control. It took him across the country and back a couple of times, and he got into all kinds of trouble in it. I remember his story about when in Pittsburgh, a cop asked him to step out of the car and a cascade of beer cans tumbled out.<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span> He always loved that car, but it was eventually sold to a guy in San Francisco who turned it into a low-rider. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVImCIKtfQooQhn_P-q3Qo9l1dMqa3OTZ92O6ElzcwQXKYHFOQ9iTEReWbsRkcAiNqNzxRJTjmw3Q5e08d_yWTQG5KicT-kZzfNSQ-3_n-nOg5TLl9jiEIxwFpraDla080CEJs1dFF5Z3/s1600/car-66Impala.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVImCIKtfQooQhn_P-q3Qo9l1dMqa3OTZ92O6ElzcwQXKYHFOQ9iTEReWbsRkcAiNqNzxRJTjmw3Q5e08d_yWTQG5KicT-kZzfNSQ-3_n-nOg5TLl9jiEIxwFpraDla080CEJs1dFF5Z3/s1600/car-66Impala.JPG" /></a><br />
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2. Alf's 1963 Green Triumph TR-3. No one would argue that old British sports cars are cool. Especially British Racing Green ones. This one, unfortunately, was full of rust though. <br />
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3. Alf's 1978 Blue Nissan 280Z. This was the car he and his new wife were supposed to use to drive from the wedding to the reception, but they locked themselves out of it, so they rode in the back of my friend's pickup. <br />
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4. Dad's 1958 Yellow Chevy Impala 2-door. My hazy memory of this car was the really cool pull-down armrest in the back seat. <br />
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5. My 1992 Red Dodge Daytona. I know there are many non-Chrysler fans who would object to my naming a Daytona a cool car. But, dang it, it was fast! It was light, had a V-6, and followed the Chrysler tradition of accelerating like a monster upon a touch of the accelerator. It was also my first car with A/C.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSO9SDh0VD2f0RnbrNrLT-VhpkDaaCx0s2haz8bVhG7Bm-WiNEWl0gEytcIQojVxzt5Q8Ed2Zlw20RS1thkHKCNmVf70tjKDeilSiQIW2imYMJjHGcu4S-UK1TpHWla1vz7XkLrNh_DfM/s1600/car-92Daytona.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSO9SDh0VD2f0RnbrNrLT-VhpkDaaCx0s2haz8bVhG7Bm-WiNEWl0gEytcIQojVxzt5Q8Ed2Zlw20RS1thkHKCNmVf70tjKDeilSiQIW2imYMJjHGcu4S-UK1TpHWla1vz7XkLrNh_DfM/s1600/car-92Daytona.JPG" /></a><br />
6. Mom's 1963 White Pontiac Catalina 4-door. My most vivid memory was smashing into the pointy taillight with my bike. <br />
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7. Mom's 1976 Blue Olds Cutlass Supreme. I always thought it was beautiful, but Mom had a problem with it because Dad went out and bought it without bringing her along. She wanted the white one!<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjxzi0_oLpEemUd2XzFkBQEOEbE2DBL-6PQnvRJ4XociPINySACIa_0CI33pfLBvVC7mVgXlEVbBsVYnBfgooi981CvOYDrz0FHeV7RiwhhA1p_1LMvlzIdUNpqpdNrpSzluElAeTKXGCs/s1600/Car-76Cutlass.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9D4sSyZeE4XMBrAkjm1QwtX6dWHFcKfc1xWZkupol8TOQti-hTUYs92aYH4boorvV_KnB9VbtAdBEaCWYk_GGQCBpQhG53f_An1-GU3s6y0rGqEVOHH8GgOfQtjnhBc2O50XU_mORhlTP/s1600/car-olds-chev.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9D4sSyZeE4XMBrAkjm1QwtX6dWHFcKfc1xWZkupol8TOQti-hTUYs92aYH4boorvV_KnB9VbtAdBEaCWYk_GGQCBpQhG53f_An1-GU3s6y0rGqEVOHH8GgOfQtjnhBc2O50XU_mORhlTP/s1600/car-olds-chev.JPG" /></a><br />
8. Mom's 1960 Silver Chevy Bel Air 2-door. The fender got smashed, we gave it to Uncle Bobby, he fixed it, we wished we had it back. <br />
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9. Dad's 1955 Blue Buick Skylark. I have no memory of it, except it was a "3-holer" rather than a "4-holer". <br />
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10. Mom's 1971 Beige Buick Electra 225 4-door. 4-holer! It had one of the biggest passenger car engines GM ever built<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]</span>, and it was fast. Also single-digit gas mileage. <br />
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11. My 1997 Maroon Chevy Lumina 4-door "Alice 2". There was something hipster-cool about a car with a bench seat and a steering-mounted shifter lever. <br />
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12. Alf's 1972 Gold VW beetle "The Turd". I'm always a little conflicted about whether old beetles are actually cool or not. <br />
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13. Dad's 1966 Green VW beetle. It had a steering wheel, glove compartment, shifter, blinker lever, lights and wiper knobs, window cranks, speedometer and gas gauge. That's it. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW2cdL6b-AGyqwViNHq3So9oJgCs-NVLBechydRZIb4vYCb7r9wTkQzq7P3srzApYRmMLNDKiCS-uuoFXTHJSBA0JHxTgK7p8o3eHb5GzK1dnamA7w7qCRKXen-6vJJpCiJ-jA8ZaUGqfS/s1600/car-66Bug.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW2cdL6b-AGyqwViNHq3So9oJgCs-NVLBechydRZIb4vYCb7r9wTkQzq7P3srzApYRmMLNDKiCS-uuoFXTHJSBA0JHxTgK7p8o3eHb5GzK1dnamA7w7qCRKXen-6vJJpCiJ-jA8ZaUGqfS/s1600/car-66Bug.JPG" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW2cdL6b-AGyqwViNHq3So9oJgCs-NVLBechydRZIb4vYCb7r9wTkQzq7P3srzApYRmMLNDKiCS-uuoFXTHJSBA0JHxTgK7p8o3eHb5GzK1dnamA7w7qCRKXen-6vJJpCiJ-jA8ZaUGqfS/s1600/car-66Bug.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
14. My 2005 White Pontiac Vibe. My present car. Minimally cool, but probably has the best gas-mileage-to-cargo-space ratio ever. <br />
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15. My 1993 White Chevy Camaro "The Great White". This was my mid-life-crisis car, and unfortunately was a totally non-bitchin' Camaro. It was underpowered and sluggish, and the tires were ridiculously expensive. <br />
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16. Mom's 1989 White Olds Cutlass Ciera 4-door. She finally got her white Cutlass, but it was less cool than the blue one. <br />
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17. Dad's 1982 White Honda Accord. Not cool, but very practical and reliable. <br />
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18. Dad's 1994 White Dodge Neon. Not cool, but practical and sort-of reliable. <br />
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19. My 1981 Green Dodge Omni 2-door "Tara". I hit a pothole in Cleveland one day and destroyed the transmission. After it was "fixed", it lost reverse, so I had to be selective about where to park the dang thing. Also the locks froze up in cold temperatures so entry was through the hatchback. People wearing nice clothes did not like this, especially after the time it took to find a parking space that did not require reverse. <br />
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20. Alf's 1963 Beige Ford Falcon. The lights dimmed when the windshield wipers were on. <br />
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21. Dad's 1975 Lime Green Chevy Monza. This car was cool looking (except in lime green), but was exceptionally junky. It was built on the Vega platform, which is universally considered the worst American car ever made. It needed engine service all the time, and even when it was running as well as it could it was sluggish and had a clunky automatic transmission. The interior was Saturday-Night-Fever white vinyl. This car is why Dad bought a Honda even though he was a "GM man" and never thought he would buy a Japanese nameplate. I still shiver when I recall the time I was 17 and I decided to crank this thing up to 80 MPH, with friends in the car. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. <br />
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Notes<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. <a href="http://www.stangpiano.com/DavidsRRpage/AWR_Memoirs/99-09-01.html">http://www.stangpiano.com/DavidsRRpage/AWR_Memoirs/99-09-01.html</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">He gave me a stolen street sign from that trip that says "Head in only". </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. I think the largest engine in a regular production car (post-WW2 anyway) was GM's 500 c.i.d 400 h.p. that went into Cadillac Fleetwoods and Eldorados. </span><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_V8_engine#World.27s_largest"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_V8_engine#World.27s_largest</span></a><br />
<br />StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-41612440273220104772015-03-11T18:41:00.000-07:002015-05-21T06:56:21.182-07:00Not necessarily proud to be a Fraternity manA few thoughts about the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/10/sae-racism_n_6831424.html" target="_blank">SAE incident at OU</a>.<br />
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I was in a fraternity as a student at Miami University. I am grateful for the experience because I met some of my best friends there, many of whom remain good friends. Also I learned huge lessons about politics and human relations. I joined because the guys in the house during rush seemed to be decent people, and a boost to my social life seemed like a good idea at the time. But if you keep up with the news there is obviously something sinister about the fraternity life in some places. <br />
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We must be cautious about condemning one particular fraternity because each chapter house everywhere is different and has a different individual culture. <br />
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Having said that, I will now make a general statement about males aged 18-24: They're ass-holes. The male brain of that age is still adolescent and full of hormones. The part of the cortex that gives us empathy is not yet fully grown. This shows itself as a preoccupation with: (1) How do I get myself laid ?, and (2) How am I supposed to express my masculinity? <br />
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Since there are usually no immediate answers to these questions, negative behaviors often arise, like: (1) Getting smashed. (2) Intimidating freshmen, pledges, and/or outside groups. (3) Shit worse than mere intimidation. Part of the mystique of being in a secret society is the rituals and the sense of being "special". This mystique can lead different groups into different directions, depending on the maturity of the membership and the leadership of a chapter. Leaders who are more mature can lead a group to use the mystique to support one another in positive ways; leaders who are not can lead a group to do unspeakably ugly things. And our fraternity system is filled with leaders who are not mature. <br />
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I was lucky that my fraternity chapter did not have dangerous hazing rituals when I joined, and I don't remember any ugly racial remarks coming from anybody (except for the nickname of an especially unattractive car a brother had). Of course we did some stupid stuff, which I won't mention, but nobody ever got hurt, except once I stepped on a soda can pop-top. We had ritual activities but they were kind of like religious ceremonies, intended to make the members feel like they were part of a rite-of passage. <br />
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Unfortunately, there is plenty of hazing going on out there, in different degrees of severity. Google 'hazing' or 'hate speech' along with any fraternity name you want. I would bet that every fraternity has done something obnoxious and/or dangerous in the past few years (but not every chapter). My particular chapter went through culture changes as they grew and in fact got in trouble a couple of times, mainly for underage drinking. <br />
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Most fraternities nowadays do public service projects that serve their communities, and have alumni who contribute to the well being and scholarships for the present members. This is good of course, but it's also public relations and is secondary to the main purpose of a fraternity: <i><b>to have drinking buddies, to party with sororities and to have a good-old-boy network after graduation</b></i>. The glossy alumni magazines emphasize the P.R. aspects and always lionize any celebrity or politician who happens to be a member. (I told my alumni magazine to stop sending me their BS a few years ago when their "Man of the Year" was the governor of Georgia, a guy who was using public funds to fill his pocket, and who let the educational system drop to last place in the country.) And I'm sorry, but I do not contribute to my alumni chapter because the house there has no real relationship to the house I joined, except for the wooden letters out front. I have no idea whether these guys will destroy their new furniture within a year, but knowing what I know about 18-24-year-olds, I'm betting they will. <br />
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Yes, a fraternity is the reason for friendships I cherish, but not because we belonged to a particular set of Greek letters. They can facilitate fraternity in the best sense of the word, but they can also be a means to make people think they are exceptional just because of who they are or whatever mythology they have invented. That, plus a dose of adolescent hormones and some beer can hurt people. <br />
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<br />StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-13166336109775903472012-02-17T06:57:00.000-08:002012-02-17T07:02:02.664-08:00Megabyte Machinations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/m3voIpdrUp0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here's what I was doing in the 80's besides listening to music from big vinyl disks played with a needle. ... It's only a slight exaggeration to say that what took me 2 years then would now take 20 minutes using today's technology. </div>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-68350418363797156422012-01-13T09:22:00.000-08:002012-01-21T09:33:53.317-08:00Response to Kurt Andersen's article "You Say You Want a Devolution"<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Kurt Andersen <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/01/prisoners-of-style-201201" target="_blank">writes in Vanity Fair</a> that the cultural landscape in America is stagnant because we need stability in the face of such fast change in technology. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I get what he's saying but I'm not sure about his thesis that the lack of change in culture is somehow compensation for the incredibly fast change in technology. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Maybe that's true, but I think he misses the main point. The main point IMHO is that we are in the post-post-modern era. What I mean by that is, there's no new place to go. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Take music for example, modern music was shocking. Strauss was shocking in its </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">ambiguous tonal center, Schoenberg even more shocking by its intentional </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">equalization of all 12 tones, the American composers even more shocking by </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">writing with a lack of any tonal or rhythmic regularity. Well, then what? What could </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">possibly be more shocking than music which does not possess any properties of </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">music? The reaction to that was a return to simple minimal harmony and rhythm by composers such as Philip Glass and John Adams. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">And now there is a huge variety of all kinds of music being written, which is all </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">pretty much "acceptable" - the full spectrum of the simplistic to the complicated, traditional </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">harmony to ambiguous harmony. Ethnic music from all over the world has influenced us, too. There's no possibility of any new </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">"revolutionary" music, because we've already heard the extremes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"> Same with art. Pollock brought us absolute abstraction, and then the ultimate shock happened in the 70's when that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franko_B" target="_blank">whacky performance artist </a>did a piece where he sliced himself with a knife. As far as I'm concerned, that was the moment which defines the every end of art. Nobody can possibly out-do that in shock value and total art-lessness of art. The guy who made the <a href="http://www.artnotart.com/f-sensation.html" target="_blank">elephant-dung portrait of Mary</a> tried to be controversial, but try as he could, it didn't really shock anybody except for a few Catholic morons, but really, it was just kind of stupid.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Take pop/rock music. Rock music exhausted itself in the 70's when my favorite bands of that time took it to its extreme by turning it into something ridiculously complex harmonically and rhythmically, bordering on 12-tone classical and free-jazz. Then the reaction to all that was punk in the late 70's and then rap and hip-hop. Rap is the newest form of pop music, and it's 30 years old already. And no, Lady Gaga is not something new. Maybe her songs are good, but it's basically 70's disco, eh? And maybe the particular odd things she wears are new, but the idea is not new. People have been wearing silly things for decades.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I'm not saying there are no new and interesting works of art and music, because there are, of course.You can point out all kinds of great new stuff, but there will never be anything which defines a brand new movement and renders everything before it obsolete. </span><br />
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So, of course everything is "nostalgic" because everything HAS to reference something in the past. We have no choice. </span><br />
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</span></span></span>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-25570408274534732752011-11-18T09:03:00.000-08:002012-01-21T09:04:29.446-08:00Knotty Knavery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BYdu2M41Saw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
Here are 4 more little anecdotes, including my definitive coming-of-age story.StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-23924683132604218892011-10-21T12:12:00.000-07:002011-10-24T12:27:52.645-07:00Technology Topics: Electric Cars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/povimYsKXZI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>A little bit about what I've learned about electric cars. You <i>will</i> own one eventually.<br />
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and a word about ethanol, just an opinion, not really knowing what I'm talking about.StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-16663555751635252902011-10-14T11:48:00.000-07:002011-10-24T12:00:46.680-07:00Just Jokes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JkRBY9gfSgw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">For those of you who like pun-ishment.</div>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-17553470680649083172009-06-28T16:40:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:54:57.178-07:00Greet and Grovel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From the anecdote jar: really awful job interviews.</div>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-88926389974956043242009-06-18T16:44:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:55:25.789-07:00For Facebook Friends: Folio of FivesThis is for my Facebook friends who have been swept into the "what are you five favorite whatevers" craze.<br />
<a href="http://home.roadrunner.com/~davidsrrpage/page_pick5.html"><b>Here's</b> a link to bunch of my "Fives"</a>.StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-38342700863219340122009-06-08T16:36:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:56:56.823-07:00Emerald Extraterrestrial Excursion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/xv_Vg--xcZk/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xv_Vg--xcZk&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xv_Vg--xcZk&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><br />
A conversation about our two favorite movies - "2001: A Space Odessey" and "The Wizard of Oz"StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-21408028182822564202009-05-21T16:24:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:56:08.978-07:00Dubious Discourse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/b4UipZs2KG4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/Z6m0mSfZE_E/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6m0mSfZE_E&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6m0mSfZE_E&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A conversation about the quantum nature of the universe. I was thinking of filming a series of conversations with friends about heady subjects called "Book Nots" because they have not yet written a book. My character would be named Rosie Charles. </div>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-77231562419507160702009-05-07T16:22:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:58:43.840-07:00Contesting the Claims of a Cop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tr3Sq3dvq48?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From the anecdote jar: fighting injustice. </div>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-50481935358278116982009-04-30T16:18:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:57:20.096-07:00Big Bad Banks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/iaTUSHDpfgM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
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Sorry about the naughty language here and all the "air quotes".StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-18518803382369746182009-04-23T16:12:00.000-07:002011-06-23T17:00:26.783-07:00Age of Active Amusement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/MsGyyHkUHf8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is my first attempt at a video blog entry. </div>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-43728734749331475812009-01-29T06:56:00.000-08:002011-06-24T06:59:14.917-07:0025 Random Facts About Me<i>This is one of those Facebook games.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. Then choose friends to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you!! If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">Ok, I will take my turn, even though I would categorize this as another "Total Internet Waste of Time" :-)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">1. Sometimes people treat me in a condescending way because I am quiet. I think they confuse quietness with weakness or naivete. I find it annoying.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">2. It irks me that the mainstream thinks introversion is a defect which needs to be fixed.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">3. I have learned some assertiveness skills which have helped me to deal with difficult people.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">4. I still want my 45 Dollars back from Bill Gates. (That's what a panel of legal experts calculated for how much Microsoft overcharged for Windows when they were under investigation for monopolistic practices.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">5. I don't like to practice the piano, largely, I think, because the teacher I had when I was a kid was a horrible, negative, abusive person.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">6. I am a happier adult than child. Many people remember their childhood as a time of fun and innocence. Not me: I remember it as a time of being an outcast.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">7. I hate playing sports where I have to catch a ball or do anything else to any object speeding toward me.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">8. The most important things in life are friendship and art. (By "art" I mean all creative arts.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">9. I love all music, except the following: (a)Excessively grand and bombastic symphonic music e.g. Tchaikovsky Overture 1812;(b)Music I have heard too many times already e.g. "Simple Gifts" and variations thereon;(c)Mendelssohn;(d)Rap, reggae and hiphop;(e)Flute and recorder music which is predominantly in a high register;(f)Bad vocalists;(g)Sound which claims to be music but in fact has no characteristics of music (i.e. melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, form) e.g. Elliot Carter.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">10. The recording that I have played the most times over the years (LP, CD & mp3) is Paul McCartney & Wings "Band on the Run".</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">11. The recording I would keep if I had to choose only one would be the Boston Chamber Music Society playing Brahms Clarinet Quintet in B Minor.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">12. My very first LP was The Guess Who "So Long Bannatyne", which was given to me by a friend of my parents whose only reason for buying it was the picture of a '57 Chevy on the cover. I still think it's a great album.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">13. Piano music and harpsichord music are like steak and oysters. There are many different kinds of steaks and they can be done in many different ways and I could eat them every day. Oysters are good and fun to eat occasionally but not all the time. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">14. I like any movie in which I am usually thinking "I wonder what's going to happen next". e.g. "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead". A mediocre movie is one where I don't care what's going to happen next. e.g. "Thumbsucker". A bad movie is one where I already know what's going to happen next. e.g. "Talledega Nights". An exceedingly bad movie is one where what happens next is even more boring than what I predicted was going to happen. e.g. "Juno".</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">15. My favorite book is "Chaos: The Making of a New Science" by James Gleick. I also like other nerdy books about physics and math.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">16. I like most animals except loud or mean dogs.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">17. My memory is very sparse. I remember only a few incidents from childhood (but for some reason I remember every car my neighbors, relatives, and friends' parents had).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">18. I still have most of the plastic car models and dealer promos I had as a kid. Unfortunately I wrecked the ones that would probably be the most valuable if in good condition: a 1968 yellow Corvette convertible and a 1964 baby-blue Mustang.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">19. TV News, especially local TV News, is an abomination.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">20. I think we have a good president, but I maintain a cynical view that our country basically runs on corruption. Choosing between Republicans and Democrats is like choosing between the blatant criminals and the ineffective cops.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">21. I consider myself an Agnostic which means the only thing I'm sure about is that I am unsure. But I do believe God is not capricious.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">22. I don't mind the philosophy of Christianity, but I'm really tired of being told that it's the only valid religion. Even the "liberal" Christian Churches imply this.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">23. I love the message of the Unitarian Church, but I don't go to their services because the hymns are boring.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">24. My favorite Bible verse is Job 38:4. Essentially God says: "Be grateful for the universe you've got because it's the only one I could figure out how to make at the time". I find most any other reply to "Why does life suck" to be phony.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">25. If I were rich I would still live modestly, and be charitable. Except I would have to get a BMW. </span>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-65226605530323365822006-04-30T08:22:00.004-07:002012-04-16T09:26:27.001-07:00Spectrum in Review Part 3The Meaning of Life.<br />
Common among all of us in "Spectrum" is the fact that we are looking to find more meaning in life. One of the roots of unhappiness for us is that feeling of emptiness, where the things we do in life don't seem to add up to anything. Well, there's no universal solution to that problem. Each person has his own unique key to finding meaning in life. Some of us complained that there was too much boredom and repetitive tasks in life. Others of us complained that life was too full of activity and everything seemed too scattered and chaotic. In any case, we find much to be desired about the culture we live in. We are barraged my messages from the culture about what we should be doing to be happy, and most of those messages are sometimes self-serving and certainly phony. We seem surrounded by people with cell phones and planners who imply to us that we ought to be staying busy and filling our time with important stuff. Are those guys with their faces in their planners all the time finding the meaning of life in there? Maybe.<br />
Maybe there is something to be learned from stepping back and figuring out what will make our life more whole. Some people find this wholeness in religion. None of us in the group is particularly religious, though. In fact, we have pretty much come to the conclusion that religion is one of those phony messages.<br />
As we get older, our concept of the past and future change. Younger people are climbing the hill of life trying to get to a better place in their careers and relationships. When we were in our 20's we had a picture in our heads of what life was supposed to be like, and had plans for getting to the picture. Some of us are more talented and ambitious than others when it comes to making the picture actually come true. Those of us who are older and on the other side of the "hill" look back and try to make sense of what actually happened compared to what was supposed to happen. This can be a depressing thought and another reminder that there is a kind of emptyness in life.<br />
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Freud and Jung<br />
The group had a discussion the intersection between Jung and Buddhism. It has to do with alleviating one's suffering through understanding one's self, and becoming more "whole" - that is, becoming aware and accepting conscious thoughts as well as the unconscious. Also, considering those things we all have in common (super-ego? collective consciousness?) to open one's self to community. The way to curing suffering is to accept and understand one's own suffering. It seems a bit paradoxical, eh? There is the story of the woman whose child died, and who went to the monk and said "please bring my child back". The monk responds "I will if you bring me a mustard seed from a household who has not suffered death." Of course she can find no such household, and in the process learns to become more compassionate, and therefore, happier. The German philosopher Victor Frankl came to the conclusion that the root of happiness is, not necessarily one's circumstances, but the <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">reactions</span> to circumstances, and recognition that we have the right to choose those reactions. People who are happier are the people who do good things for themselves, and they do them because of their active intention.<br />
Freud said we can use our dreams to help get in contact with the forces in our unconscious that have been formed during our upbringing. I call it the "internal treadmill", where, despite common sense, we still do the silly things we did as kids to get rewards. For instance, if I got whiny as a kid, mom would buy me something. So nowadays, I get whiny all the time, without reward. Being whiny just seems comfortable, because once upon a time it was a way to feel comfortable. In therapy, we examine these behaviors in order to attempt to outgrow them. Freud tried to fit this type of stuff into a scientific theory, but unfortunately, made up a bunch of stuff that seemed scientific but was just unfounded theory. His idea, anyway, was to uphold reason as a way to get to mental health.<br />
Carl Jung went beyond the Freudian model by saying there is so much beyond the rational. His interest in the meaning of dreams was not only relevant to the analysis of patients, but also to the big questions of who we are. What are these dreams I have? Do they mean anything? Or are they just the chaotic firing of neurons? Jung said they point to the "collective unconscious", which is that churning of the mind that happens in the background, that we are not really aware of during waking life. Every person has this churn in the mind, and it's similar for all of us all over the world, just like we have similar hands and fingers and eyeballs. Mythology throughout time has used themes that come out of the collective unconscious. That's why so many myths are so similar, even amongst peoples who have never been in contact with each other.<br />
The dreams that come to us and the myths that come out of the collective unconscious are real and important and they are beyond what we can map out using logic. Believing in God again, for me, means realizing that God is beyond the things we know rationally. Jung was an advocate of becoming more fully human by pushing the boundaries of thought. It's important to consider the light as well as the shadow, the masculine and the feminine, the mind and heart, introversion and extroversion, and so on, as we move toward more full awareness. In our western society we have a bias toward the rational, the things that can be expressed as written language, the measurable and predictable. We see just about everything in a linear way and in terms of either/or, and good/evil. Well, I reject that way of seeing things. Even though I still have the damn baggage that says I am a sinner and need to be redeemed. Rather than "repentance", is it not better to think in terms of continually improving ones self through transformation?<br />
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Dark Parts<br />
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What can we learn from the parts of life that bring us darkness and misery? So many of our discussions are about shame and unfulfilled dreams, but what good can come of these things? The therapist and author Parker Palmer makes the distinction between a life about "getting somewhere" (wealth, power, etc) and a life about appreciation. If the paradigm of my life was simply to get somewhere I'm bound to be disappointed. In fact, even if I get to the place I wanted to get to, when I am there I will be disappointed because the reality is always different from the image, and life is still full of lousy events no matter what. Nevertheless, it is necessary to make plans and have some concept of the future or else we will be stagnant, and that is certainly lousy too. Of course there is great satisfaction of planning something and actually seeing it through, but the bigger ambitions come with the bigger pains of trying to get there. It may seem as though there are others out there who have done wonderful things, but as we become closer to others and listen to their stories of life, we find that even the seeming successful have had their heartaches too.<br />
Palmer notes that the people who are ultimately happier are those whose life paradigms are about appreciation. They accomplish things, but they do not judge how much they have "accomplished", but instead appreciate life as it comes. This appreciation comes from living life in a more contemplative way, and in a less egotistical way. Many of our pains are pains to an over-inflated ego. Palmer points out that the appreciation of the moment comes to those who have practiced contemplation of some sort, whether it be prayer or meditation. And those who have suffered and overcome great pain have practiced this contemplation almost through necessity because we need to pause and figure out what the painful experience was all about. So do we need to suffer greatly in order to come to the point where we can appreciate and feel joyful about life? Is each disillusionment a step toward having eyes more wide open and to the blessings of the here and now?<br />
Even though the men in out group were skeptical about religion, it can serve a great purpose for many people, sometimes as a vehicle for meditation and contemplation, and to fulfill the need to feel connected to something larger than one's self. That need is universal, and is the root of religion and mythology. "Spectrum" spent a good deal of time talking about myths and stories and how they relate to our lives. Jung said that myths are a way to understand what he calls the "collective unconscious", that is, the mysterious part of mind that is beyond what we can easily describe in words, but what we all have in common, and which is larger than each individual.<br />
An example of a mythological story was brought up in the group: Rapunzel. The letting down of her hair was a symbol for opening ones self up to the world and getting out from the encloisterment of the tower. It's taking a chance on a happier life, even with its potential perils. This analogy means the opening of one's self to the possible perils of the inner life as well as the outer physical dangers. Participating in the group was itself a risk for all of us to take because we had to look at the dark sides of ourselves. But according to Jung, and many wise people before and after him, we need to examine and accept the darker sides of ourselves in order to better understand life. The cure to suffering, according to Buddhist thought, is to accept one's own suffering. That sounds paradoxical, eh? But that is a large part of what "Spectrum" was all about. Even though we say we are not religious, I think we arrived at the central tenet of all major religions, which is compassion. Our examination of ourselves, and our taking the risk of sharing our unique stories, including (especially) the dark parts, is what bring compassion to each other, and to ourselves.<br />
<br />
It seems contradictory to "appreciate" the dark parts of life, but we can't help but learn and become wiser if we look back in a realistic way about our trials. Our "wholeness" comes from embracing not only the joys but also the failures. There is something empowering about not having illusions about the world, but knowing through disappointment that you are closer to the what Palmer calls the "certainty about bedrock reality". The dark episodes of life also make us more empathetic of others who have been through hard times, and therefore more loving and closer to our friends and family.<br />
In James Fowler's "7 stages of Faith" view, the 5th stage comes when we realize that there is more to the universe than what we can know using linear language, and mathematical logic. That's where I am, and I still don't know exactly where to go with it. There is an awful lot of stuff out there that seems like enlightenment, but is it really just new-age hokum? I can't abandon science, but I acknowledge that there is much more to existence than what we can see or measure. We have the obligation to be skeptical about everything, but we also have the obligation to be open minded enough to know that our limited human brains can never know very much about how this big universe functions. The unknown can be frightening, or it can be exciting depending upon attitude. Every day we move toward an unknown world, and we can choose to see it as a darkness to be feared or an adventure to be lived.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://stillbwater.blogspot.com/2004/04/spectrum-in-review-part-2.html" target="_blank">Prev: Part 2</a></span><br />
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<div style="page-break-before: always;">References<br />
<br />
</div>David Burns, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-The-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/186-1323825-2386846" target="_blank">Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy</a></span><br />
Joseph Campbell, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073196&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Hero With a Thousand Faces</a></span><br />
Christian de la Huerta, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Out-Spiritually-Next-Step/dp/0874779669/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073248&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Coming out Spiritually: The Next Step</a></span><br />
James Fowler, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stages-Faith-Psychology-Development-Meaning/dp/0060628669/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073287&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development</a></span><br />
James Hollis, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Eden-Project-Psychology-Analysis/dp/0919123805/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073348&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other</a></span><br />
Gershen Kaufman and Lev Raphael, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Out-Shame-Transforming-Lesbian/dp/0385477961/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073381&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Coming out of Shame: Transforming Gay and Lesbian Lives</a></span><br />
Joe Kort, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Things-Improve-Their-Lives/dp/1459608429/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073429&sr=1-3" target="_blank">10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real Love</a></span><br />
Thomas Moore, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Nights-Soul-Finding-Through/dp/1592401333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073464&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Dark Nights of the Soul</a></span><br />
Parker Palmer, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Wholeness-Journey-Toward-Undivided/dp/0470453761/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073496&sr=1-3" target="_blank">A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward and Undivided Life</a></span><br />
Cindy Spring and Charles Garfield, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Circles-Discovery-Community-Building/dp/0786883634/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334073536&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Wisdom Circles: A Guide to Self Discovery and Community Building in Small Groups</a></span>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-33436742331001537172006-04-23T08:19:00.004-07:002012-04-16T09:26:59.393-07:00Spectrum in Review Part 2Shame.<br />
Shame is part of what I call (this isn't original) the "internal treadmill": the thoughts that keep churning through the mind because of such constant conditioning. We want to get off but we just can't. We gay men have been given so many negative messages for so long, the messages just keep rolling along like a treadmill. Some people call it the "tapes" that keep playing in the mind. "This is immoral", "This is not normal", "This is inferior", "This is subject to ridicule", "This will bring unhappiness", "This will disappoint your Mother".<br />
As children we learned to be "hyper-vigilant". The messages came at us ubiquitously - the messages about how we were supposed to act and what we were supposed to like. We became guarded about just about every move we made, else we would be singled out as being different. This guardedness still haunts me now, and it is largely unconscious. I wonder how the guy in the next car at a stop light is evaluating me. Does he know I'm gay just by looking at me and seeing the way I grip the wheel?<br />
Anyway, the thing is, in my case, what I remember from my childhood are the treatment I received by being girl-like. Not sure if that's a Gay Thing or not. There are plenty of "effeminate" straight boys and there are plenty of "masculine" gay boys. No one is even really "gay" or "straight" until puberty anyway, are we?? Anyway, the thing is, you are treated badly if you are a boy who acts like a girl, and since "femininity" is associated with being gay, it's mixed in somehow with disdain for gay people. Anyway, the thing is, in my case, by brother was often very condescending and abusive to me because I was a sissy. He still is condescending and abusive, not for being a sissy I suppose, but because he is just abusive. It's all so similar to the crap I get from people in general because I am quiet. "Are you always so quiet?" People ask. "Are you always so condescending", I want to respond. It's a little different from the Gay Thing, it's just another thing people are prejudiced about. Somehow quietness is associated with naivete, and needyness. As if I need to be protected from the harsh world because I am "little quiet David". (Hmm, well, maybe I do need to be protected from the harsh world.) Anyway, the thing is, my brother has a number of alcoholic behaviors, for instance, ridiculing non-drinkers, specifically me, because of being on our "high horse" and being too "good" for him. He thinks I am goody-two-shoes, while he is a man-of-the-world, with experience and wisdom that I'll never know. Anyway, the thing is, all these forces causing my low self-esteem have combined together to create a colorful palette of abuse from all directions, like a canvas of differently colored vomit. Perhaps it's good to keep in mind the fact that often the reason people act superior is to cover their own insecurity. So now that I do have a nice group of gay friends, sometimes I still feel inferior because I fell like don't fit in to their group. Outcast among the outcasts. I get the same condescending crap from fellow gay guys about being quiet that I do from anybody else. There is always chattering about sex, about whether one is a "top" or a "bottom" and so on. This "top" and "bottom" business is really kind of annoying because as gay people we have supposedly been fighting against the idea of being labeled, but here we go labeling ourselves.<br />
There is this feeling that there must be a "prince" out there to be a savior, it's called the "Cinderella" complex, I guess, the romantic ideal, where someone with an unhappy life fantasizes about a life with a great lover. I have a picture in my head, I've mentioned this before, of living in a cool house in Victorian Village, with M_, and everything in its place, and all the bad feelings having vanished. Somebody comes along who seems good at first, but who does not turn out to be the Prince; since the romantic picture did not come true, it breaks up. I think I am over this romantic vision. I hope so, anyway. I realize that any two people will have misunderstandings blah-de-blah-de-blah - books have been written about it.<br />
And the messages that set off those "tapes" just keep coming out of everywhere; the media, our families, and those around us. What can we do to mitigate the triggering of the negative reactions?<br />
Something that has helped me is cognitive therapy. This therapy teaches one to actively pay attention to the mind's reaction to situations and apply reasonable responses. Our minds often automatically start the negative "tapes" even without our conscious awareness. Cognitive therapy, first, asks the subject to pay attention to the feelings one has and the triggers that caused the feelings. Then once the triggers become more recognizable, one must notice the automatic reaction, and weigh the reaction against its reasonableness. For instance, when I was in grad school I was often involved in conversations among my fellow students about technical subjects, and more often than not, I had no idea what they were talking about. My automatic response was to feel stupid and unworthy of being there. Had I known about cognitive therapy then, I would have caught myself in this reaction and thought about whether it was truly reasonable to consider myself inferior. Perhaps my colleagues were discussing something so narrowly technical, no one else could really reasonable be expected to understand it.<br />
The messages gay men receive from everywhere can trigger us emotionally, like a script. We must see our own recognition of the triggers and our reactions to them in order to rise above these automatic scripts. We must tap in to the sensible and the compassionate rather than to the part of the brain that follows the old scripts. The ability to say to ones self "I do not deserve to feel bad" takes a certain amount of power as well as knowledge. Facing a confrontation with confidence rather than shame takes power. Not physical power to vanquish an external enemy, but internal power to maintain one's sense of reason, compassion, and esteem. Sometimes we may have the knowledge, but still wallow in our own conflicted thoughts as an avoidance, and convince ourselves we don't really deserve to have the power. I also helps to remember that gay and sensitive men are not villlified in all societies. In fact, there are some Native American communities who respect gay men as spiritual bridges between the masculine and the feminine realms.<br />
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<br />
Avoidance. Acceptance.<br />
Avoidance is doing anything other than facing the problem. If the problem is "why do I feel so crappy", we often sit and dwell on the problem rather than solving it. Ironically, then, thinking about the problem too much is actually avoidance. This can be a vicious cycle because thinking about the problem too much just brings on more depression. Someone said "Depression is anger without motivation."<br />
It may help in these situations to realize that the crappy feelings can come from inner conflicts. Shame and self-pity come in large part from a divided self where one part of the self is judging another part. If I say "I am a bad person", it's as if one "me" were standing there scolding the other "me". What right does that judging part have to judge the other part? Perhaps it has some right sometimes, but this chronic feeling of shame and guilt is very destructive. A group member suggested the idea of getting "in touch with the inner shithead". What he meant by this was accepting the fact that it's ok to feel bad occasionally. In other words, one of the things the "blaming" part of ourselves is upset about may be the feeling lousy itself. This strengthens the vicious cycle. "I am a bad person because I feel bad and unmotivated". Sometimes we simply need to forgive ourselves about feeling bad and just accept the idea that we may have the blues, and that's ok. Feeling bad about feeling bad gets in the way of figuring out the real root of the problem. It's avoidance.<br />
One of my revelations was to realize that acceptance is not the same as stagnation. In other words accepting that a problem exists does not mean we intend to live with the problem. As an example, as a software engineer I often encountered very frustrating bugs in my programs. I would become flush with anger and frustration when it took hours to figure out a totally unexpected problem. The aggravation comes ot only from the bug itself, but from having planned to do task A, task B, and so on, then running into a problem during "A". "Aargh ! I will never get to B or C today!". The next day was always better because I had accepted the bug. I have accepted the fact that I may have to spend the day finishing "A"; while "B" and "C" will have to wait. I take the time to solve the bug without being so upset about it. It may sound paradoxical at first, but the best way to solve a problem is to first accept it.<br />
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Relationships.<br />
It's almost become a cliche that we choose partners who are just like our parents. Why? Well, when we grow up we are assimilated to the environment that our parents and siblings have created. This environment is all we know at the time, and we associate it with the protection of home. Even if it's abusive, it's still "home". Sometimes the most attention given to a child is given in conflict. So the child associates conflict with "love". So the partner who reminds one of "home" is attractive, even if that home life was lousy. These dynamics are usually totally unconscious, so we end up having no idea how we got into this terrible situation where our partners cause the same old grief that our parents gave us. Often times partners play certain roles, for instance the "caregiver" (A) and the "needy" (B). "A"s have a need to make things ok. They receive gratification from being in control. Maybe as children they helped keep siblings under control to please the parents. Maybe they always got to choose what to do because of permissive parents. Meanwhile "B"s receive gratification from letting someone else make the decisions. Maybe they were rewarded for passivity in childhood somehow. Often these relationships run into problems because "A" will become frustrated and "unneeded" if "B" behaves independently without need for help. Meanwhile "B" can become frustrated if "A" wants to do too many things that "B" doesn't want to do. They both end up feeling the same lousy way they felt as children when things were going wrong.<br />
Conflict inevitably arises in every relationship. The feelings of initial infatuation and bliss fade when the newness fades away. Some people are "addicted" to this feeling of "new love", and change partners every 8 months or so. When the newness fades away, the flaws in the other person become more evident. We say "is this the right person?" "Why am I feeling the same lousy way I felt when I was a kid ?"<br />
I think it's a simplification to say we end up with people who are "just like our parents". It is a little more accurate to say that our minds are recognizing patterns that were learned as children. The personal conflicts of today resonate with the conflicts of childhood, just as the good feelings of new love resonate with the good feelings of home life. A mature relationship evolves from facing the conflicts and learning how to live through them. Living through conflict is not a passive activity. It takes conscious willingness to deal with the uncomfortable feelings. But in facing them you are standing up to the negative patterns of yesterday and not letting junk from years ago control you.<br />
Whenever I drive through Victorian Village I get a little bit sad because a scenario enters my head: the scenario of what my life was <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed</span> to be. I was <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed</span> to have a soul-mate like M_ and we were <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed</span> to each have incredibly interesting jobs at the University or Battelle, and we were <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed</span> to live in one of these beautiful restored houses on Neil Avenue.<br />
But further thought reveals that there is a great contradiction. On one hand, I am all sad and wispy because, instead of my scenario, I have this stupid little life now where I have no idea what I'm doing. On the other hand, my low self-esteem still follows me around and I realize that I do not deserve that beautiful life. There is no way I realistically could have gotten there because I never did have enough self esteem to go for it.<br />
Brooding about the past is a very useless endeavor. Somehow I have to take some comfort in the fact that I always made decisions as best as I knew how, even though those decisions were clouded by low self-worth. Maybe with a little push M_ would have realized that I would be a better partner for him that that woman he ended up marrying. Maybe it's a complete fantasy to think he is anything but hetero. It seems like he really loved me, but maybe that's one of those fabricated memories. I need to let him go, rather than keep waiting for him to show up at my door.<br />
Another cliche we hear often is "I need to fix my own problems before I can ever have a relationship". But it can be argued that the best way to discover some of those problems and really deal with them is by having a relationship. It's easy to ignore ones own dysfunctionalities by avoiding them in isolation. It's the relationships in life that help us to grow.<br />
The writer Joe Kort suggests that relationships go through three stages: First the partners are enamored with each other and happy to have found a new lover. Second, the luster fades and the partners see the flaws in each other and in themselves. This is the difficult part, where there are moments of extreme insecurity, power struggles, and even resentment. But if a partnership can survive this stage it moves on to the third stage where there is greater and more profound understanding and love of one another. The second stage can be an enormous growth experience where one's neuroses and insecurities can be examined in the context of a relationship. This examination makes us stronger and more compassionate.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://stillbwater.blogspot.com/2004/04/spectrum-in-review-part-1.html" target="_blank">Prev: Part 1</a> <a href="http://stillbwater.blogspot.com/2012/04/spectrum-in-review-part-3.html">Next: Part 3</a></span>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-76862252293609956162006-04-16T08:15:00.005-07:002012-04-16T09:27:17.986-07:00Spectrum in Review Part 1Spectrum is a gay mens' discussion group patterned after the "Wisdom Circle" concept. The wisdom circle is a small group which is intended to help all the members through sharing their experiences in an open way. It is supposed to be a "safe" place where confidentiality is respected, and all are encouraged to speak truthfully. The formal name of the group is "Spectrum Men's Spirituality Group", so ostensibly our discussions are focused around matters of spirit. Spirit is a vague term, though, and as far as I'm concerned, it covers just about everything that has to do with one's inner life.<br />
I will respect confidentiality by not mentioning any names; and I won't repeat any specific stories, but will instead keep my focus on my own particular experiences and my interpretations of our discussions, and to general ideas.<br />
These discussions examined our emotions both past and present, in order to better understand ourselves and so that we may face the future with a little more wisdom. Though the space we use is at the Unitarian church, our discussions usually did not veer toward religion. In fact most of the group members are not particularly religious, and many expressed that the churches of their youth caused emotional harm in one way or another. There is a distinction between religion and spirituality. All people have a spiritual life of some kind, while not everyone has a religious life.<br />
A discussion group is not a substitute for psychotherapy. None of us is a professional, nor do we pretend to dispense clinical advice. Talking honestly is a kind of "therapy" in the informal sense, and we try to steer away from doling out advice unless it's asked for, but instead, try to relate our own experiences to the topic on the floor so that it may be of use to others.<br />
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Why are we here ?<br />
The reason each person attends the group is unique, but there are common themes. We seem to have a need to talk about our suffering in life, both now and in the past. Is the past suffering related to the present suffering? What do we need to do today to alleviate this suffering in the future? This suffering is not necessarily the kind that requires professional help, but it is those daily nagging feelings of anxiety. Anxiety that comes from living in this time and place as a gay man. Anxiety about relationships, work, finances, family. Each person has his unique personal situation, but a large part of the energy generated in this group comes from our commonalities and the constant discovery that much of our anxiety is generated in similar ways, and much of our individual past suffering rings true with all of us.<br />
Here are some of the questions we have pondered: Who am I? What is the story of my life? What happened in the past to make me the person I am now? What caused my suffering? What do I consider to be my identity? How much do others' assumptions about me affect my own self-image? How much do I assume about the assumptions of others? Do what other people think of me matter? How do I label myself and are those labels sensible? Do I see myself in a fair way, or is the picture of myself something like a character in a story? Are my memories accurate or are they merely images from the past that are stitched together to form a somewhat fictional narrative? Does it matter? Does the story of my life have a meaning? If the past is just a story, can I change it? Are my future thoughts and actions somehow bound to the influences of the past? Where does shame come from and what are its lingering effects? How do I cope with romantic relationships? How can I be happier in the future?<br />
<br />
Life Stories.<br />
One of our first topics was the "Spiritual Autobiography". Each member used a session to discuss his life story, as a way for us to introduce ourselves to each other. I used James Fowler's ideas of the "Stages of Spiritual Growth" as a framework for my presentation. According to Fowler, these stages of growth are universal, and everyone's present view of the world is consistent with one of these stages. Adulthood and maturity are associated with stage 4, where one begins to think for himself and question the stories we were told as children. This is where all the trouble starts for us gay men. I think we all come to the realization at some time that there is a huge conflict between what we feel and what our society says we are supposed to feel. What we feel, as well as plain old common sense, can crash into the ideas that traditional Christianity teaches. I think my "stage 4" moment happened when I realized that it didn't make sense to me anymore to recite the congregational readings in church where we confessed to God that we human beings are not "worthy" of God's grace. Around the same time it was beginning to occur to me that the "Normal" attitudes in society were not going to be my attitudes. Conflict. Conflict. There was a little space in my brain that said it's "ok" to be gay, but there was a larger space in my brain that made me feel bad about myself, and still bought the "I am not worthy" notion.<br />
Some people never seem to leave stage 3, where there is unquestioning faith in a god who rules the universe and currys favors upon those who believe in the "correct" way. Many people never move beyond stage 3 where the primary identification is with a particular church and peer group and their beliefs. The ministers at many churches preach to the "lowest common denominator" so as not to stir up any real thought or controversy.<br />
Stage 4 is a "demythologizing" stage, where critical thought begins to demolish myths and traditions previously taken for granted. By the time I entered college I was willing to say that I was an atheist, because I realized that the stuff my church told me defied reason and logic.<br />
Those of us who have moved on seem to be in constant misery about how we're supposed to behave and believe. Stage 4 necessarily brings about a flowering of many minds within one person, and these many minds can be in conflict with each other.<br />
For instance, there is certain comfort in situations that remind us of childhood, even though the situation may be totally destructive and dysfunctional. It is comfortable because it's what we have become accustomed to. This is why we often choose partners who have the same flaws as our parents. Sometimes crazy negative relationships continue because the other person gives attention, and any attention, even if it's abusive, is better than no attention. For some, conflict is that thing which communicates "love", because conflict is the only communication there is.<br />
There was nothing in childhood which gave any positive notion of homosexuality. So not venturing out of the closet is the comfortable thing to do. And while our common sense tells us that there should be no shame in loving other men, and there should be no shame in finding men sexually attractive because this is simply who we are, and our inner thoughts are no one's business anyway. But we still feel the shame.<br />
Even though common sense told me that it's OK to be gay and it's OK not to be a typical masculine guy, there was baggage from 18 years of opposing messages. I could not come out or reveal my true thoughts to anybody because of the fear of being marginalized or even bashed. My true self was hidden as I turned to my studies in college. I did not have time for church or thinking about spiritual things, and repressed my desires for a boyfriend. But I also decided I would not pretend to be something I was not. I was not open, but by the same token I refused to pretend to be straight by having girlfriends, and I refused to go with the norms and trot off to church on Sundays.<br />
I was confirmed into the church when I was 14. To me, confirmation class was kind of like school, where you regurgitate the answers back that you are told. Yes, Jesus died for me, and yes, he is coming back, and yes, I must confess my sins all the time, because as flawed humans we don't really deserve the kingdom of God, blah-de-blah. We did not question it because it was like any other class. I remember being told about the young sailor whose ship got blown up and he floated in the ocean for days, but he survived only because he prayed and prayed. I remember asking why God sends people to Hell if he supposedly loves us so much. I don't remember the answer I got, but I must have bought it at the time. Or, maybe not. Maybe I never really bought the Jesus stuff, maybe I just did what a good boy is supposed to do.<br />
Maybe I began to get cynical about life at a young age. I do remember being scorned and tormented by the guys in the 6th grade who picked on me to show that they are tough guys. I remember my parents trying to convince me to do some kind of sport - tennis, golf, swimming, softball - I hated them all and they were all torture. I don't remember Jesus doing much for me then. My friend G_ made up the word “Agnostochristism”: uncertainty about the divinity of Christ. Many of the people I know have basically the same idea, I think. Of course this is biased, since many of the people I know are Unitarians. Jesus can be seen as a wise teacher, as was Bhudda, as was Mohammed. The guys I know at the Unitarian Church go there because they just got sick of all the Jesus stuff they had to listen to in the traditional Christian churches. Even the “liberal” Christian churches beat you over the head with Jesus stuff.<br />
Ever since I was in college, this Jesus Christ stuff never really made any sense to me. As Gore Vidal says, it’s a “Bronze-age religion”. To me it’s a perfectly emtpy idea that you are somehow special if you “believe” that Mary was a virgin, Jesus was God, and he was resurrected. So?? Why does God favor those who happen to believe in this particular supernatural series of events?<br />
Ironic that in Western Europe traditional Christianity is dying, and yet they behave more as Jesus would have wanted. They have universal health care. They believe that a sign of a great society is how well the poorest are treated. They believe “welfare-state” is a good word, while we consider it a bad word.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://stillbwater.blogspot.com/2004/04/spectrum-in-review-part-2.html">Next: Part 2</a></span>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-7252386052714982662005-01-02T17:55:00.000-08:002011-06-23T17:05:13.402-07:00Some Cheap Philosophy for the New YearIt seems fashionable these days to use the ideas in quantum physics to explain things we observe in our everyday world, like the notion that nothing exists until it is actually observed. This is expanded upon to generate the idea that we can create our own reality, or we can change reality by thinking. Well, I say, yes, it is a psycological truth that our own attitude can change the way in which we view the world. It’s called the Pygmallion effect - if we can picture something, and if we have the internal motivation, we can bring it to be. For instance in 1998 I pictured myself tuning pianos, and now I do it. But this is an idea that has been around for centuries and it doesn’t really have anything to do with quantum physics, does it? Bertram Russell thought up all this stuff a long time ago. [see note below].<br />
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Another annoyance is the implication that people bring on their own unhappiness because of their own inadequate beliefs. True in some cases, yes, but it’s a “blame the victim” philosophy. It is true that we each see the world in our own unique way due to our biases, and sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us. But on the other hand, I also believe there is such a thing as external reality. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, would we?<br />
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When people talk about life after death, they often say something like “oh, the energy we have goes on in some form after we die”. I get a little bit irked about the use of the word “energy”, I guess because I have a degree in physics, and “energy” means something measureable and observable. I think sometimes there's confusion when folks use a metaphor but don’t realize it’s just a metaphor. The “energy” or “soul” lives on after death, so they say, like some kind of ghostie floating around or something. Perhaps I came off as a hard-headed skeptic, I just have a problem when people confuse the observed and measureable things in our world with those things which are metaphors can not be measured. I'm cool with metaphors, just realize that’s what it is.<br />
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I had a chat a while back with a guy who was convinced that we have previous lives; there is such a thing as psychics and ghosts; blah-de-blah-blah. I tried to be open-minded yet reasonably skeptical with him. But he was a “believer” and he tried to convince me of his truth, almost the same way an evangelical Christian would try to convert me. I thought it a bit ironic - it’s like he was being closed-minded about his open-mindedness.<br />
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I’m not saying that the universe consits of only the observable and measureable, I just object to people holding on to stupid ideas which have been proven to be untrue, like psychic phenomena, and it pisses me off when people think they can “prove” ideas which are inherently unprovable. There is a vast, vast universe beyond what we can measure and prove, and there is such thing as the “soul”, but to me it is a metaphorical reality. For instance, it is the soul, or the true self, which told me that engineering was the wrong occupation for me. And the fact that there is indeed a vast, vast universe of things beyond human understanding is, well, mind-blowing. And although I am a skeptic, it’s interesting to speculate about what is at that boundary between the knowable and the unknowable. Maybe we will meet again at some enormously distant time in the future, can’t prove it not to be true.<br />
<br />
Ok, here’s my theology in a nutshell: imagine a huge black sheet of paper with a small white circle on it. The white circle is what we humans can measure, explain, and predict with observation and science. The black paper is the great mystery. Maybe the little white circle gets bigger as we advance, but the overall sheet of paper is enormous. Maybe even infinite. Call the whole thing “God” if you want to. And what one individual human can comprehend is an even smaller circle within the circle. Having said that, it also remains true that the universe does have physical rules and “God” is NOT capricious.<br />
Vast and mysterious, but not capricious.<br />
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NOTE: My thinking about this sort of thing was set off by watching a movie called |“<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399877/">What the bleep Do We Know</a>”| and having a discussion with a few people afterwards. The topics in the movie include quantum physics, psychology, metaphysics, and spirituality. The film features interviews with individuals presented as experts in science and spirituality. The film has received |<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_bleep#Controversial_aspects_of_the_film">widespread criticism from the scientific community</a>| and grossly misrepresents the meaning of various principles of quantum mechanics. In fact a physicist in the film, David Albert, has stated that his comments in the film were placed so out-of-context that his views were totally misrepresented.StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-47481421566942252772004-09-29T12:15:00.001-07:002012-03-30T12:23:59.903-07:00Daria the Lonely Lioness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc3031tNqBoJ1u7mLjlPEqSFjdMPxdH3tvfV4vAGq_5yrJC1AFfqyLPNt4aBNWeZ2OkewORF6gMMn90hNF0FEmqaAaCLGSAIzv5GCdwI7Q7iqpLuIAvmBCgGq_pPESaCI6HVCKYZfXf7rW/s1600/LonelyLion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc3031tNqBoJ1u7mLjlPEqSFjdMPxdH3tvfV4vAGq_5yrJC1AFfqyLPNt4aBNWeZ2OkewORF6gMMn90hNF0FEmqaAaCLGSAIzv5GCdwI7Q7iqpLuIAvmBCgGq_pPESaCI6HVCKYZfXf7rW/s320/LonelyLion.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Once upon a time there was a lioness named Daria who lived on a vast savannah. The landscape was brown and mostly flat, with sparse areas of yellow grass. It was usually quiet, hot, and without a breeze. She survived on small rodents, but there was nothing else to eat, and there was no other life around, and she had no lion friends. On the east end of her domain was a river, and beyond the river was a green forest. She imagined the forest was cool and filled with a variety of life; maybe even other lions that she could make friends with; even find a husband. Often times she gazed over the river and imagined herself in the forest, playing with the other animals over there, smelling all the interesting scents, and feasting on the variety of foods to be found. But she could not go over because the river was cold, wet, and even worse, dark and mysterious. She did not know how deep it was, and she was sure it held pirhanna and other viscious creatures that could kill her.<br />
The more she stared over the river, the more depressed she became because she was so bored in her monotonous savannah, and she kept thinking about how happy she would be with new friends in the forest. She began spending more time looking toward the east, and took her naps closer and closer to the edge of the river.<br />
One day Daria decided she just could not stand the savannah one minute longer, and slowly moved toward the river. She was very frightened, but she walked slowly and deliberately into the muddy and mysterious water. It was freezing and it was so dark she could not see what was down there, and the bottom was icky, but she kept going, step by step, deeper and deeper, until she could barely hold her head above the water. Then she felt something attack her and bite her in the side. Terrified, she tried to get away from whatever it was, but she was bogged down in the mud. She felt more bites from the school of viscious pirhannas. They tore her flesh, and she thrashed in the water, but the more she thrashed, the more bogged down she got, and became so weak from the struggle she eventually lost consciousness.<br />
* * *<br />
When she awoke and slowly opened her eyes, she came to realize that she somehow was on the other side of the river. She saw the outlines of the trees, now above her, that she used to gaze at from afar. Then she saw an elephant looking down at her with a friendly face. "That was a close one" said the elephant. "You could have died, but luckily I was able to pull you out of the river".<br />
Daria didn't say anything. In fact she didn't say or do much of anything for the next few days because she was so tired and disoriented. Someone was bringing her food while she slept, maybe the elephant who saved her life.<br />
Eventually she had the strength to get up and walk around. She wandered around the area, exploring the riverside and the woods. It was nice, but not exactly the paradise she envisioned when she lived on the west side of the river. She thought there would be lots of great friends to play with, but she had not really found anyone yet. The friendly elephant was nowhere to be found. But she was still happy to be on this side of the river. It was shady, and cool, and she found good food to eat.<br />
After a number of days of exploring, she found that other lions did live over here on this side of the river. She came to be acquainted with a very nice family of lions, who introduced her other friends. She came to be accepted by this group of friends, though it was after some time (you know how cats can be). She told them about living on the other side of the river and her ordeal when she tried to come across. "Was it worth it ?" they asked.<br />
"Of course" Daria said. "I can't believe I lived over there in that wasteland for so long. Even though I have not found a husband yet, it was worth it. Even though life is still a struggle in many ways, it was worth it. It was worth it because I have met you, and it was worth it because I know I can endure just about any hardship now because I endured crossing the river. Life over here is not what I thought it would be, but life is good."<br />
Daria grew happier and happier as the days went on, not because she had found paradise, but because she was in a better place, and she had survived a crisis which she gained strength from. This was a strength that carried her through the tough times, and made her grateful for the good times. And yes, although it was not a fairy-tale kind of happy, she did live happily ever after.StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-67087810627634044782003-12-07T08:08:00.000-08:002011-06-23T17:10:08.282-07:00Some words from Dr. James Forbes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPGeFoclM6kdR8uEh_ldsHjkRMcw39jlalgxTnLvvQ8DbBfwcPvO0mUO2O6W4am0dvasHJ0c3CJ8O58oe5aRbpWD5QnCm4TLMpNEI8GtlIclA7RVYYMcmWQtEN4f-CPZZ1emel9mNYzyR/s1600/RevForbes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPGeFoclM6kdR8uEh_ldsHjkRMcw39jlalgxTnLvvQ8DbBfwcPvO0mUO2O6W4am0dvasHJ0c3CJ8O58oe5aRbpWD5QnCm4TLMpNEI8GtlIclA7RVYYMcmWQtEN4f-CPZZ1emel9mNYzyR/s1600/RevForbes.JPG" /></a></div><span style="color: #000099;">The Rev. Dr. James Forbes is the senior minister at <a href="http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/">|Riverside Churc</a>h| in New York City. The PBS series <i>NOW With Bill Moyer</i>s (12/26/03) interviewed him and showed some clips from his sermons. He is articulate, passionate, and persuasive. Here is some of what he said:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"What is God thinking about in these times of war, and a widening gap between the haves and have-nots? What is God thinking about when there are trends away from parity, equality, and justice? God's heart aches. And it is a <b><i>sin</i></b> to be silent."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"Jesus was tempted by the devil... I fear that the ideology informing the present policies of the nation are coming from some people who took the devil up on his offer: 'You elite, you handful with your special interests, if you act quickly, all the kingdoms of the world - their oil, their wealth, their resources - I will give it to you.' Jesus said <b><i>no</i></b>. But somebody helping to set policies in this nation said <b><i>yes</i></b>."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"The real issue that's facing our nation now is, how do we justify a corporate officer making, through his stocks and options and salary, <b><i>a thousand</i></b> times more than the lowest paid worker? How do you deal with that? And when you look at the consequences of this disproportion, that means that povery is a <b><i>weapon of mass destruction</i></b>. And yet in our capitalist society to raise questions about the freedom of some to enjoy an inordinate proportion of the resources, while others <b><i>die</i></b> for lack of basic subsistance necessities; that's going to be a hard conversation to have if God were our economic consultant. Would God say, 'Well, it's a free enterprise system and let it work and everything's going to be allright' ?<b><i> No</i></b>. God would say 'You've got to look at that again.'</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"We are called upon to hold a plumb-line up against the policies of this nation... It's a symbol of certain set of principles by which you can measure weather we are keeping faith with the principles upon which the nation was built. ... It is not an act of unpatriotic negation to love your nation well enough to tell the truth about it."</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">"Everything in my spirit is in revulsion against this domination, empire building, against the braggadocious prideful arrogance. The 'shock and awe' in Baghdad looked like it was not coming from God's assignment; it felt like it was the prideful way of saying, 'you mess with us, we're going to show you who we are'. There was something ungodly about the use of firepower in this way. The policies say we are trying to export democracy around the world, yet the homeland securities acts and the 'Patriot' act end up making us more vulnerable while at the same time robbing us of the liberties that our founding documents provide for us. And also, a handful of people... are selling down the river the concerns and the well-being of the masses of the people of the nation; to set policies, which upon examination, are primarily for the interests of the few rich people. Something is not right about that."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"The church perhaps is the only institution in this nation that can ask 'how are your principles squaring up?' - not only with the principles in the Bible, but with the principles found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Everybody else is scared to do it. The church had better be scared <b><i>not</i></b> to do it."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"Maybe, just maybe, God once thought that all of his children were going go be straight, then one day He discovered that one of his children, that <b><i>God had made</i></b>, actually was gay. What's God's attitude? 'Too bad' -? Oh, no. I think that the God who understands that out of the created order there's some straight people, some gay people, and some that are in-between. I think that the God that Jesus reveals to me would prefer that <b><i>special attention</i></b> be given to the child that was different, especially if that difference had occasioned rejection, humiliation, and ostracism."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099;">"The greatest theft of all is to rob one's right to <b><i>be</i></b>."</span><br />
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</span>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-28898475836050396622002-01-24T08:42:00.000-08:002012-01-24T08:43:50.450-08:00Some Favorite QuotationsHere is a collection of some of my favorite quotations. Many of these were obtained from a freeware quote program I found on the net a long time ago, some are from the newsgroup alt.quotations, and others I picked up from radio or TV. Let me know if you find inaccuracies, or if you know who said some of the non-acknowleged ones. <br />
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Wise quotes about life and stuff<br />
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There is no salvation in adapting to a world which is crazy. - Henry Miller, "The Colossus of Maroussi"<br />
Great spirits have always found violent oppression from mediocrities. - Einstein<br />
It may be possible to fight intolerance, stupidity, and fanaticism seperately, but when they come together there is no hope. - Einstein<br />
He who is in love with himself will have no rivals. - Ben Franklin<br />
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud<br />
Talk therapy turns hysterical misery to mundane unhappiness. - Sigmund Freud<br />
While one must have a destination, in the end it's the journey that matters. - U.K. LeGuinn<br />
No one can make you feel inferior without your permission. - Eleanor Roosevelt<br />
You have not only the right to be an individual, you have the obligation to be one. - Eleanor Roosevelt<br />
"Truth" never set anyone free. It is only doubt which will bring mental emancipation. - Anton LaVey<br />
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. - William James<br />
If the human mind were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. - Pat Bahn<br />
Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire<br />
When someone says 'I'm so disillusioned', I say 'Congratulations! You've lost another illusion.' - Parker Palmer<br />
To become what you are not, behave as you do not. - T.S. Eliot<br />
My faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. - Mark Twain<br />
Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas. - Arthur C. Clarke<br />
Much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are 'this' yet allow themselves to be treated as 'that'. - Maude in 'Harold and Maude'<br />
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell<br />
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are. - e.e. cummings<br />
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is commonly employed only by small children and large nations. - David Friedman<br />
If, after having been in someones presence, you feel as though you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence. - William S. Burroughs<br />
Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training. - Anna Freud<br />
To always hit the target, throw a dart, then call whatever you hit the target. - Ashleigh Brilliant<br />
We'd all be alot happier if we'd stop assuming we're supposed to be happy. - Garrison Keilor<br />
You can't carpet the whole world, but you can put on a pair of slippers. - Stuart Smalley<br />
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his abilities. - Oscar Wilde<br />
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. - Fred Bridge<br />
Bourgeois morality is largely a system of making cheap virtues a cloak for expensive vices. - George Bernard Shaw<br />
If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you might as well dance with it. - George Bernard Shaw<br />
Life is not like a box of chocolates unless there's a few turds in the box. - Bill Maher<br />
To have a happy ending, choose a happy moment and call it 'the ending'.<br />
Honesty is incompatible with the amassing of a large fortune. - Mohandas Gandhi, 1948<br />
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. - Gustave Flaubert<br />
He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over.<br />
The future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. - Isaac Asimov<br />
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss<br />
Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not. - Andre Gide<br />
There are a great many people who have a vested interest in maintaining the stupidity of the American public. - Gore Vidal<br />
Americans can be counted on to do the right thing -- after all other possibilities have been tried. - Winston Churchill<br />
America: a country that went from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. - John O'Hara<br />
A criminal is someone with predatory instincts but does not have suffecient capital to form a corporation. - Howard Scott<br />
Political language is designed to make lies seem truthful and murder seem acceptable. - George Orwell<br />
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of the American people. - H. L. Mencken<br />
The crumbling of Rome took 250 years. We have the political talent in this country to do it in a couple of decades. - Kevin Phillips<br />
The Bush administration made us nostalgic for ... well, any other time in history. - Hal Sparks<br />
A good engineer can tell you how to build a bridge; A great engineer can tell you if it's really needed. - E.C. Grace<br />
If God had intended man to use computers, he would have given him 16 fingers.<br />
If computers take over, it will serve us right. - Alistair Cooke<br />
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. - Gerald Weinberg<br />
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image. - Stephen Hawking<br />
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Miscellaneous Celebrity Quotes<br />
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All dogs look up to you. All cats look down to you. Only pigs look at you as an equal. - Winston Churchill<br />
If women ran the world there would be no wars. However every 28 days there would be some very intense negotiations. - Robin Williams<br />
Between the Pope and air conditioning, I’ll take air conditioning - Woody Allen on science and religion<br />
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. - Elizabeth Taylor<br />
I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle it's much too confining. - Lilly Tomlin<br />
I've played a murderer, so certainly I think I can play a Republican. - Alan Alda<br />
I am not in denial. I am just selective about the reality I accept. - Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes)<br />
All messages from Satan are played forward and are in standard American English. - from a George Carlin album cover<br />
The best anti-depressant pill for me would be one the size of a house so you could drop it on me and put me out of my misery. - Walter Kern<br />
I never wanted to live to see the day that the most powerful people in the world were named Bush, Dick, and Colon. - Kurt Vonnegut<br />
If somebody tries to tell me the earth was created in 7 days I take a fossil and say "FOSSIL". If he still won't shut up I throw it at him. - Lewis Black<br />
Yes, I only took five sandwiches on my flight. I figured if I made it to Paris, that's all I would need. And if I didn't make it to Paris, that's all I would need. - Charles Lindburgh<br />
If homosexuality is a disease, we should call in sick to work: 'Hello, can't come in, still queer'. - Robin Tyler<br />
My films can be considered political action against the tyranny of good taste. - John Waters<br />
I didn't have a problem with drugs, I had a problem with policemen. - Keith Richards<br />
We didn't have prozac back in the 70's but thankfully we had you. - To Joni Mitchell from a fan<br />
Could you come up here and tune this thing? - Jimi Hendrix from stage, to Eric Clapton in the audience<br />
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side. - Han Solo<br />
In a world gone mad, only the crazy are truly insane. - Homer Simpson<br />
The Vatican is asking that in lieu of flowers, just stop touching your dick. - Bill Maher on the death of the pope<br />
You can't go around telling people you're King just because some watery tart lobbed a sword at you. - Monty PythonStillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-12839558977716055982001-12-05T17:49:00.000-08:002011-06-23T16:58:26.211-07:00Is the World As It's Meant To Be?Is the world as it's "meant" to be or is it chaos?<br />
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New-Age philosophy says that events happen as they are “supposed” to, and that everything happens for a “reason”, and that adversity in life has the purpose of teaching us something. You can read any of the hundreds of new-age books out there and they will tell you pretty much the same thing: “You must learn to love yourself and when you do the universe will bring good things to you.”... “There is a reason you were put on earth at this place and time.”... “Visualize good things and set your intentions and it shall come to be.”... “There are no coincidences, just synchronicity.” blah-de-blah-de-blah.<br />
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I don’t completely buy this stuff nor do I completely reject it. What it means to me is to be open minded and to be able to pay attention to what we may not normally see. Synchronicity is not a magic trick from the universe but it describes events that surprise us or jog the brain. Inspiration can come from synchronicity if we are open-minded enough to see it. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in the concerns of daily life that we don’t see those interesting and surprising things that pass before our eyes. Creative people take those little surprises and build on them to make art. Much creativity comes from putting unlikely things together in a new and unexpected way. But I don’t think the universe “intentionally” sends these things to us. They just happen. And the open-minded people can take the stuff thrown at them in life and make new connections. One feels much less powerless in a world of chaos when one can create something out of the stuff and share it.<br />
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When a dear friend of mine died, my new-age friend said he’s fulfilled his purpose in life and has moved to a higher level. This was “meant” to be in the cosmic scheme of things. Well, baloney. It was chaos, really. A very small electrical anomaly in his heart caused a catastrophe. Perhaps a micro-volt of difference would have saved him and he would still be here. It is hard for people to accept the idea that a tiny event could cause big tragedies. And yet we still must have some belief that something coherent holds everything together.<br />
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The world flows around us and we can’t stop it. It’s like being in a flowing river. Each moment is gone in the blink of an eye. All kinds of shit both good and bad flow down and bump into us. In some ways I must “go with the flow” and realize it’s impossible to stop some of the shit from flowing by. But I must also have the strength and the motivation to swim up and grab the good shit when it drifts by. Some days the river is calm and clear. Other days there’s shit everywhere. There is a balance in life between allowing the river to flow and having the strength to go against the flow in order to grab the good stuff. The river can’t be stopped but it’s extremely wide and there are many paths that can be taken along it.<br />
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Each moment is gone as soon as it passes, yet each moment <i>exists</i> just like every place along a river exists, even though it is behind or in front of you. Each view along the way is unique. I can look back and see it with a different perspective. I see the directions that I did not take and wonder why. But it is neither reasonable nor constructive to dwell on the paths not taken. I should look ahead and pay attention to the present place and where I’m going. If I look back for too long I will slam into a bunch of rocks.<br />
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And what of the future ? If all moments exist, is the future already there ? Tomorrow at this time will certainly arrive and things in the world will be in a certain configuration at that moment. The moment exists but is it fixed ? Is it fated to be the way it was “meant” to be ? If all molecules behave in a predictable manner according to physics, and everyone’s brain is made of those molecules, then we have no choice about what will be happening at that moment or any other moment. But if molecules behave according to chance and chaos, we don’t really have any choice either, do we ?<br />
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Our consciousness gives us the illusion that we have free will. I have the choice between continuing to write this stream of whatever, or I could stop and make some toast. But do I have a choice ? My stomach is dictating that I should eat something. But my brain can decide whether to eat now or later. The moment of my eating toast <i>exists </i>but hasn’t arrived yet.<br />
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This is, of course, a theological question. If all moments are already laid out in time, then praying to a deity is quite useless. But then again, if all moments are already laid out in time, then who did it ?<br />
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Contemplating our own consciousness and time makes one realize that there must be something greater than ourselves because the universe is so incomprehensible.<br />
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Time for toast.StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-81371104882360440162001-09-21T08:26:00.000-07:002012-01-24T08:38:02.170-08:00My Little Forum about Music and Emotion<table bgcolor="#CBF1FE" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" cols="1" style="background-color: #ccffff;"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CAEDFF" width="1%"><span style="color: #000099;">I've been reading a book by Joe Jackson called <i>A Cure For Gravity</i>, where he talks about his love of music and the wide variety of his personal experiences with it. He often mentions the great and mysterious relationship between music and emotion. So I was inspired to make this tiny contribution to bringing "normalcy" back to our lives after the events of 9/11: a forum about music and emotion. </span><span style="color: #000099;">Here are some jumping-off points that you can ponder:</span><br />
<ul><li><span style="color: #000099;">What the heck do people really mean at the end of a concert when they say <i>"oh, it was so emotional"</i> ?</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000099;">Why do Major keys generally seem "happy" and minor keys "sad"? </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000099;">Igor Stravinski said: "Music is powerless to express anything other than itself". Do you agree? Does music <i>really</i> carry emotion, or is it just notes, subject to the unique psychology of the individual listener? </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000099;">If a group of New Guineans who never heard western music before, heard Barber's <i>Adagio for Strings</i>, (which we in the West consider a sad piece), would they feel sad ? Or, if they heard a <i>Can-Can</i>, would they get happy? Or would it make no sense to them at all? In other words, how <i>universal</i> is music?</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000099;">I’m interested in your unique perspective. What music touches you and why?</span></li>
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<span style="color: #000099;">Expand on the subject in any way you like, and use as many words as you see fit. And pass this on to any highly or moderately intelligent persons you may know. I will post all responses here (let me know if you do <i>not </i>want your address to be posted).</span><br />
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<tr><td> <span style="color: #000099;">--- David P. Gillis <dpvangillis@aol.com> Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:10:33 EDT:</dpvangillis@aol.com></span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="color: #000099;">Haydn and Stravinsky were quite right. Music doesn't really express emotion. It may evoke it, but only in the broadest sense, and not in a uniform matter. There is an abstract psychology to music based on certain fixed elements (the use of brass instuments, the use of the secondary dominant chord as transition, etc.,) but music itself is not a fixed form, as is, say painting, sculpture, or the written word. Music, Dance, and any of the performing arts are "time"arts-- there is an element of ephemera which is infinitely difficult to re-create. (This is why Toscanini always said, "That's why they're called NOTES!" A bad paraphrase, but you know what I mean.) </span><span style="color: #000099;">To be honest, we live in a fortunate time. Think of how many musicians before us would have sold their-- well-- this is the first time in history that we can actally hear Stravinsky play Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg. I sigh for Handel & Scarlatti. </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">And on a personal note (everyone asks...) My favorite composers are still Handel, Haydn and Stravinsky (and on the odd day, Debussy.) </span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #000099;"> --- Bud Allen <smeebud@worldnet.att.net> Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:00:00 -0400:</smeebud@worldnet.att.net></span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="color: #000099;">Unless I misunderstood Igor Stravinski, "music", in it's broad sence most certainly expresses more than itself. Music is expression of the soul/heart/???.</span><span style="color: #000099;"> Listen to Black Mambazo, before they went commercial ( which is a whole different discussion) and you feel. Weather you feel joy where joy was not the implied emotion or not, to me, makes no difference; you feel.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan, His saddest expressions makes my heart feel as though it is about to burst with Joy.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">It's hard to talk about Stevie without mentioning Syncopation. Unless you know a particular piece my heart, you're ear will not anticipate the next note or phrase. A surprise to the ear.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Listen to Mark Knopfler and he can take you, (as a Taxi picks you up and takes you to a destination) "to" agony and drop you off at ecstasy; leaving you wanting more!</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">In the fifties 100's of songs had a chord progression of (C, Am, F, G), or that same progression in different keys. So, a minor key when taken standing alone may sound sad, where it is and how it's expressed counteracts the force or effectiveness of that "almost there" sound. Just as a suspended chord creates tension that is relieved when the suspended note is resolved to the next chord, so to is with the minor chord...........</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #000099;"> --- (anonymous) Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:48:59 -0700:</span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="color: #000099;">Happy Lynard Skynard makes me happy,</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">I truly enjoy Ernest Tubb</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">I do not understand polka but it makes many people happy.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">I hope to elucidate when time permits.</span><span style="color: #000099;">Modern rap is an abomination.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Marshall Mathers makes me think very bad things about music industry executives.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">How stupid are we to let them make money from such shit.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Remember music vibrates.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">A minor chord slide from a major chord in barbershop....</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">well it just doesn't get any better.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #000099;"> --- Michael Wright <mlwright@siscom.net> Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:46:12 -0400:</mlwright@siscom.net></span><br />
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<tr><td width="90%"><span style="color: #000099;">Can there be any doubt that music is a form of communication? As a matter of fact, I feel music can communicate some ideas or emotions much better than words can. As with any form of communication, there is the communicator and the intended recipient. There are so many (almost infinite) possibilities and variations in this type of comunication: The message set to music and possibly words by the composer and his/her talent in presenting it; the</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">talent level and sensitivity of the musician(s); the musical knowledge, experiences, and sensitivity of the listener(s); the context or venue in which the music is presented. Add in to the equation the current emotions that the performer(s) and listener(s) bring in to the situation as well asthings such as Zeitgeit or social influences. Do we as mere mortals have any hope of ever fully understanding music?</span><span style="color: #000099;">Singing in Dayton Bach Society is a great experience. Many of us who have sang there have sang Bach and other composers works with other choral groups, not knowing the full intracies of the music as often pointed out by Dick Benedum. And can we ever hope to know all of the intracies of it?</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">My answer is no. But it is also my philosophy that humans exist to grow and learn, both, as individuals and as a race. Therefore, it is worthwhile to perform the music even if you don't fully understand it or the composer and,</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">likewise, it is important to learn and grow from the experience and try to gain a more fuller understanding and awareness in all aspects. I feel that humans cannot and will not ever attain perfection in any effort, but by our</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">very essence we are not excused from trying to attain it because of the rewards and growth we obtain in that striving.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Okay...I'm stepping down from the soapbox now.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">* People refering to a perfomance as "emotional" can only be referring to their own reactions (since we are not mind or emotion readers of others). Perhaps they were touched by the performance. The levels that individuals are touched by a performance certainly can vary from individuals.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">* I'm not sure why major keys sound happy and minor ones sound sad. It does seem to be a Western Music concept. Why do the whole-tone or 5 note scales used in some Eastern Music seem so much more subtle in their sounds and ideas? I do feel that a lot of Western Music is built upon the concept of anticipation, both tonally and rythmicly (sp?). If you play a major scale going up and end on the 7th note, does it not seem unfinished? Does the</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">musical ride not seem incomplete? And how the heck did we end up on that ride anyway? I think tonally, we get conditioned to hearing the 8th note of the scale as a natural conclusion to the scale. If you listen to James Brown</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">singing "I Feel Good" and you stop playing the recording just before he sings the "...I got you!" line, does that not feel incomplete? It seems to me that rythmic anticipation is what makes most percussion sounds into music. Banging a stick on a rock like a metronome is not music in my opinion. Throw in a different instrument (percussive or otherwise) playing a differnt rythm (I really ought to look up how to spell that damn word!) or throw in a kick or riff in time with that metronomic beating, then that is music. Thin line, eh! </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">* I'm not all that big on Stravinsky. I think he's sort of a hack who got lucky. Music is all about the interaction of the performer and listener, the link that is formed between them. While a person may be able to look at notes on a page and imagine the sounds, the notes have not been brought to life, so to speak. I think that his quote is a particularly assinine comment in view that he was (sort of) a composer. No wonder he wrote all of that 12 tone crap that had very little meaning to people, even after hours and days of analyzing it. I think he set out to make music have no meaning. Unfortunately (at least for us who were forced to analyze his "music" in class), even his collections of notes have some, albeit unintentional, emotional experession. My opinion, take it for what it's worth (Can I help</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">it that I'm a Wagner fan).</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">* A group of New Guineans would probably find Barber's "Adagio" at least interesting. Would they feel sad? I sort of doubt it because they have not been raised with that music tradition. However, I do believe they might find the "Can-Can" to be a happy piece because of it's upbeat rhythm (Hey...I finally spelled it right!), a style they could probably identify with. It's more than the notes or the scale that make the music.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Consider this: Why does the song "America the Beautiful" have so much meaning to so many people right now? To me its still the song they made us sing in fourth grade that we liked to make fun of! Obviously, the song has</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">become identified with the Congress singing it and the events of September 11. Would we have appreciated Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" more if they had sung that instead? This is actually a more interesting topic than it first appears. More and more, the media appears intent upon relagating music to a background role in association with another medium. Soundtracks are a prime example of this. I had not heard "Adagio" until I saw the movie platoon. Now, I have trouble disassociating it from that movie and context (visions of Willem Defoes death by betrayal). How about "Fanfare for the Common Man" or Pachelbel's "Canon"? How about "Ride of the Walkeries" sung by Elmer Fudd or in the movie "Apocalypse Now"? The interesting thing for me about "Adagio" is that, once I tried to listen to it apart from the movie and with an open mind, I found a different emotional context for the song.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Can we try to disassociate music form the context in which we've heard it before and discover a new emotional meaning? I belive we can. Try it sometime!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #000099;"> --- David B. Stang <stangdave@voyager.net> Tue, 25 Sept 2001 13:09:04 EDT:</stangdave@voyager.net></span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="color: #000099;">Mike, I'm afraid I have to disagree about Stravinsky. First, the great majority of his music was not "12-tone crap". He dabbled with 12-tone some, but mainly as an experiment, I think. Secondly and most importantly, he is not only one of the great composers, but one of the great minds of the 20th century. His music was shocking to some at the beginning of the century, just as Picasso's and Einstein's ideas were difficult to swallow at first. But his music is without question brilliant and groundbreaking, whether you happen to enjoy listening to it or not. </span><span style="color: #000099;">Also, how can you say his quote is "asinine", when you go on to say in your last sentence that one <i>can </i>disassociate music from a previous context and discover a new emotional meaning. Also you said above: "People refering to a perfomance as 'emotional' can only be referring to their own reactions". Seems to me that <i>supports </i>Stravinski.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #000099;"> --- (anonymous) Fri, 28 Sep 2001 02:27:32 -0400:</span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="color: #000099;">What music touches me?</span><span style="color: #000099;">Marlene Dietrich singing in German and French (brings the full power of a different era)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Berthe Sylvae (French)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Edith Piaf (French)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Jacques Brel</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Mozart's Requiem (only when I'm suffering deep depression -- if so, I play it over and over and over)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Bach's Toccata and Fugue (there is just raw power in this music). </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Barry Sisters (their greatest Yiddish hits)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Cher (her talent is underestimated)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Parliament (pure animal)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Doris Day (See the USA in Your Chevrolet) </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Annie Lennox (Lenox?)</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Dolly Parton </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Most "classical" music bores me. But occasionally I'm in the mood to enjoy it. Truly depends upon my mood. </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Some music energizes me. Occasionally I like to hear the techno music that is played on the island of Ibiza (decadent place for European eroticism).</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Some music makes me cry. I dare not listen to it. It is too powerful. It unsettles me. I lose control. It brings back painful memories. </span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">One song reminds me of my father being on a respirator. It's very upsetting. I can't stand it. Makes me very angry when I hear a particular rock song that is about breathing. I can just feel my father's labored breathing. It feels like the song mocks his suffering. Naturally at an intellectual level I know that this is ridiculous, but at an emotional (what the hell does "emotional" mean?) level it affects me greatly.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Music can inspire soldiers in war. Create esprit de corps in a platoon. Consider marches. All soldiers are synchronized. Same with religious music.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Do animals enjoy music? We humans are animals. But cats and dogs don't seem to notice music very much. Or do they?</span><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7474616815846336720&postID=8137110488236044016" name="Barkerlinks"></a><span style="color: #000099;">In response to your question about individuals who are non-western who hear western music for the first time, I send the following article:</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Recer.html">The Comfort Effect of Music, by Paul Recer</a></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #000099;"> --- Jack and Susan Hillbrand <jhaaia@woh.rr.com> Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:51:24 -0400</jhaaia@woh.rr.com></span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="color: #000099;"> As you may recall, I can not sing well nor play any instrument. Susan played flute, guitar, and piano in her youth and she has a lovely and sweet voice. Our comments are basically from a layman's point of view. However, we have read the subject of music and we have attended a multitude of voice and instrumental concerts.</span><span style="color: #000099;">Per your questions, we think Stravinski was correct. It seems to us that music and emotions are subconscious interactions in the mind with the emotions delivered by the listener. Sadness, and other emotions are probably conditional responses we learn and we bring those experiences to a musical performance. Yo Yo Ma recently commented that ''Music was a way of putting all our thoughts and emotions into order and into perspective - music, specifically classical music, can hold within it all those complex emotions of sorrow, anger, and bewilderment.'' And that for example, Denyce Graves's singing of Malotte's setting of ''The Lord's Prayer'' at the service in the National Cathedral. ''That was amazing - very, very moving.''</span><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Then in particular about memorial services he said that, ''The music served to bring people together in a kind of fellowship and it holds them there, in the moment. I have never felt more moved to be playing; every note meant so much more, both to me and to everyone who was listening.'' . . . ''Memorial services bring everything together, and such times, music is particularly meaningful. While I was playing the Sarabande in Bach's Sixth Suite for solo cello, I was thinking about some pairs of phrases in the second half. One phrase asks the question `Why?' and the other phrase says, `Because.' Music can't answer the why, but it helps us deal with that kind of question.'</span><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7474616815846336720&postID=8137110488236044016" name="Hillbrandlinks"></a><br />
<span style="color: #000099;">What follows are quotes and other articles we researched and like -</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://home.roadrunner.com/~Davidsrrpage/forum/MusicQuotes.html">Some Musical Quotations</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Theories.html">Three Theories of Emotion</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Healy.html">An Effect-Perceiving Interface</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Cullen.html">Music and Song in Discussion</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Science_1.html">Exploring the Musical Brain</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Science_2.html">From Mind's Eye to Emotion's Seat</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/BirdsWhales.html">Humpbacks, Hummingbirds, and Human Composers</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Cheesecake.html">Auditory Cheesecake or Evolutionary Advantage?</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Unkn.html">How Can Music Excite, Calm, or Depress People?</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Marr.html">Emotions in Music, by Andrew Marr</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/DarkSide.html">The Dark Side of Music</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Mitry.html">Music and Film, by Jean Mitry</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/jas79.html">Music in the Movies, by jas79</a><br />
<a href="file:///D:/D%20Davidsrrpage-l/forum/Music&theBible.html">Music and the Bible</a></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7474616815846336720.post-84526448959627772582001-08-15T17:43:00.000-07:002011-06-23T19:37:14.403-07:00The Death of My ChildhoodMy brother says I had a kind of “certainty” when I was a kid. What he means, I think, is that I created things without self-conscious doubt. I used my imagination without inhibition. I made hundreds of crayon drawings, I made tapes of my own silly radio shows, I wrote adorably funny letters, I played piano, I made little pieces of pottery, I went looking for frogs, I laughed at my Dad’s Spike Jones records, I danced around the house.<br />
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The end of this “certainty” was the death of my childhood. There is a piece of the brain that tells us we are not “supposed” to do certain things, and this piece of the brain is encouraged by our parents, teachers, and peers as we grow up. There’s a way we are “supposed” to draw, “supposed” to speak; things we are “supposed” to be interested in. Peers at school told me I was supposed to like competitive sports, and not supposed to like things that girls like.<br />
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The death of childhood is like the expulsion from Eden. It’s the realization that someone is judging you. It is the development of conscious. The things you do matter to those out in the world: parents, friends, society, God. The nightmares of childhood creep up: <i>Why don’t other kids like me</i> ? <i>Why does my brother call me a sissy</i> ? <i>Why do my parents consider me a problem</i> ? My answer to these and similar questions was: <i>I must be messed up in some way. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
I still have a kind of nagging notion that "supposed" to be laboring out there somehow every day. There are those who would say I am "wasting my education" if I am not working a professional job. There is a paternal voice from within that says not working hard is a very bad thing. Perhaps this is the "nightmare" part of childhood lingering in my brain. Society says we are not "grown up" if we are not working as a responsible person should. If I respond to this pressure am I really "grown up", or am I really still a child because I am listening to this rigid voice ? What is <i>really</i> growing up ? It is not necessarily leaving behind childhood frivolities and going to work. It is leaving behind the paternal stern voice and listening to what comes from my true self.<br />
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The second death of childhood comes when we mature enough to realize that we should not be burdened by negative judgements. When we realize that God loves us as we are. When we realize that it is OK to be sensitive. The new-age phrase “finding the inner child” I think really means growing up and rejecting the guilt and negative self-judgement still left over from the nightmares of childhood. If there had never been these nightmares and monsters then perhaps we would still be in that state of grace where we could freely create without worrying about the expectations of parents, teachers, etc. The true adult understands his responsibilities without taking on undue or imagined responsibilities. This is a shift from acting upon fear, to acting upon love. It's finding the inner <i>adult</i>.<br />
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The first death of childhood occurs when we stop playing and start working. When school and books stop being fun and begin to feel like a burden. When we stop creating because we know there are better creators in the world, so why bother. When we give up those “little boy” activities and start longing for a sexual partner, and realize how lonely we are.<br />
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The second death of childhood occurs when we realize we do not need to be bound by what the paternal inner voices are saying. When we realize that fanciful dreams are OK, but also understand our true responsibilities to ourselves and others. When we feel free to love and know we deserve to be loved.<br />
What’s really childish is to let the crap we have been conditioned with, bind us.<br />
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<i>It's ok for me to dance around the house. It's ok for me to make crayon drawings. It's ok for me to make a web site.</i><br />
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</i>StillBlueWaterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09497375345059218790noreply@blogger.com0