To thine own self be true

(Pre-school kids need guidance, exploration, freedom, process, and books more than ever before)

………………………..

…that preaches that buying a Volvo is a sure-fire way for becoming an individual in today’s crazy mixed-up world.

There are many good things that have to do with ‘others’ and ‘other’ like getting along with others, respecting parents, people and Nature, knowing how to communicate, being able to work within society, etc., but beyond that, this is your life and, as in the general flow and evolution of Western civilization, much of life has to do with personal consciousness and the importance of being an individual: accepting yourself as such, following your bliss/dreams, realizing your life goals, values, and potential, as well as being true to the unique person, spirit, and individual that you are.  Freedom and process experiences as well as understanding of basic truths and patterns about humans and life remain Core.

Kids of pre-school age must have lots of freedom to explore and to make their own choices. They need parents who don’t just throw their phones and tablets at them, selling their souls out to The Machine. In elementary and secondary schools, kids basically need support and encouragement to grow and keep moving toward the desirable goal of autonomy. They need to explore, but they need responsible caring teachers, learning structures which facilitate increased consciousness, positive values, and significant subject matter needed to make good, astute personal choices. This requires much reading and information acquisition with an eye to increasing use of structure, pattern, meaning, and purpose in a wide variety of interrelational contexts (because, context tends to determine and limit choices).

Always in a school, college, and university setting, there should be a strong emphasis, too, on process and exploration. Within the ‘system’ and The Machine under these circumstances, individual students come to find themselves more easily and acquire values and learnings to help direct their lives (in addition to any of these derived from both home and parents).

But, inevitably, the evolution of a learner, with challenging significant subject matter and thoughtful, sensitive teachers and profs, should be toward much information, knowledge, pattern awareness, perception, understanding, and any appreciation. Kids and young people need a lot of attention, caring, structure, authority, and guidance along the way. In fact, it is those things which make the long roads of process to more fulfilling versions of freedom and independence.

At the bottom of each child’s/person’s development is consciousness, what a person knows and comes to learn about life in order to function and respond effectively and responsibly to myriad future life contexts and situations.Not only is personal survival at stake, but often achievement, self-actualization, and success on whatever levels.

There has to be important basic information, knowledge, and learning along the way, not just a soulless surrender to robots, machines, and technolological distractions. Being happy with who one is, knowing oneself, and having the freedom to live life on one’s own created terms are the typical keys to becoming a happy, well-adjusted individual. Freedom of choices in one’s life has long been a reliable indicator of happiness, success, and fulfilment within the history of Western civilization. The same is more important than ever before in today’s world of rapid changes, widespread deconstruction, and end of permanence as we once understood it.

in 1907’s classic The Secret Agent, with the botched anarchist bomb attempt on Greenwich Observatory, was, ironically, the successful taking out of the equally iconic Twin Towers during 9/11 a century later.
Like Orwell, Conrad was one of the two greatest twentieth-century authors and thinkers about the future and the nasty destructive instincts of the enemies of Western civilization.

and folded, first and foremost, like a cheap lawn chair in its surrender to technology and The Machine. These latter two are, along with tyrannical widespread political correctness, the main limited/limiting agendas that now make up and direct most of what passes for public and university ‘education’.

Education and educators have abandoned a long-time loyalty to democracy and broader-based learning. Books, reading, and critical thinking have all been seriously deposed, resulting in increased shallowness of students. They have less depth, less perspective, less common sense, reduced limited thinking process, and subject matter (of consequence) background. More and more, they know little and less.

‘Growing minds’ now simply means learning about technology and increasing surrender to The Machine. The result is, simply and obviously, a deliberate straitjacketing of human possibilities and development of individual consciousness and personal  freedom. That amidst the non-stop onslaughts on nurturing any significant personal meaning and purpose.

has been reduced to what T.S. Eliot called “a heap of broken images” in what critics used to call the greatest poem of the twentieth century–“The Waste Land”.

Western civilization has peaked already in the new millennium–9/11 was a good indicator of that; more lately confirmed by the Brexit crisis, the many large Western immigrant movements, and the Trump deconstruction/destruction era.

The forces of rapid chaotic change, the sellout to technology, the widespread moves to deconstruct institutions and alliances, and unchecked political agendas and tyranny all signal “The End”. Normal, definitely and decidedly, does not live here anymore, anywhere.

In North America and via worldwide hacker interference, individual freedom and democracy are both endangered conditions and states. One can easily say that The Machine, so hugely distrusted and feared after WWII and in the Sixties, has clearly and finally won. Also, as predicted in the Sixties, Nature and the Environment have lost big-time.

The main implications now and in the future for people in North America is less democracy, less personal freedom, and reduced consciousness and thinking–all things Orwell correctly forecast in the greatest, most important/influential novel of the twentieth century (sorry, Mockingbird)–Nineteen Eighty-four.

-One eye done at a time; until 2nd eye done, you don’t get the more balanced 20/20 effect
-Best to wait on driving till then so you can see the road in depth
-After both eyes done, only reading glasses needed
-Surgery takes about 15-20 mins.; my dr. did 20 others the day of my surgery; they do about 100/day at the Alex hospital here in town
-Eye is covered for one day then reinspected and drops begin; I’ve had no pain which is typical
-Main eye med runs 4 wks.; antibiotic for 2
-You pretty much need to keep eye covered for 4 wks when sleeping
-You can’t lift anything heavy for a month

Lenses installed in one eye, post-cataract.
Medical technology as World of Wonders.
(Saved my macular hole eye last year at this time already.)
Today, after the initial eye ‘cover-up’ in OR–three bright white holes in my vision. Distant white clouds in them occasionally parting to reveal tiny blue skies. Like looking up from the bottom of a well to the top. Visually hallucinogenic a la Rene Magritte, for sure.
Strangely relaxing. As Cohen sang in “Dress Rehearsal Rag”: “And wasn’t it a long way down. Wasn’t it a strange way down.”
Mid-Feb.: part 2.
The road to 20/20 with likely just reading glasses.

and Purveyor of American Obfuscation.
Immortalized by the most quotable quote of the dark, destructive Trump era: “Truth isn’t truth.”

My poet-friend Gerald St. Maur’s The Collected Poetry Vol. 1 & 2. A delightful mix of lyric, narrative, and dramatic poems by a present-day English Romantic from his ten previous poetry collections (1983-2015). Highly recommended. Two thumbs way up.

(Orwell meets Volvo)

Apparently the only best way you can become or remain an individual in this ever-increasing impersonal world is to buy a Volvo. “Follow No One” is the manufacturer’s easy, profitable solution for addressing this social problem. BTW/ I like the piped-in John Houseman Big Brother voice acting as an authority arbiter to sanction and rubber-stamp buying Volvos. This gives more proof and credence that we are living in a Nineteen Eighty-four age.

I always cringe when I hear a media type or talking head say “Feb-uary”, completely ignoring the letter ‘r’ spelled in the middle of the proper noun.. As much as I cringe when I hear some tv pundit proudly say “eck-cetra” instead of the two Latin words spelled out in print: “et cetera”. If you fall into the guilty realm, you can still redeem your pronunciation soul from reading this entry.