tired_of_this monadh it came creeping in surrounding us the mountains are almost completely vanished now in the haze the smoke lingers in everything making lungs feel heavy exhausted from it all the ever-pervasive intensity of the heat dry and lifeless i try to sleep now with this constant thing no rain no rain in forever, the smoke just nestles in the hills makes dark homes of our hearts 010819 ... ashmanzhou so tired we doth wonder aloud of this the life of torment broken and reshaping us to feel fear toward unknowing emotion anger toward difference in soul indifference toward relation to those who see no possible hope and light 030728 ... girl_jane not being able to sleep thing... 030918 ... mon i can't see myself where i stand i am thrown into the fire burning the stalks 031115 ... oldephebe mon, your tongue cleaves the ague that tied up my thoughts in this sisyphean exasperation..it is good to read your inimitable spoken shards..spoken shards..dangling there like silver mist draped over that wich cannot be spoken..i'm still stumbling in from the end of the world..still tethered to the long train of lapsed vows..still trying to fill this house full of rotted beams with the freight of something more than.."No."..i love your perfect psalms of revelation..what rich soil lies in your beautiful heart..please write more..i have missed your unique voice.. later, 031115 ... pipedream place foot forward. good. do not look back. stop turning around to stare at the trees and the pretty flowers. they aren't pretty any more retrospect will always be hazy and rosy. blurred about the edges. pick up your other foot. pick it up. (im tired) pick it up (i cant i dont have the strength any more why cant i just collapse here and be weak like everyone else?) 031116 ... daf Got new energy Got new energy from watching the slow Watching the slow and drag drag me down Felt the urge to sit and die Feeling the surge of new in me So through with you and me and the urge to sit and die Sit and die? Why?! To cry and sigh the sigh of souled fatigue? To buy the lie that they sold to me? Oh please! Not me! Not ever! Not me! I am forever's winds Its shoulders carry me and will carry me Til they bury me on I go YOU tire! YOU wallow and waste in that pasty mire! Or take my hand and arm and carry on There's a song in me that I'd sing with you There's a blaze in my heart that I'd share with you A flame to warm you through and through When you tire When emotions blue conspires against your dreams When it seems that there's nothing worth dragging along Not your feet Not your soul, nor your song When you feel you've none left to go on An elixir to drag them along. 031116 ... oldephebe nicely done daf unique and yet wide breadths encompassed in your succinct and yet sagacious verse pd god..sometimes i really wish i could just say things a little more clearly!! ... 031117 ... unhinged tired of technique with no musical substance tired of being sick tired of people tired of school tired of being broke 031117 ... Dafremen au contrare, phebe I hope you never lose your ability to say a thousand things with 10,000 words. I love digging through them, and that aint no ego_stroke. It takes careful reading, and sometimes there's a tendency on my part to zip through, just scan over the things people write here. That habit has been tempered by you and a few others here, but particularly by you. It seems you summed it up best in a blathe earlier today when you said: "yes my circuitous sprawl of contentions is..well for clarities sake..impeding my efforts at clarity and argument..take it or leave it..your a bright guy..sift through the chaff to find the shimmering stalk." And you know what, you're not being in the least bit pretentious or egotistical when you say it, nor am I playing missy kissup when I say this: it really does shimmer man, honestly. Do0d - You're rich with the things that are important in life. Being tired is part of losing perspective. Come on do0d...you can do it, you gots friends and chublettes that'll have yer back to the bitter end. : ) 031117 ... oldephebe really? ah i dunno..yeah i guess someone needs to raise Gideons gilded horn as a testement to my peculiarites nestled snuggly in the...blech..my heart hears the pain in some of blatherdoms most strident voices daf, if we continue to answer knowledge with knowledge then how can the hoped for unity be attained? Reason in and of itself is a narrow, myopic and potentially misanthropic or peremptory cast of Being. Sure we understand one anothers expectorations and rationales, but there is no intent to unify, yes unify the house of reason with the cathedral of the soul..and we are the lessor for it. Thankyou daf for your eloquent words. Where does reason stop becoming discourse and become the peremptory gavel that demands not freedom of disparate discourse and instead a dogmatic prescription for a way to think, a way to live and any deviation from thatis met with declamation and derision. Freedom is not a fuzzy invocation to conformity, freedom is not an insidiously imposed map to goosestep to get along. Freedom is not general, it is subjective, freedom is individualistic endeavor firstly. Freedom is not obedience or conformity. The 20th century was glutted with Reason and it roared peremptorily from Wilsons idealism which was starkly different from actuality to Hitler, and blah the long train of ideology and monolithic exportation and cultural imperialism to the recent gyrations threaten to crack the continents wide open. From even before Richelieu to Bismark and Napolean, to our genocidal answer to the needs of Amercan expansion. I can see Socrates smiling paternally at the inaugeration of despotisms and oligarchies and concentrated power before thier various constructs erupted into some of the most protracted and bloody struggles in humankinds dubious and ignoble history. didn't really mean to crawl out on this limb, but here i am so..scroll through or procure some salve..and yes i am being ironic.. be well daf 031117 ... smurfus rex you remind me of a coffee house poet standing on a dimly lit stage with a kool kat in the back with a bass, oldphebe. and maybe another kat with a drum set. tho it seems to me sometimes that by the time you finish saying what you gotta say, that you're tired of saying anything more. I used to think my vocabulary was broad, and then I saw the things you post, man. :) 031118 ... phil thinking one thing and being another 031118 ... unhinged hate_sex dogmatic belief and quick judgement and trying to bolster my own argument with something i really know nothing about (i.e. jesus, christianity) that goes against my own spiritual bent...yeah tired of that arguement. if one thing blather has taught me, it is to shut up when fighting with someone that MUST win. daf, my perspective is totally lost right now especially my musical one. and i'm sick of living in a world that makes me worry about trivial things so much that i can't get to the stuff that matters. if only communism actually worked....or transcendentalism or any of those other failed social experiments that i think would more suit my ends. at least i'm not so tired of life as i used to be back in youngstown. tired of the affect that others have on my life (which is admittedly as much my fault as it is theirs) but not tired of living. which is a plus i have in my account these days. 031118 ... oldephebe very well spoken unhinged..i am invoking an honest prayer that somehow you can find your groove, that sacred space that would be an unqualified source of redemption, restoration, joy wreathing your entire being..and yes i know it is one thing to wish someone well and another speak upon things one cannot even begin to fathom..right..a strapped in subjective state..i get that. Still though my heart is beating out a holy psalm of prayer and restoration or reinvigoration to you unhinged.. peace... 031118 ... oldephebe smurfus rex..you are too kind 031118 ... daf The partner...lies within. (see also: thegreatillusion.com) 031118 ... oldephebe oldephebe someone once blathed oldephebe knows the truth - while i was flattered, i gotta say somedays i am closer to this Truth than others where i feel like an O.T. prophet who after hiding himself in Jehova's mantle of faith was able to defeat the false gods of Bael(?) hope that's the correct nominative ascription..and then the said prohet went and hid himslef in a cleft of rock and wished for death simply because he changed his perceptual vantage point..from the peak of power to the precipice..just like that we can step out of glory into the abyss..we are finite, we are frail we are inconstant, so no oldephebe may not know The Truth in his head but I've got a this handful of little truths wreathed in eldridge flame in my heart pocket. Here's another, and one that i have consciously not acknowledged on occassion. We here in blather especially the more voluble among us, are often given to pounding the gavel and dictating, or rather making imperative utterances to poeple. Adorning ones self with the unearned imprimature of authoriy. For example: "Shut the hell up" or in my case something like "I'm opaque but not fake.. blah blah.. Overt polysyllabic syntax is superior even if you have to go on an etymological expedition to wrest meaning from my brick house of the voluble and vague, pretentious or earnest and yet more virtuous blather. So dammit read it and be enlightened don't stay stuck in your prosaic linguistic constructs!" Here's the thing statements like that or even terse commands constitute what everyone knows or hears as an authoritative performative. It's purpose is to clarify or delineat an authoritative relationship between the speaker and his interlocutor. One that does not neccessarily exist. It peremptorily assumes the interlocutor, or the other is subject to said imperative(s) We are all sensitive to someone assuming an unearned posture of authority and delusionally demanding our respect or submission to the tersely spoken imperative. In the future, I am going to strive to ameliorate my tendency to that. Prefering the other before oneself does not mean one should abdicate personal authority, it just means regarding the other with respect, stepping into his/her sandles. Of course the seismically unstable tyrant or the megalomaniacle who demonstrates even after your appeals to equanimity that you have no rights or virtues worthy of respect should feel the full scalding force of your ire. Perhaps, perhaps if one can be committed to ameliorating or tempering the serrated blade of his/her reflexive tongue and try to imagine a space wherein you are the recipient of an unqualified, unprovoked authoritative performatives pawned off as reasoned argumentation. Maybe it just might begin to shape empathy within us. A subtle distinction in syntax can reach your advesary without disemboweling your argument of its clarity and authority. Just a little something to think about. alere flamman = to feed the flame..usually used to stir or rekindle the romantic hearth fires..but it can be used to say further discussion on this will only serve to feed the flames...to broker the bitterness between us. There it is my crudely rendered remedial latin. peace... 031118 ... stephen wright you shouldn't make fun of someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. that way, when you're done, you'll be a mile away and they won't have any shoes. 031118 ... stephen wright you shouldn't make fun of someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. that way, when you're done, you'll be a mile away and they won't have any shoes. 031118 ... oldephebe i love stephen wrights wry detached style..it makes his declarations all the more funny..is that the word i really want to use? hmm..still though stephen wright is brilliant.. 031118 ... oldephebe Because of the tireless efforts inaugerated by the abolitionist movement and out of that emerged the architects of the 19th century womens movement..women who had this sense of historical timing..the call unto destiny. This tenacity of conviction emerged out of the bonds that were forged in those crucibles. They could bide their time any longer. Thier hunger for change could no longer be ameliorated by effusive and disingenuous male or even female condesension and professed fealty to accept societal norms..as if the mere existence of unenlightened and inequitable roles thefore lends some extenuating exculpability to said subserviant, inescapable societally and sometimes statutorially and municipally imposed roles role. The same conviction and psychological dynamics can be attributed to all or most of the egalitarian aspirations burning in the embered heart of the true believer. He/she stands on a hill and lifts the gleaming golden horn of liberty and self-determination..seldom or never falling prey to dissent and the demagogue dishonestly characterizing thier noble aims as the histrionics of heresy..the gyrations of of a volatile gender, or an inadequacy bred of ethnic extract,the fevered fulminations of unschooled minds, but gnawing at the edge of every syllable was thier fear. Yes they said we have come to usurp the prerogatives of exploitation, misogyny, racsism, and yes even those of the god that you erect to sanction your lies. Your status, your power, and position is in imminent danger. These true believers said by there lives and words. It is not your right, your entitlement to command of conscience, my heart, my actions. That is the province my soul soul and an impartial God whose love and favor are indescriminate. Posing a verisimilitude of political equality does not begin to approach setting the societal and economically ordained by an encrusted orthodoxy. From Ceaser Chavez to Martin Luther King to the martyrs of Tianamen Square..and countless other struggles. The union movement that braved threats and assinations and jurisprudential corruption to elevate the working men/women of America to a position of protected rights and job stability..no longer subject to the caprice and tyranny of unregulated capitalist juggernauts. The promise, the yearning for equality is heard from the first epochs of civilization. Lift your heads from the deep furrows of your despair and imagine a better way, a dream. Set on fire all the images and traditions of subjugation. Socraties would howl down from the parthenon burning ashes upon my head if he were witness to my words. Sure, arguments appealing to relative equality, and against the acute astringency of reflexive animus will be met with sneers. Given that, let nothing encroach upon the frontiers of freedom, egalitarianism and informed, democratic dissnet. Socrates preffered death over consensus, over democrasy, over equality (yes that is relative to the inequity of women, slaves and the indigent) Perhaps he knew that his martydom would catapult his views beyond the scope and breadth of antiquity. He perhaps hoped to be apotheosized by subsequent generations as the first generation of his apprentices. We need no longer to endear ourselves to the arrogant or peremptory or delusional. Those who greatly overestimate the esteem with wich they are regarded with. Those who vastly overestimate with admirable tenacity the depth and scope of their cognitive, cultural and ethnic place in the hierarchy of man. Sure the use of hierarchy is an inconsistant term given the gestalt of this rumination. Let's substitute hierarchy with House. Scorn, disdain, an imperially glowering brow do not constitute informed and substantive argumentation or debate. How many of us like Socrates disdain the perieved caste they born born into? How many of us become reflexively belligerant when the other dissents. How many of us lock our minds our hearts in unqualified prejudice, bias or recalcitrance as a matter of principle when we hear an articulate, assertive voice grating against the grain of our supposedly inviolable contentions? When that happens, when every thing is locked down nothing gets in, nothing is let out. While I can admire Socrates for the construction of some of his most seminal arguments (especially the platonic Socrates) his unqualified disdain of democrasy sowed the fireseed of his eventual martydom and cautions us all against the fallacy, and dishonor of scorn and disdain utilized as an adjunct of argumentation. When will we pull these rotting planks out of the house of Reason? later... should have said "propogating a verisimilitude of political equality does not even begin to set aright the societal ship woefully askew by a statutorially imposed..." I'm sure there a few other omissions and or spelling errors. I'll get to them later 031118 ... oldephebe i've wanted to say to Socrates and others of his ilk (not philosphical indoctrination but the absurdist bravado and the proclivities towards the emotional extortion of tirades..(but of course emotional extortion is only effective when dealing with someone you have a history with..and usually a subordinate one..such as parental or elder or more charasmatic sibling..and of course who can omit the unremitting exasperations of marital dynamics..who will dominate and who will placate..who will make up the marital bed..?) anyway..resorting to personal attacks and abandoning the argument only reveals a sense of impotency in the face of reason. In the face of articulate assertion confidently, calmly stating its case. The bull thrashing around and spewing spittle with every syllable has clearly abandoned the argument, he feels threatened and now must resort to these tactics to preserve his/her precarious sense of entitlement, ego and overly indulged vanity. It is an expression of weakness, equivalent to the machinations of an inordinately indulged tyrannical toddler. It does not confer advantage or validation of ones polarity or position. It only reveals a meager and narrow breadth of heart, of being. For those people life is a never ending never ceasing battle against everyone and everything not sufficiently subdued by our usual facile and disengenuous tactics..pro-forma pummeling. If we read between the lines and listen to the other tell us their pain, tell the story of their lives in all their gyrations and absurd peremptory postures. They are telling us their fear, their insecurity, their seismically unstable emotional state peering pathetically over the wall of hubris. I believe that simply expectorating out into the open air is analogous to a martial arts neo-phyte simply exhausting his body flailing his limbs against nothing, he does not understand that the purpose of the katra is to balance and discipline our body with the soul, to listen to both and try to understand what his practise, his art is really about. Can any of us really begin to argue without understanding what argument is really about? I need to remind myself of these things. More times than I'd care to acknowledge, I've caught my contorted reflection as I indulged in splenetic and dishonest discourse. I always feel like I need to take a soul shower afterwards. These impulses within us sometimes refuse to die..the only recourse for me is to feed myself with something better, something simple and life affirming. The folly of fierce pride is an albatross that only sends us farther and farther away from that peace that all of us seek. later, 031119 ... Dafremen You really hit on something there with the bull spittle. One does, however take respectful exception to the notion that the martial artist wastes his energies by flailing his body parts at the air. In effect, isn't that dance? The flailing of body parts in earnest, or in expectation of future flailing? Some might say that a punching bag is a practice, some a teacher, others an outlet. In any event, the flailing of the arms and the punching of the bag remains as valid an exercise. It has been one's humble opinion that we mustn't be silent for silence' sake, for our voices and words are the creations of the universe's children, and among our most innane ramblings are nestled our wisest words. No, silence for silence's sake is certainly as much a cliche as any cliche. However, your original point, that one simply fails to be much more than an ego with words when one seeks to strike out at anything which doesn't fall under the domination of one's mental thumb, is certainly a valid point, and one that goes down smoothly and is digested easily. There is, perhaps a fine line that can be drawn between reacting in order to explore others through their subsequent reactions and exposing one's self to others through reaction. Free expression is an interesting thing, not always pretty, especially not when it truly roams free. Such are the risks in the blather_jungle. It is the occasional clearing such as this one, that makes facing the mosquito bites and the word-eating spiders worth the effort. 031119 ... stork daddy is the semiotic always to be favored over the symbolic order? and is the martial artist really flailing at nothing, or rather is he contending with the movements of his opponent and the world? acting to get a reaction is a viable path to acting to learn ones own reaction, remember that people. you don't know every single one of the world's motions, so sometimes you outsource and see what your sparring partner can give you. 031119 ... oldephebe daf - the martial artist if he is properly engaged in his katra is NOT simply flailing at the air. Perhaps I did not adequately flesh out that illustration. I meant to say (and that is why used modified the term with neophyte..suggesting an unlearned, undeveloped union of soul and body and an intimacy with his martial art that goes far beyond any sort of cathartic exorsism of rage. And yes sure there are times when if one is able to give his unexpressed or pent up anger expression in the catharsis of unrestrained physicality, to spend the truculense in his soul and body before it can build up and predispose one to harm his loved ones or anyone else unjustly. The katra (hope i'm spelling it correctly ) hels to prepare the young man/women for challenges physical and metaphysical..the ah unavoidable and sometimes neccessary exigencies we are all subject to. The katra is beyond excercise or dance, I believe it is an avenue to explore equanimity and our highest potential in the heat of battle or exigent circumstances. I am totally cool with any other conclusions anyone may choose to draw. Every one has their own unique personal style..yes and mine is no more virtuous than anyone else's. 031119 ... stork daddy the kata has also never been proven in battle like actual sparring has. i'll take the spartan training of muay thai and grappling over tai chi anyday. now if i want mental peace, that's a different story. 031119 ... speaking with shadows May I have this dance? 040505 ... from now on why am i crying 041110 what's it to you? who go blather from