To thine own self be true

Atlas holding up world with constellations (Bombay figurine I bought myself for symbolic reasons)

Red crossbills (male–red; female–yellowish-green)

(written on way to dentist, rush-hour)

The car music was Mozart
under a soft blue
fall morning sky.
Few commuters noted
the black smoke escaping
a roadside mortuary
beside the sign
that promised “Dignity”.
Whatever had been tangible,
loved or unloved,
was gone in a puff.

Overhead, a Sundance balloon
floated to meet
whatever else freed.
Otherwise, it was
a pretty good day ‘to be’
either alive or dead–
whether conscious, or not.

…………………………..

footnote–this piece was subconsciously inspired by a Hugh Hood short story “Flying a Red Kite” and the N.F.B. film “The Red Kite”. p.s./On January 2015, in a stroke of irony, the funeral chapel aforementioned had a crippling fire which shut it down, the smokestack now standing exposed.
(Dec. 20, 2014 reprint)

Waking up late in the morning to find that the day has already begun for many out there. That and the realization that the world always goes on without us whether we are sleeping in or dead. It comes to the same thing.

(June 28, 2015 reprint)

An unusual individual, he had a vitality about him, often expressing powerful emotions, feeling that anything was possible, that most of the limits which people experienced were their own self-imposed manacles. He was a free man of ideas and ideals with a strong sense of beauty in Nature. He had a vivid imagination that created and constructed beautiful and ideal inner or dream worlds. He often rebelled against irrational or tyrannical authority and tended to empathize with ordinary people. He had a great respect for the past, for what Matthew Arnold described as the best that was known and thought and expressed in civilization. He was, ultimately, an individual–his own man and no one else’s, interested mainly in an individual’s limitless possibilities.

Sensibility is a key construct which people once were more interested in cultivating and developing. As Sven Birkerts describes it, it is, on one level, a range of fine feelings and ability to make distinctions (whether moral or aesthetic, etc.). On another, it is a refinement or cultivation of presence (what one essentially is and could be). On yet another, it is the part of inner life that is not given, but fashioned. On still another, sensibility means a coherent inwardness. For my own part, I believe that sensibility embodies the possibilities of/for resonance, integrity, and appreciation of such ‘old school’ things as gentleness, greatness, order, wisdom, romance, love, truth, beauty, soul, and the arts.

(another highly recommended 1976 Harris live performance (on Kino DVD)

2001 Blackstone Audio featuring the late great Julie Harris doing all the voices. A marvellous tour de force. Harris is particularly effective in communicating the inner conflicts of the monster and his inventor; you feel their disappointments, disillusionments, anxieties, fears, misgivings, anger, bitterness, and the full meanings of their anguished choices. Shelley’s book remains a warning to our times and people today about technology, agendas, and man’s inner unresolvable conflict between civilized reason and irrational primitive nature, as well as the failed search for love and inner peace. Highly recommended.

Well, the masses have bought into illusion, notably e-technology. That’s what they choose, want, prefer. The demographics have the last word.
Based on the mass dumbing-down that’s going on, you’d have to conclude that the masses don’t want intelligent reporting, hard news, and verifiable Truth or alternate truths.
It’s now reached the point of my right agenda vs. wrong everyone else’s. The worst of individual liberty tottering on subjective chaos with no one, certainly no remaining authority or institution to right the ship.
It is, unquestionably, now a free-for-all sans moderation. It’s all about money, not principles or non-money ideals. All I experience in a day out there or when some stranger intrudes on my solitude is “I have a money-making agenda and I want you to finance it.” Period.

I still buy papers to keep somewhat objective tabs on how bad and stupid it’s getting everywhere. I figure Better be informed and ready. There is a still a fierce loyalty to the oasis of the olde world and its more humane ways. I live in other constructive, creative worlds, places, and times thanks to my imagination, dreams, and ideals. That sustains me, not the modern world or today’s society in general.
I pick my spots–honour and revere the best of past civilization, truly positive technologies, and truly good things, people, and real heroes.The rest of it today is just runaway politically-correct politics, widespread violence, hate, madness, and money crap. Not a world any genuinely sane person would ever want to accept, unquestioningly believe, trust, or live in.

(recommended for Spoonful fans is this SRO DVD hosted by John Sebastian; for the novice, the best CD for their music would be The Very Best of the Lovin’ Spoonful: Music Collection International)

………………………………………….

The Lovin’ Spoonful, that is, a group from Greenwich Village who seized the moment to transition from folk to popular music racking up 24 good-time music singles:

Summer in the City
Daydream
Do You Believe in Magic?
You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice
Jug Band Music
Did You Ever Have to Make up Your Mind?
Younger Girl
Rain on the Roof
Darling Be Home Soon
Six O’ Clock
She Is Still a Mystery
Nashville Cats
She’s a Lady and others.

Sure there was an explosion of good and great music of the time, but these guys created some very unique songs and sounds (including a jackhammer in “Summer in the City”) that really caught the fancy of music lovers of the day. That and lead singer John Sebastian’s lead vocals and autoharp. He was the most notable member, later coming back with the theme to the Welcome Back, Kotter tv show of the mid-seventies.

Trivia: Significantly and to neat effect, in 1966’s UK masterpiece Blow-Up, director Michelangelo Antonioni used their music in the background but redone by someone else.

Many people view freedom as being external-based or external-caused. “If I go on a cruise, I will be free.” “If I had some extra money, I could buy a house.” On the surface, it may look to many as if freedom is just an external matter.

In contrast, Viktor Frankl, the eminent psychotherapist, in his classic Man’s Search for Meaning, viewed freedom as largely an inner or internal matter, as in mind, heart, and spirit. He noted that the WWII extermination camps were designed to break down prisoners, and that those who survived had inner resources or strengths to draw on, such as will to live and imagination to transcend the horribly limiting context. He’s right. The experience of freedom is largely an inner matter anyway since it’s the individual responses of individuals which signify and get a person through difficult times and circumstances. It is those inner responses which are always potentially freeing from whatever limits.

Even the first two sample quotes above are about how freedom is a personal matter–as in “If I…” and that whatever benefits these two speakers would receive would most likely be felt or experienced innerly if they could achieve their wishes.

The experience and resonance of whatever freedom one cares to name occurs inside us, giving us whatever pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Our inner selves are freed–physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually–when we experience freedom. Thus, it is the innerness, the inner release which makes freedom so wonderful, valuable, and completely necessary in our lives.

(previously printed here Aug. 15, 2013)