I Can't See What You See

The impetus for this post would have at one point in my life done a couple of things that it no longer does, namely made me angry and/or depressed about the world that I see, when I look around. I don’t get mad or depressed, nor am I numb. I just realize that I can only work on myself, and hopefully, from that example, if I affect just one other person, just one, then maybe like a pebble in the water that can spread over the ocean of humanity.

I recently had a conversation about Nietzsche with a friend of mine, regarding a few misconceptions of his ideas, most prominently the idea of the Übermensch, sometimes translated as the Superman, though more literally, the Overman.

Nietzsche’s idea was that we could evolve within our own lifetimes, but not necessarily physically as was mistakenly interpreted by the Nazis and their eu-genetics programs (we have them too, it’s called honors housing at universities...), but mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Nietzsche looked around the world and what he saw was Human, all too Human. He believed that humans were capable of great things, so why do we keep doing the things we do. I wonder the same question.

I myself have accepted my “human” limitations, but, when I did, I actually became stronger, which I now see was Nietzsche’s point (it is Nietzsche after all who originally said, "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger). To realize that we are “human, all too human” is not a concession, but a celebration because we, as humans, can do great things. We are and can be amazing, but there is much work to be done. Do I believe that humans will ever evolve to be the spiritually and philosophically advanced race that Nietzsche spoke of?

In a word. No. And, ultimately neither did he.

But, to quote my friend, “The world is fucked up and only by focusing inwardly on whom we are, creating peace on the inside and radiating that love and peace can we make a difference in this world.”

The world is indeed fucked up. Don’t kid yourself. 

Women who are raped in Afghanistan are sent to prison or murdered as the guilty party.

The world is melting, fast. No matter how far you stick your head in the ground, an ostrich point of view will not change that if we don’t change our ways, even if it is partially precipitated by a nature cycle in the Earth, it is also partially triggered by us.

In Belgium yesterday, someone who had it in for “the whole world” killed himself and three others, wounding over 100 people with grenades at a public bus station in Liège.

A video of an enlisted US army soldier shows him beating a goat to death with an aluminum softball bat, while Afghanistan teenage boys and his unit cheer him on.

WTF people? Really.

I can't see what you see...

Make a change from within, it’s our only true hope.

You Go, Girl

The so-called God Particle, or the Higgs Boson may have made an appearance at CERN, the Large Hadron Collider that has been the Holy Grail for the Standard Model of the Universe for Modern Physics of the past 50 years.

Questions?

Let Alpinekat break it down for you then...saw this first a couple of years ago...and who said that nerds can't be fun??

Kick it.

Something More than Mockery

I was recently reminded of The Cure's breakthrough 1989 CD "Disintegration" and have been listening to it quite a bit lately.

When I lived in Austin some 20 years ago, there were a couple of times that I lived alone during my student years. One of them was quasi-alone as I lived in an attic apartment above the house that my sister and her friend rented. However, for all intents and purposes, I was living alone.

It was a heady time, thinking that I had become a man. Silly Rabbit, Tricks are for kids, and that was one trick that I had been playing upon myself. I was no Man, merely a large kid. In the interim, I believe that I have in fact become a "man" and have learned to live life on life's terms, but that comes at a great price, namely a sacrifice of one's Ego upon the chopping block of Humility. Anything short of that won't do, it is nothing more than a mockery, a travesty of life's greatest gifts of love, forgiveness, and trust.

I used to listen to Disintegration in my attic abode, and like the Dude, I tried to abide, and for the most part I did. It was the year that I read more books than I have since, and perhaps will. It was a year of living dangerously, and of just living. I think that that year shaped much of the things to come about who I was to be, for better and for worse. Good habits as well as bad grew from that year, and while I have shed the bad, I have re-embraced the good ones. Though, as I believe, the relative perspective of what is good and bad on a small scale, and even on a big one, is like the ebb and flow of the tidal pools that are so rich in diversity amidst the maelstroms of the storms around them.

I once had a great sound system, one that could blow my then longish hair back like the Maxell Tape Dude from the commercial (for you young 'uns, that was big, and was pre-Family Guy), and I would sit in my couch and turn up Disintegration til the knob reached "11" and be taken away somewhere else.  Thinking back, it was the "opening song", "Closedown" that was perhaps the first time that I achieved something like "meditation" by sound. I remember listening to that song, over and over, on repeat, maybe up to twenty times before listening to the rest of the CD. It moved me.

That CD is one of the most influential compilations of music in my life to date, and it has not lost its power over me one bit as I now listen to it again, this time, alone, but in a new apartment after having been in my "own house" for nearly two decades. This time, however, I am in fact a "man," and have lived many lifetimes in the meanwhile.

Music transports us to other Places, other Times. Lyrics can bring us to tears, or to bliss. To dis-integrate one's life is to break it down into the pieces, like a smashed vase, and not to try and re-build the vase, but to sit on the floor and to look at each piece carefully, full of care, and to appreciate how beautifully complex our lives are, how vastly unique, yet somehow intertwined in the chaotic scrambling.

When I listen to Disintegration, I realize that my life has dis-integrated on some levels, yet, on others, has been re-integrated. Where there is a sundering, there is a reconciliation, so it goes...

And, of course, the Maxell Tape Commercial....