Geistland

I feel (am?) happy.

2007-12-19T13:21:00.001-04:00

My days are full of light and laugh.
I call it happiness. Then, I try to understand happiness, and that is a mistake.

I am happy! It seems as if I am content, but I am sure it is not the same. I can be happy and immersed in big distress at the same time. This seems an impossible feat, but is true. What I cannot be is content while immerse in big distress, then, happiness and contentment are not the same thing!

If I look into the word meaning: Content comes from a family of words that express delimitation as in Contain, so when I am content I am restrained to myself which in turn makes me feel satisfied with the environment: I am into myself and that's all I need.

What about happy? Its means, chance occurrence, comes from the old word hap as chance, as in luck, an archaic form of good fortune. This is something broader than content.

We usually get confused and when sad we think we are unhappy. Far from it! Sadness is that feeling derived from unpleasantness and this latter is a by product of our selfishness.

Yes, I hear my own brain crying: I am not selfish, (am I ?) so your last definition is not true since I feel sad now and again and I am not selfish.

But then again, my brain is wrong.

If I were not selfish I would be dead since long ago, and when I analyze the reasons I feel sad I always find it is because something is out of the order I want to put the world in!

Reasons to be sad: this business, which I am interested in, went wrong, my health is not as I would like it to be, my best friend betrayed me, the government is making my life miserable, I feel sorry about a problem my neighbor has, you name it, we cannot get around "me" "my", or "I", it is the subject! The situation just revolve around my poor dissatisfied self. Then, how do you define this situation?, undoubtedly: «self centered».

What makes it complicated is that this is not an abnormal behavior, the world spin around our self, we can only grasp any meaning through our body and mind, that is our self; and express our feelings through our mind and body, which is... yes you guessed it!

There is a difference between what I just wrote and happiness, the latter is totally independent from feelings, I may be sad but perfectly happy...

Come again? Spell this oxymoron!

To be happy is a way, a trail, not an end, you do not feel happy, you are happy and only in this context can you recognize happiness as a method of life, even I dare say we can decide to be happy, no matter what!

When you are contented, in the etymological sense of the word, you are held as a whole, you are neither excised not divided and you know your wholeness. You are satisfied, but are happy?

The base of happiness, is not contentment, but of course, we can realize that if we are basically happy (a soul status), being content is easily recognized since happiness is the natural base for our feelings so we readily accept our content (a mind status, a feeling), that thing that makes us feel whole.

This psychological structure makes us aware of a real surprising fact: once you have happiness tightly sitting as the base in the core of your self, it can support several different feelings, such as: joy, elation, rejoicing, delight, sadness, depression, despondency, apathy, despair, and in the middle of all these feelings you still are happy!

Of course, it is easier to let our feelings command our life and think we "feel" happy or miserable following the whims of our hormones or our responses to reality. It is easier but it is pointless, our stupid frenzy in the face of our feelings or facing reality moves us around as a crazy leaf in an uncontrolled gale and in the heat of our wanton desires, the yearning for things, tangibles or abstracts, disorderly craved and in haste, rules our life leaving us exhausted and disgusted; never satisfied, always confused about ourselves.

Then we *feel* unhappy, but this is a feeling, we are not unhappy, we are unsatisfied, discontent, even angry and revolted at the reality we are living with, that is true, but in that environment as unlikely as it may seem we can be happy simply because happiness finds its being in itself, forgetting "desires" and "wants".

Yes, it is difficult for us (pampered by our actual way of life, where everything points to get whatever we want "right now"), to ignore the advice of media to use "the right" to live our own life "now", wasting our efforts running behind "newly created" needs by a society that think nothing of (or worse yet, despise) duties and responsibilities.

So we put our selves first, leaving behind everybody else, even those we owe natural care: sons, daughters and relatives. All this is easily seen in the way we express when we try to say something about ourselves and some other person: "me and Pete". Just look who goes first!

This manner of being is a sure way to be unhappy even if we get everything we want since there is a small (but crucial) thing we leave out: "the moral right to be human" otherwise said: Love

© 2007 Soother.

I love Opera and Elf

2007-12-02T10:20:00.000-04:00

Reflecting over my last blogs titled «I love Opera, I and II» Elf commented smugly:

-You had a long tirade but I am not sure you made your point! Anyway, you do not need to strive anymore, I can understand where you are driving at.

-You can, can you?! I asked sarcastically.

-Yes, he went on undeterred by my remark, look, what you try to say is that music must be an imbricated slatebody into the tissues of your being. But it always is!, if it is not then you have just noise, maybe coherent, ordered noise, but just noise! Now, who can judge when this noise start to gain the state of music in your awareness?
-You asked me, he kept pressing, if your mind is yours, well, to your surprise you will find that your mind is of your hormones, your internal organs and the external environment more than yours in the sense that you are the driver of most things yours and as in the case of a car, you can tell it where to go, but little or nothing can you tell the motor how to obtain energy. This it does just by the way it is done and following the health of each of its parts!
So does your mind, you can try and develop deep thoughts about any subject, but that’s all, if you are ill or distracted by anything in your body or environment your mind will react accordingly. This is true, believe me! And… where does this leave us?… under new unpredictable reactions!

Elf seemed buried in deep thoughts, his eyes were veiled and he looked as in a trance.

-You know, he went on, this is not just coincidence, it was done so as to keep your free will in a highly unstable environment…

Suddenly, he seemed to recover, his eyes returned to their normal brightness and with a bashful smile (something outlandish on his countenance) he said almost in a whisper:

-Oh! forget it!

-What I mean, kept going the gnome recovering totally, is that you are talking about something you have no knowledge about, from the control room of your mind (that is you, the person) your feelings “seem” to react to all those things the way you described, and of course, they do. It is true, absolutely true you feel it so. But, and this is a BIG BUT, you cannot project these perceptions as a mathematical equation over the rest of human beings. You see, the beauty of it?!

I was totally confused, didn’t know what was he talking about and so I said:

-No I don’t, and what are talking about?!

-Please, Elf seemed hurt, try and be intelligent! I am talking about how people react to music and how any one has control of “some” part of the surrounding space and personal reactions! You seem so sure that those “raucous kindled voices, high pitched noises, and repeated beat” cannot awake subtle, inherent feelings because they don’t in yourself, but you forget where those feelings come from. You can talk about yourself but never about other people sensations!

I was astounded. How can an Elf, and one who lives in MY MIND know about the production of feelings in other people minds!

I inhaled deeply and counter attacked.

-What do you know about other people feelings?, barely can reach and learn about my feelings since you live immersed in them, but…

-Stop it! Elf was deadly serious and with his little hand showing his palm toward my mind-eyes.
-Stop it! he repeated. The one who knows nothing is you! Can you tell me who am I?, or, for that matter, can you tell me who YOU are? He looked real mad, I’ve never seen him like that.

-When you open judgement over some other people, the sprite went on, what you are doing is wrong. I know, it is a kind of emotional elation to find your tastes are part of what is called “superior cultural environment” and you do not relish in those other common based fancies that do not belong into this definition, but it is only because of the egregious ego you, all of you human beings, possess since the… err… ehem… Well, never mind! but remember! You are NOT better than anyone else only because you are more knowledgeable, more educated, more beautiful or more whatever than those anyone elses…

I was dumbfounded, my mind was making a big effort to understand what was the little puck talking about, egregious ego? possessed since… when? Was he really preaching on me? So:

-Are you preaching on me? I said making believe as much rage as I could muster, but still bewildered enough as not to be mad, only trying not to loose ground through my own confusion.

-Preach?!… preach?! he was getting dark red on the rim of his pointed ears, what the heck you talking about?

Well, at least he was asking the same I asked him a while ago!

-I am not preaching no one! (here we go, you know, when mad he forget his grammar), I am stating a fact and showing to your smug face those things you make better and… wrong! Sure, you like Opera better’n other music, so what? it is wonderful, I know it, to feel those things you describe, but it is so only because you are made as you are made! What if other people like Heavy Metal?, they may or they may not feel the same but that is not determined by knowledge, education, beauty or anything else, the final reason is hormonal, environmental and lastly slightly touched by the mind’s owner psyche. So, stop feeling the need to be the Knight of Music. Just show your tastes, explain them to others and let anyone else decide what they like or not!

Another balloon punctured! this darn Elf is always successful when it means to destroy well concocted theories. OK, Opera is better than anything else… to me! In the ultimate stage, who am I to decide there are better art in one expression in detriment of another? I had to recognize Elf is right and even if deep inside myself I still “knew” or better “know” Opera is the only way to enjoy music, I couldn’t say it was a generic feeling. As always, our estrangement from one another makes human beings so difficult to fathom with our own measures. Even if a word means the same to anyone, not always that “same” is equally understood by everybody.

© 2007 Soother.

I want MY mind! (or there ain’t no rogue electron)

2007-11-29T21:24:00.000-04:00

Elf was rummaging into the notion archive.

I approached him to see what was he doing and heard him chuckle.

-Laughing at me as usual? I asked in good mood.

He looked up and I saw that undoubtedly impish look in his eyes. This is a proof of his unspeakable thoughts and undoubtedly deviated behavior!

-Ah, here you are, he said grandly with a big grin and assessing me from mindhead to mindtoes.

-Of course here I am! I said somewhat peevishly, feeling my good mood ooze out while I looked at his ironic face and listened to his sarcastic commentary,where else? This is MY mind!

-Less than you think of, I assure you m’lad, less than you think of, he retorted with that infuriating pose of a Celtic gnome who knows it all he used to adopt when teasing me!

-Now what!, I felt to rise in my… well, in my mind the usual rage I feel when he start to make me look like a child, are you going to tell me MY mind isn’t mine?

-No, no, just let this subject drop waiting for a better moment, what I meant to say is that reading with time and serenity I can appraise the involuntary good sense you displayed talking about that “accidental electron”, do you remember? Yes, I remembered, and I remembered the disturbed speechless countenance of Elf when I finished my relation. That picture of his confused face was enough to make me recover my good mood.

-Yeah, I said with a big grin of my own, I remember! You were bewildered no end!

-Naturally I was bewildered! I never, not even for a second, thought you would deploy the old theory of the primeval soup! Never thought you could, not even remotely, know about its existence. I thought you would talk about some nonsense in an electrical gadget!

-Electrical gadget, my foot! I hurled at him a comma I found in the floor, lost undoubtedly from some of my thoughts mixed up by Elf!

-Whaddayou think, I cannot live other life than that between my electrical gadgets? That I cannot know about the Princeton Gnosis? that I never was exposed to all those theories about how, when, why and by whom, if anyone, was life developed in this planet?

-Now, steam off, will you? I am telling you I appreciate the involuntary good sense you displayed talking about the “accidental electron”! he interjected, I was a bit confused, I didn’t know if feel insulted or flattered.

-You see, continued my nemesis, you were trying to state one of those petty theories of agnostic and atheists and when I asked where was God in this brainy hypothesis, you answered, with the involuntary knowledge implanted in your core, something to the effect that He was intervening somewhat to make the theory work. This small comment of yours is enough to show what is a real truth: humankind will work thousands of theories trying to elude the concept of a superior being but will also let out from its deep foundation, without even knowing it, the crucial belief of the undeniable need of the existence of a creator.

I consider this unusual speech.

-I cannot deny your postulation, I finally said, also, I cannot vouch for it so clearly. But some entries ago I said something about this idea and the vacuum inside any and all human individuals.

-Exactly! Some of you (and they are not as many as so noisy that it seems as if everybody agrees with them, which is far from the truth since most human beings believe, and many of them even state that there must be a creator for all these marvels around us that we can see, hear or detect somehow and of those we can’t) some of you I said, want to spread the insane idea of an “accidental” or “chance creation”, similar to that of the monkey and its typewriter (or should I say Personal Computer), where with time and patient the little animal can produce a sonnet similar or identical to any of those written by Shakespeare!

I didn’t know what to say, so I just stare at him dumbfounded, it was so out of character all this tirade!

But he looked comfortable expounding all these abstract concepts that I just let him go on.

-The mathematical odds of this happening are staggering. Now, if we follow Sir Arthur Conan Doyle advice in the mouth of Sherlock Holmes: “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”, then we can safely accept the old, old Aristotelian concept of an immobile motor which has and is bringing into being all other things in the Universe! And rest at easy, I can asseverate it is true!

-You can?… What do you mean, you can?… How can you?… What are you talking about?…

Elf fled from my questions and made him scarce between a good and a bad idea…

© 2007 Soother.

Faith, that jolting experience (II)

2007-11-28T21:04:00.000-04:00

When you find a person who believes the deity is a constant and real presence, you find a rare phenomenon in the soul of this person (yes, supposing the soul exists; if you feel awkward with this notion you can call it whatever you want since there is no doubt that an intangible “something” lives inside our heart, skull, or mind that we call “I”).

The first surprising fact you find when you look close to the beliefs “owned” by this religious person is that those beliefs are a certainty, the person “knows” God exists, “knows” He is in charge and “knows” that despite the unsecured sight we have of the world at large, there is a Plan, a Design to be followed up to a Happy End, childish as this seems.

This surprising fact is the basal stone which has maintained religious Faith alive through so many years since the first of us opened the eyes to the wonderful sense of being aware of the difference between the rest of the world and that sentience called “I”! This “knowing” fills up the vacuum in our soul so aplenty that life takes a new and wonderful meaning.

The mystics, who have experienced the sense of the divine, are so strongly attached to the anchor of belief that it is a certainty. And, wonder of wonder, those whose experience were not mystic develop a strange certainty almost as strong as that of the mystics.

What makes all this possible? How can a person “create” something so incredibly wonderful? Theologians’ explanation is that no person create it since it is too big a notion as to be thought by a human being, so what?, well, as incredible as it may seem, the explanation states that it was revealed by the owner of every space in the Universe, included souls, God Himself. Agnostics sustain it is a psychological reaction. Choose the one you like more.

The simple fact that every one of the creatures are so tightly bonded to the Creator can develop a strong and secure sense as to close the gates to insecurity and vulnerability.

Be this true or not, this Faith moves mountains and makes people better in their own ways since it removes the need to be defensive and guarded against the imponderable.

Compared to desacralized Faith this is Ambrosia, this is the Golden Fleece, this is the Shangri-la every one of us dreams about!

Unfortunately, these different “Faiths” have, as anything else in the universe, a dark side we know too well. Three mistakes named:

Fanaticism, fundamentalism, bigotry.

Deeply seated in those insecure feelings we develop in life facing uncertainties is the need to keep secure our beliefs; those beliefs that give us a harbour for our fears, when our Faith is not based on something as strong as a God, or if you prefer as good as a psychological reaction, we feel threatened and anything that menace those beliefs are a menace to us, personally.

We “must” fight all and everything departing our paths. This fight is a distortion of real Faith. This gives birth to those three mistakes mentioned above and through them a myriad of errors, cruel actions, and dreadful attitudes.

Starting from this narrow lane of thought humankind had divided into factions, each faction had created new concepts to keep its needs addressed and, of course, as those concepts are not the same since the veneer of knowledge, intelligence, and culture are different, even those factions near enough to share some beliefs are far enough to dissent on basic things and way of thoughts.

This is true in both situations. Scientific and religious beliefs have its divisions, and each one of them its followers, developing, by the way, many different manners of defining the same thing and a rejection, sometimes brutal rejection, of any definition not agreeable to theirs.

This is the well known, not written, principle that states we must destroy everything we do not understand or see different to us and our ways.

Difference is not wrong, WE are different in the manner of puzzle pieces, if we just take the place we are designed to, the image appears clear and beautiful. But that is not the case, we think the image MUST be as we imagine it is, following our principles and beliefs (aka, tainted Faith, since it is tainted by our own ideas or those inherited), so if we find a different piece in our puzzle, we try to cut and warp it to conform our idea of the whole, destroying that “different” piece in the process and thinking we did it a good turn.

We prefer to kill, since it guaranty there would be no remonstrance from that quarter, instead of trying to understand each other and be very much alive, as it was meant since we are born.

There is a long way to walk yet for humankind to accept differences, and with it faith as a reality as concrete as to produce actual facts, my guess is we will reach that stage but it would take many, many individual casualties to make humankind shine in its own glow.

© 2007 Soother.

Faith, that jolting experience. (I)

2007-11-28T20:30:00.000-04:00

We live in an agnostic world in the best case, or in a nihilistic one in the worst.

This seems the current definition of our western society nowadays, but it is far from the truth.
We cannot deny there is a strong tendency to create a concrete world, based on science (whatever this means) and where everybody who do not toe the line to these beliefs is considered crazy, simpleton or moron and must be left behind with no one glance back, a kind of ostracism if you do not “equal” the herd model. This is effective with teenagers and some adults in need of a self-esteem booster.

This culture tries its best to keep humankind with the feet on solid earth, I am sure its followers are absolutely convinced they are right and performing a good deed. The question here is about what difference they make on reality.

When you make an exhaustive analysis of this phenomenon you find in a surprising way that, despite the efforts realized to keep everything accounted for, we are dealing with a huge slice of that thing most dreaded by unbelievers: Faith.

From long ago in the western religious fields Faith is one of the three theological virtues: Faith - Hope - Charity. The order was not aleatory. Faith opens the way to mystic environment where, based in Hope, will find the final Charity (Absolute Love). This seems to be an unacceptable way to achieve things and knowledge in this world without faith, but…

What is the path to achieve knowledge in the actual world?

Premise - Test - Evidence.

These are the three virtues of science; as a complement of this path, anyone can walk it and repeat exactly the same situations and conclusions.

Now, few of us can follow this path since we have not the training to do so. So what are we really doing? We believe the scientists are saying the truth, we have, hrrmm… sorry, faith in their work.

Here you go! The world is based on faith, or it will not work, it is impossible for us, all of us, to test and prove everything and anything.

If we do not develop an open mind we restrain ourselves to narrow paths and clearly set close boundaries to our learning.

Something cannot be proved by a set of concrete rules? Well, maybe it does not exist or maybe it does but cannot be proven by a set of concrete rules! This open-minded feeling should be the gist of agnosticism, not the “not believe until proven” which is the demanding action of these days.

We must remember that if this “open-minded” business is good in itself, it is subjective.
You have never seen a ghost… they do not exist for you. Right! I agree.
You live in a haunted house… and ghosts go bumping in the night, they are very real to you. Right! I agree.

Listening to many agnostics, one would imagine that this appeal to authority as a criterion is unscientific, though perhaps nowhere is authority appealed to so unscientifically as by modern scientists and modern critics.

Now, can you tell me why should I accept “scientific” faith and not “religious” faith?
I can hear your answer: “Because whatever a scientist said can be proved… (I add) by another scientist!”. What about me; I am no scientist, so I must believe whatever scientists say.
Cool! I agree.

Now again, whatever any mystic says can be proved… by another mystic! What about me; I am not mystic, so I must believe whatever mystics say!
Cool! I agree.

Despite my thought may seem “unscientific” I think we are attaching too much belief to science and too little to religion. And it is not just coincidence but causality. Since the famous (often misquoted) statement from Marx about the “opium of the people”, we are riding a crusade backward, doing the same thing crusaders did against those infidels but now against those faithful.

And we must not forget that for each agnostic abusing a faithful there is a faithful abusing an agnostic, fundamentalism does not help in any field!

From a psychiatric point of view, human beings are very much as a vacuum box, this vacuum is the outcome of the poor control we have over ourselves and our environment.

Notwithstanding all the efforts we have exerted since we become aware of being alive we cannot predict a small event in the next seconds of our time with absolute certitude. Oh yes, we can, with a grade of exactitude written in the unreliable laws of statistics, say what is going to happen but there always is a number, sometime a large one, of variables that must be left out of our equation since we cannot, even with a computer, manage them all.

And yes, maybe in the future we will be able to do so, but not now, which is the time I am interested in since I am not sure (there we go about predictions) if I will be alive the next five seconds.

We can see we cannot master our person or our environment so we feel: insecure.

We know we are in the maelstrom of events that can change our life in seconds; this is the essence of our feeling insecure, unsafe, and vulnerable. This condition is what creates the vacuum in our core; this vacuum is a strong need to find a safe harbour, a place where everything is accounted for and make us feel sure of ourselves and our environment.

This vacuum attracts anything that can promise, not even give the certainty, but only the promise of that certitude, of that safe feeling of being secure. Hence the need to believe in something, anything, so we start to take Nature (capital N), Science, People, Anything, Nothing as the fulcrum of our beliefs, and use the lever to assert our insecurities.

In recapitulation, we have two paths in our secular Faith: we believe what we want to believe or we believe nothing at all!

So much for desacralized Faith!

Now, just for the sake of balance let’s review the opposite, sacralized Faith, this somewhat discredited path, but let make separate room for it.

(to be continued)

© 2007 Soother.

I love Opera «Second note»

2007-11-28T19:09:00.000-04:00

Music can help you to perform the difficult movement of walking in a new environment, no rat race, no need to be first. Unfortunately, not all music is suitable, the raucous kindled voices, the high pitched noises, the repeated beat with no purpose only adds to the irrational race I was talking above. I am not disqualifying this music, you are entitled to like it, I only say that from my standpoint only serve to the purpose of herding and helping to push forward the need to run fast toward nowhere, again this is from my perspective, I can accept that we humans are different enough as not to think alike.

Besides, to an untrained ear, I mean an ear not used to listen Opera, not an “educated” ear, the human voice, the best musical instrument in the Universe, can be ugly. There are various pitches we must train our ear to differentiate before we can enjoy the thrill of music blended into voices.

Once you are lucky enough to have conquered with effort those first steps, you must try to learn what is happening on the stage, maybe most of it is a melodrama but so is life, too.

Why learn this?, simple put: because that is the only way to understand OPERA and the pathos in the characters.

Even if these steps seems difficult, the reward is the best thing that can happen to a person. As it is in real life, whatever you get without effort gives no reward or worse, we seem to acknowledge that the easy acquiring takes away value to the prize.

From passion strong feelings pour, which are diffusely cradled in the powerful arms of music and voice, if you can share the “pain” in Lucia when she has lost her reason broken by the sheer power of sorrow and despair, the words “Il dolce suono” (The sweet dream”) take a new and deep meaning that justify her actions before the “Scena de la follia” (Mad scene), the loving cadence of her voice accompanying the deluded thoughts of true love are movingly human in the inhuman madness that invaded her.

This cannot be explained; as sex and mysticism you must live them to understand their meaning, and to live sex, mysticism and feelings as those of Lucia you must make an effort which can leave you exhausted, even if totally satisfied. Your sentience as much as your body are depleted and at the same time replete with everything a human being can desire.

Maybe you can tell me you feel like that after sex, mystic experience or any music concert but I can assure you we may be using the same words but not the same meaning or feelings!

© 2007 Soother.

I Love Opera! «First note»

2007-09-18T01:57:00.000-03:00

I love Opera!

This seems a strange thing in these days and time. How many Opera lovers can you find in the several billions people who inhabit this, our hapless planet?

Our seal, I mean human beings in general, our seal seems to be the confused, mixed, blatant noises; the confused, mixed, blatant actions in growing speed, if you breath you lose, if you blink you are left behind, we must go, Go, GO! never mind grasping what is going on around us, no time for that! We must reach the future before it reaches us and becomes long past and use it just as a propeller for the next step into future.

When time overtake us and we find we are not fit anymore for the athletic feats that filled all the time of our life we find our hands empty, maybe some of us reached the shores of the American Dream, but, and this is arguable, the only thing they have is wealth, poor and stupid wealth with no significance when the line of end is near.

Now, if you could stop and think a bit, lose a small part of the immense wealth you are pursuing since you learned to read the words “one dollar”, then there is hope to fulfil a rich experience in life…

Opera is not a popular music genre. It cannot be. Society as a gregarious group presents a difficult way of living, the bigger the group the greater the competition. This situation demands so much of an individual that any other requirement is to ask too much.

The need of music and lyrics that help people find a way to raise their thresholds on suffering and let them be lost in any kind of ecstasy, in rapturous delight; that separate them from the hard reality, IS a strong need, but that music must be undemanding, able to dull feelings into a kind of stupor that conceal the piercing pain of actuality.

Opera is just the opposite, it tells melodramatic stories, with tortured characters full of pathos and pain, the “real” reality, (except in what is known as “opera buffa“, that is, comic opera which are just a little part of the whole) but the music is the redeemer. When you accept the hurting feelings from those acting, the drama as normal since so is life too, and let music seeps into the tissue of your soul, then OPERA is the only way to set you free, to stir, to shake you into a magic world of bliss and joy without creating a fantasy world for a while nor dampening your human feelings.

Maybe this introduction makes you recoil from Opera or maybe it opens a small crevice of curiosity.

(to be continued)

© 2007 Soother.

Ecco un filosofo! (Ranting)

2007-04-18T02:37:00.000-03:00

Standing erect to his full foot height and sending me an ironic kiss with the palm of his right arm, Elf pronounced:

-Ecco un filosofo! [Here, a philosopher!]

He had this glitter in his eyes, sign of some mischief ahead.

-Please, I pleaded knowing it was useless, do not try to emulate Tosca, will you?!

He was quoting a slightly changed line from the Opera where Floria Tosca cry:

Ecco un artista! [Here, an artist],

thinking her beloved Mario feigned very well his falling in front a shooting squad before she realized he was actually shot to dead.

You see the implications!

-Please, don’t be ridiculous, I was trying shame him into silence.

-Ridiculous, ridiculous my butt! he was not shamed and never will be, you know who is ri-dic-u-lous? he marked the word (syllable separation is mine, he is not able to recognize what a syllable is!!), You are ri-dic-u-lous!!! Thinking all those inebriated little thoughts about Honesty!

-I am not ridiculous, and there are no little thoughts in my thinking! I was affronted! I was pretty proud about my disquisitions on so deep a subject, I know I am not a philosopher, but I can think, by Jove!

-You are, too!

-No, I am not, period!

-No? ask anyone what can they make of this sentence:

"facts, I try to define, are as certain as thoughts but difficult to understand in its ontological reality."

this only a small instance! And it was not enough one note but you need three to say nothing at all!

-How can you argue with an empty mind, I said and immediately regretted saying it, I was being venomous and should have restrained myself, there is no point insulting people… or goblins for that matter!

He seemed not affected by my words or anger.

-Now look, life is simple if you can let your hands open, the moment you fold your fingers to grab someting or to turn your hand into a fist is when things get complex!

-Well, that is what I wrote, I said, surprised to see he has understood my meaning.

-So, why didn’t you said it so instead of writing so many elaborated and difficult sentences? It took me just so many words to define your thoughts!

He had a point there! what were my reasons? self complacency? Trying to show off my “knowledge”, but nobody read this, of course it stays online and… Oh, well, maybe there is all that and more selfish feelings. Phew! this darned imp always find a way to puncture my ego balloon. Maybe he really is doing his job to lead the way, as he always points out!

I felt like Tosca over Mario’s dead body, looking down to my dead ego! Darn it all! He knew what he was saying when called at me: Ecco un filosofo…! Only I didn’t jump over the battlement of the Sant’Angelo Castle nor dare to tease Elf with the sentence “Avante Dio”…

© 2007 Soother.

Honesty! «Third & Last Note» (Soliloquies)

2007-04-07T13:37:00.000-03:00

From the beginning of time Philosophy and Religion, on different roads of knowledge, have tried to “remake” humankind ethos following the simple rule of concordance, a kind of psychological action-reaction, “do unto others as you like others to do unto you”, if it makes any sense, but the internal force that define a human being as such is just the opposite: “be as you like and prevent other to be as they like”.

This seems uncouth and barbarian but it is the core of survival, “domination” does not guarantee survival but it “seems” to be the right way to it, a common ground where most human beings find themselves trying to rule, lead, and impose over others, even in small matters.

We may recognize in this need to be “the ruler”, in the reasons we have to justify the need, a kind of fallen nature in humankind, fallen nature in the sense of making sure the survival of the species but of our own self primarily, this drive is common with all species, any individual try to save life in the event more life can be procreated but what differs is motivation.

Not a single creature, with the exception of human beings, thinks in the importance of the self, only our kind try to preserve life through our own person.

This fallen nature comes, is said, from our special awareness of the difference between “right” and “wrong”, which is the leverage to prompt a misconception on the idea that anything right for us personally is the only right thing generally speaking.

There is a trend to align this feeling with the sense of insecurity, lack of stability, or sense of inadequacy humankind found to be its companion through the millennia lived on this planet.

This supposed fallen nature in humankind suppresses any and all possibilities to find a recognizable and ontological definition for this triad (and many other abstract concepts) and will continue doing so while human beings do not find the real meaning of the tissue we call reality, moreover, only after comprising this meaning into the real sense of survival as a whole entity, not as an “enlightened” isolated being but as many personal psyches within a unique essence, is possible to envision an answer.

Even then, after a real understanding of reality, we must find the way to work from the outside of this reality to start glimpsing the primeval rags of Truth, Honesty and Love.

Possibly the major surprise will come from the fact that Love encompass all others.

This premise must have been whispered into human ears in the first steps of our awareness, we do not know its source, but it is easily understood that it could not come from the natural “feelings” humankind could find or “concoct” by itself since we are aware that our, so called, fallen nature would prevent anything that could suggest to help a neighbor in detriment of the “inner personality”.

Each instance known of the occurrence of an action contravening this law written in our core makes us separate the transgressor from our “normal” behavior and we see that person in a higher moral level.

This attitude seems to point toward a possible change for the better for humankind in a far future.

© 2007 Soother.

Honesty! «Second note» (Soliloquies)

2007-03-19T01:01:00.000-03:00

The complex interacting forces between the subconscious being and the soul, supposing subconscious being and soul exist, (in the event they do not, there must be something to replace them since we have experience of the existence of subtle forces working in the inner layers of our understanding of reality, you may call them mind and intuition or brain and instinct), then, the complex interacting forces between subconscious being, soul, and our conscious mind work in the same system we call our reality.

The fact that this reality may be very different from one human being to another does not affect the outcome because the subject is concomitant with the stage, and the stage is what the same subject, in a proper manner, develops based on the facts reality shows to the subject's understanding. All this shaded by the inner capabilities each one of us "receive" at birth. The difference between recognizing a red thing and knowing what red is, applies here.

This being of ours, immersed in our reality, invalidate any intent of explanation we can think of Honesty, Truth, and Love. All these explanations will be tinted with the implant of our being alive (perception of reality), of our culture, of our vast or small knowledge of ourselves and the world in general.

Confucius, from my viewpoint and with due respect, is not the only one trying to oversimplify the notion starting from a sophism, or maybe from a warped rule of true understanding what "being good" means. He stated his thoughts in words that a human mind can understand but cannot translate into deeds since the ancestral power that moves humankind is just its own survival, a powerful self-centered drive that rules out any concept, idea, or perception out of those boundaries.

This survival force overrides any other law and, being a whole with no crevices, it cannot be severed, fractured or divided in parts because it only exists in its own wholeness. Only if we seek and attain a way to nullify this strong force of "life" and found intellectual reasons strong enough to keep the survival "howl" that live inside our deep self quiet and mute, it is possible to find the road to honesty, truth and love (lower case words), which put us near enough but not there yet!

(to be continued)

© 2007 Soother.

Honesty! «First note» (Soliloquies)

2007-03-13T20:48:00.000-03:00

Honesty is one of the triad also composed by Truth and Love.

Rivers of ink, and now electronic beams, if I can use use this over trod sentence followed by a new concept, have flowed in the intent to explain this trinity.

In the basic principle of Life it is impossible for humankind to learn the meaning of any of those three words. Weird enough is that we know the words, they belong in a different realm, we are too self centered a species as to have a remote conception of their significance. We can experience the outcome of their existence but, as elusive deities, we never can "see" their faces.

The first fallacy rest in the belief that honesty is simple. The second is our recognition of facts, sayings, and acts as we believe them to be. On this ground there exist as many Honesty as human beings on Earth. The same is true, no pun intended, with Truth and Love.

The simple fact that we MUST use our own faculties to "interpret" the meaning and span of our thoughts and acts, puts us in the handicap of a very much known experiment in Physics: It is not possible to change or interact with any part of a system from inside the same system. Otherwise said: You cannot raise your body holding yourself from your ankles.

Other way to represent this situation is to consider Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: If you try to measure the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time you will find that uncertainties, or imprecisions, always turn up.

This Physics' law reinserts itself into Philosophy and when you try to use the minimum knowledge humans have acquired through time, despite the huge dimension of that acquired knowledge and despite the reluctance to accept it as it is, just a small atom in a minuscule drop of the ocean of awareness and learning, when you try to interpret or, worse yet, to understand the implied forces in abstract concepts like that of Honesty (this is the same with Truth, Love, and many others), imprecisions arise, and those imprecisions are managed by the subjective elegance of personal knowledge, cultural background, and inner taste, determined by the facility we find in our "own personality" to elucidate and accept the "facts" found in, again, our observations.

Here again, we are trying to understand the same system that contains us and the "facts" contained in the system. Facts; as "certain" as the definition of a colour, where we have concordance about what thing is red, but we cannot understand what red, as an abstraction, is in our own perception and much less to compare it with some other person's perception; facts, I try to define, are as certain as thoughts but difficult to understand in its ontological reality .

These conditions determine the impossibility of a true understanding, no matter how much we learn in time. This growing knowledge will only be part of the same whole system that contains us and as I wrote above, the "facts" found in our observations; there is a small hope in the belief that sentience is something outside from the "real" world but this, up to this moment, pertains to the realm of mystical spiritualism and is out of the reach of science.

(to be continued)

© 2007 Soother.

Time and its whims... (Soliloquies)

2007-03-09T15:57:00.000-04:00

Coming down to it, time is like sand, it slides between the fingers as fast as a silk scarf, faster I would say. ¿Where have I heard this before?

Last year July seems a place so far away, but I cannot recollect how it was it went away while I was just moving within business as usual.

Then your eyes get clear, down comes the veil and you are astounded seeing that almost a year had disappeared in the sands of time... I am sandy, today!

Never mind, I'll be back, trying to keep this "worthy" soliloquies, ranting and beliefs alive, even if now it may seem an unnecessary bout but maybe in time somebody, somehow, will find all these scattered thoughts useful.

So, don't despair, sweet soul, I will follow the trail...

© 2007 Soother.

Once upon a time... (Ranting)

2006-07-02T01:58:00.000-03:00

I was trying to make up my mind between a toast or another brownie at breakfast when I notice this lump of ideas on the floor of my mind. It was Elf doing, of course. I never spread ideas on the floor of my mind. Always try to keep them in order and filed.
When I approached the mess, I could see his little head sprouting from the middle of the heap.
- What are you doing? I asked bewildered as I always am when faced to my Elf's deeds.
- Once upon a time... he said venomously.
- What!? I was not too original in the question but it took me by surprise.
- Where do these words come from?: "Once upon a time"
- Does it never happens once upon NOW? Why is it?
- Do you know? he blurted all these sentences together as if they were just one.
My Elf was in one of his tantrums against... nothing!
I tried to ignore his taunting, but as always I couldn't, putting his mindnose against mine he asked again, remarking his words:
- Do YOU know!?
- No, I don't, I said and kept looking for a good idea about the toast or the brownie (sorry about the pun) even knowing it won't deter this mini-devil to pursue once he started a skirmish.
- Well then, he said putting his mindarms akimbo, what do you think of it? Where do you think it originated?
Oh, goodness I thought, originated... but trying to keep a low profile I answered:
- Don't know!
- Don't know, don't know, he aped me as usual. Can't you show a little less idiocy and give an educated answer? What do you have all this brain for? eh?! eh!?
I gave up, it is impossible to ignore a thorn in your eye!
- Look, I said, these words were used in tales for children, as in nursery rhymes and fairy tales from Mother Goose's!
- Bah, Mother Goose was a Gander! (sic)
- Not a Gander, maybe his hubby was a gander! I tried to jump over the pun but...
- Who you mean?!! (he forgets grammar when in anger), I never heard of Father Gander!
I had to reckon he was right, neither I has ever heard of Father Gander!
- Ok, ok, I granted, just let's forget all about this. Yes?
- Forget? forget?, it is people like you that forgetting everything are guilty of the major evils in the world!
I was stunned, major evils?
- But what are you talking about?, himmeldonnerwetter! - when I start to get angry my German cassette pushes out some of those neverending words - major evils?! we were talking about Mother Goose here, not major evils!
- You were talking about Mother Goose, I am not. I am concerned with all that things that happened once upon a time and not now!
- Gosh! I said, where is my mindhammer!!
The elf put his best scornful face and giving me the cold shoulder lost himself into the archive.
I knew he was fleeing and scared enough about my mindhammer, he does not know what it is (neither I do) anyway it sound impressive enough to make him run away, but he always makes his departures look like if he has defeated me! Himmeldonnerwetter, again!!

© 2007 Soother.

Ghost day (Ranting)

2006-05-29T19:06:00.000-03:00

Today is Ghost Day...

I said it unwittingly loud in my mind.

-Whose ghost?, asked the Elf.

I growled noiselesly, there we go again!

-Eh... nobody's and anybody's, I had to answer or die.

-But then, the little rascal would not let it alone, but then,
how is it "a" ghost?

-A ghost, is a ghost, is a ghost!!! I hammered trying to close the argument, to no avail.

-How do you become a ghost? asked my elf.

I knew he knew but as always I am mincemeat in his mindhands.

-I am no ghost, I said sternly, trying to deviate his line of thought... Maybe it is easier to stop the moon from circling the Earth.

He giggle as a teenager, sometimes I think he is underage!

-Not you, silly, a person.

-Well... first «that person» must die, I tried desperately to find a reason to end the discussion, well, first «that person» must die and then there must be an administrative goof somewhere in the next life, «that person» cannot go to heaven and «that person» cannot go to hell, so «that person» becomes a... Ghost! That's it!

As always, it was a mistake:

Next life! What you mean "next life"! It is preposterous!

He must have found that word somewhere in my archive and was trying to make his point about my being a nerd.

- Why you think it is SILLY? I asked trying to make him go down on syllables. You see, we change sides easily enough.

-Such a PREPOSTEROUS idea!, he retaliated, when have you been in the next life?.

-Never, I recognized, but then again I am not dead yet!

-There ain't a next life, he said. What happens is that you change tracks.

Tracks?... changing tracks?? dreading his meaning I choose the easy way of correction:

-Is not, I pointed, trying to hurt his grammar ego and start a new discussion.

I should know my elf!

-That's what I said, repeated the elf, there ain't!

-You see, he went on, a person must die to become a ghost, and so it must go to the "next death", not the next life!

-But, I tried to keep in touch with reality, how can you be alive in the next death?, I mean... Ah!!, next death?!!!

-Nobody is alive in the next death!, the elf retorted triumphantly.

-But, but a ghost... I said somewhat incoherently.

-A ghost is a dead person, ain't it so?

I let that go.

-Yes, dead person, I said, forgetting the old wives' tales about animal-ghosts and things-ghosts.

-Well, there you are!

I swallowed a Valium and a Prozac, drank a glass of water and refused to listen anything else...

Just before I was lost in the dense haze of unconsciousness a thought emerged from my subconscious: Wouldn't all this be a big joke, a huge pun, concocted by Elf?!

© 2007 Soother.

Am I a nerd?! (Ranting)

2006-05-27T17:01:00.000-03:00

-You are a nerd!

The Elf was busy editing some of my old thoughts into smarter ideas when he turned around and spat these word to my astonished self.

-What?, I replied without originality.

-You heard me!, he continue without mercy.

I felt the usual desire to squeeze his little neck, but controlled myself and asked him:

-Why you think I am a nerd?

He let drop a small shred of a thought and replied:

-No, I do not think you are a nerd, you are one without my thinking!

-Ok, why? I tried to stop a new line of discussion which would have lost ourselves in a different argument.

- You see, he came again, you like old fashioned music, reading... reading!, of all the dull, boring things on the world, and writing things nobody cares about any more as that mumbo jumbo about love and romanticism! Where on earth can you find a romantic person nowadays? And you are out of character trying to impersonate one.

-Are you trying to insult me?, I asked a bit unnecessary.

-Oh! no, I am not trying to insult you, said the curmudgeon, I am insulting you out of smugness.

-Smugne..., now the desire to throat him was unbearable, the effort to keep mi mindfingers in my mindpockets left me mindless for a moment, then recovering I said between tight closed teeth:

- Will you elaborate, please?

- You see, he countered, what's that of "will you elaborate?", he moved his head from left to right producing an acceptable imitation of my mindvoice, can't you be a normal person and say something in the line of "How is that?"... and all that Opera thing... Whoever listen those bellowing fat ladies saying things nobody understands?

- Now look, I said in a very low voice, I was very near the edge to loose myself into a maze of gruesome acts concerning the head and body of this kinky small creature.

-Now, look, there are words in the world and they are there to be used, it is our business to know them and to make our vocabulary a better thing than the mere two hundred voices, and one thousand insulting epithets we usually employ... and there are no fat ladies bellowing anywhere, you small piece of a smaller than life shirt!!!

I was already shouting and my mindhands were mindfists, so after the last word I realized I was almost over the edge of using words I respect but prefer not to keep company with, so I closed my mindeyes and started singing "one elephant went out to play, upon a spider's web one day..." to calm myself, when I was on the seventh elephant I realized it was not working, so I changed gears and started with "Frère Jacques, frère Jacques, dormez vous? dormez vouz?" The effort to think French words made anger subside, inhaling deeply I finished in a more civilized voice:

-There are beautiful women like Dames Kiri te Kanawa and Joan Sutherland who delight us with their performance and wonderful voices making the words of the lyrics become an indistinct fluttering of butterflies in a "coloratura", you hear me?! I ended, ruining the
image I created with these three pedestrian last words.

He raised his head and looking the tip of his nose replied:

Oh, well! you are a lost case, and with that he returned to nitpicking my thoughts!

Just to make my point I asked myself to start in my CD player "Spira sul mare.." the sweet song where Cio-Cio-San, Madama Butterfly, sings her happiness to be engaged to Pinkerton and where a beautiful Renata Scotto shows the wonderful skill of her voice.

And everything was well again, swinging with the loving voice of "... la fanciulla più lieta del Giappone... venutta al richiamo d'amore" (the happiest girl in Japan... who came to the call of love) I returned to my usually placid mind.

© 2007 Soother.

The desire of the everlasting hills (Soliloquies)

2006-05-21T02:45:00.000-03:00

When would the desire of the everlasting hills be accomplished?!

Days go away as the hackneyed saying goes: sand between the fingers.

I am not complaining, it is fast, the passing of time I mean, but not fast enough for a light soul with immense wings. Things happen but they are not changing anything. Remember the old rule, change anything that let everything stay unchanged?

It is amazing how after eons human beings still keep their old practices of exploitation (such a blasting word!), indifference and hate towards their own species, what is worse, it seems as if there is no signal of change.

Even if all persons on the world (count me in, of course), I am being generous here but lets give us the benefit of the doubt, all persons on the world would agree that we are gentle, forgiving and with the heart full of good feeling to our neighbors, evil runs rampant on every place and nook on this miserable planet.

In an optimistic mood one can believe that tares, or better yet darnel, and wheat grow together but reality shows us that the scent of darnel fills all the corners of Earth.

I think we must endure and wait, but it is not easy. Mermaids' songs are stronger as time goes by, society follows paths far away from those mounds and glens we learned to call our own, and when the landscape changes so radically we start to ask: Are we right?, is it worth this solitude and this pain? But of course, when we come to remember we are a small boat in the grieving, dusky ocean of reality, the answer comes easily to mind: "this is how it is, there is no way around, we must accept solitude as our natural environment, no matter how noisy it is, it is all beside ourselves, never into us". We are in here but we do not belong here, not as a solid part of the party we live daily, only as a necessary accessory. So we can enjoy what there is to enjoy and endure whatever there is to endure.

Yeah, right! But it is still a hard bit to bite!
What if...?
Oh! come on!!

© 2007 Soother.

What!? Out!? (Ranting)

2006-05-04T21:16:00.000-03:00

...the silence in my mind woke me up.

Am I still asleep?, I asked myself, then I saw daylight by the windows and heard the usual sounds going on in the house, but...

... in my mind, SILENCE, a terrifying stillness, not a single note of "Vesti la Giubba" or "E lucevan le Stelle" in the shivery voice of the Elf; after so long with him living in there I was so much used to all the ruckus produced by this unrestrainable imp that the unexpected quiet upset me deeply!

I started to run around my mind, looking under some notions scattered on the floor, looked about the archives and the files with crescent alarm, even disturbed some ideas, arranged alphabetically and with a small tag reading: "tbust" (to be used "somewhen" tomorrow, this is the Elf doing, his concept of order and time, go figure!), and there was no sign of the Elf!

With all the strength of my silent mindvoice I cried: EEEEEEEELF! I was frantic!! and in despair.
The noise I was doing almost makes me lose the small sound reaching up from far away: cooomiiing!
What's that? coming? how come? coming from where?, my mind is surrounded by solid walls, as any other mind! He could not be coming, he should be into! I was reasonably sure he was not inside my mind.
It is a very cluttered mind (Elf doing, not mine), I had wandered from wall to wall several times looking for the wretched goblin and could not find him. Then again, how he came in the first time? I assumed he was born here! I was totally confused!

Then from far away the little voice, this time a bit stronger: coomMIING! and lo! from a obscure recess of the far wall there appears the familiar small shape of my Nemesis.

-You! I stuttered, you, little, short piece of a small, wretched son of a pistol!
Sometimes I can be very creative in my abuse.

-Where have you been hiding, how can you hide into my mind?! I run the whole darn thing up and down and you move so fast I couldn't find you!

-Steady, dud! he said, you'll work yourself into a heart condition!

-I want to make a sailor knot with your skinny neck!

-Hey man, he countered, what makes you think you own me?! I can do whatever I want and it is no business of no one...! (He sounded angry, and when angry he forgets his grammar, if he has ever learned one!)

I had to recognize he was right, my anger came from the belief that he has gone forever. Can you believe it? I like the miserable little fellow!

-Ok, ok, I said letting down steam, but where were you hiding?

-I wasn't...

-How come?

-Now, I shouldn't be saying this to you but the one who cannot leave his mind is you (still angry). I can go out into another mind to visit my cousins living there. Or go out to the Universe at large and visit some other... well, let's say, people.

-You kidding!

-No, I am not!!!

Angrily he took the biggest idea he found at hand and wrapped it around his little figure leaving me alone and totally confused.

He said, he was out! Out! Is it possible...?

© 2007 Soother.

The accidental electron (Ranting)

2006-04-26T23:18:00.001-03:00

The Elf sat comfortably between two of my best thoughts. Since I discovered him living in my mind, he always uses the best sites to place himself.

- Ok, Elf said, go ahead and tell me about the accidental electron.

I almost pointed to this gaffe saying:

- So you do not know about it, but knowing he would find an answer for his blunder just ordered my thoughts, avoided his mass, picked up the thought at his left and started:

- In the beginning...

- You sound biblical, prompted the goblin.

- Stop interrupting me! I yelled at his presence.

He just spread his hands soothing my axons.

- Well, I went on, in the beginning Earth was a primeval soup, magma and lava boiling in a unique mass of fire. Awesome storms bellowed from the foggy sky accompanied by furious lighting and growling thunder.

In this hellish place under an indescribable atmospheric pressure a few atomic particles found a way to get together creating a plasma, drifting in the soup, handled by incredible strong forces interacting with it.

It was just a detached piece from the soup but nothing more, the only difference was structural, a mindless form in a mindless medium.

And then...

- What!, what!, cried the irrepressible imp.

Then, a thunderbolt pierced the charged atmosphere of the planet disrupting the tenuous tissue of gases forming the space between molten rock and heavy sky, it discharged an immense quantum of energy just over the small plasma which was squashed by an accidental electron expelled by the blast that immediately disarranged and rearranged the atomic relationship of the plasma and surrounded it with a new and qualified environment not known until this very moment. In this new havoc and as direct effect of the incredible amount of energy discharged plus the chaotic characteristics of Earth at the moment, this chance electron was capable of creating a frightful and wonderful new being.

Now there was a mindless medium but alone, floating in the atrocious surface of the planet, there was LIFE ready to climb up the stairs of evolution.

The Elf was dazed.

It was the first time I saw him speechless, he couldn't find a word to show he knew what I was telling him or worse yet, invent some flourish commentary to make me feel he knows everything.

- But, but, he stammered. After a terrible effort he could just blurt the first thing coming into his mind, if he has one.
-But, but where was God?

- God? I query...
- I do not know, I added nonplused, maybe He was throwing down the thunderbolts!

© 2007 Soother.

My Elf and I (or would it be better: Him and me?) (Ranting)

2006-04-25T21:20:00.000-03:00

I said aloud:

- There is this theory about the "chance electron", or more scientifically said "accidental electron".

The elf who live in my mind looked flabbergasted, which is a very uncommon occurrence since he always seems to know everything. Trying to gain some foothold before I were overruled by the little imp and his theories I pressed on:

- Have you heard about it?

Even if it was evident he has not heard about it, he recomposed rapidly and interposed:

- It is nothing, really!

I felt chagrined, would this creature never recognize not knowing everything?

- Oh Ok, I taunted him, then it is not worth to discuss it. No answer.
- It was interesting anyhow, I proceed. Silence.

Darn his socks! I thought this aside and very low, "punning" my pun!. Sometimes it is difficult to speak to myself without his meddling. I did not want him to hear me.

- Are you there? I gave up at last. Why the silence?
- Just meditating, he said.

Meditating, meditating! Where, by the wood of the main door to hell, does he find these long breathed words! What have he against thinking? Not the same? Ok, but I bet he doesn't know the difference, either!

- What about? as always he was getting on my nerves!
- The accidental electron theory. This dropped nonchalantly!
- Tell me about it, I said and thought: Gotcha!
- No, he retorted, you better spin the yarn so I can make corrections when needed.
There you are, I will never win! He knows me better. Sometimes I think he knows my thoughts before I think them!

- Ok, I said, lets see, it all begin with...

- Wait, he interrupted, and settled down between two of my ideas, sinking in the spot as if it were a soft armchair, close here and start anew.

So I am doing...

© 2007 Soother.

Do you open your eyes? (Soliloquies)

2006-04-11T13:37:00.000-03:00

Silly question!! Of course I open my eyes!

Not that silly, blind people open their eyes, too.

It does not warrant you see. It only prove you can exercise your eyelids muscles.

Reality is less real than it tries to make us believe, and it is only because we are trying to understand the system we live in with our brains, which are part of the very system.

Something like if we would try to lift our body taking it from our ankles. You must be outside the system to have a chance to change it somehow.

How about having a mind outside the brain? outside the system. Yes, it could be useful but there is a catch. This mind must use the brain as instrument to its designs and then, in we go into the system again!

Beautiful! so we cannot "understand" our reality. Maybe, to make it clear and following the best way of Univac and in its metallic voice we hear the question: "Define «understand»"

Under stand: To be upright on one's feet on something which is below, a base.
To have a support for knowing.

There is no way we can have a support for knowing reality.

We can only "know" reality from the information we receive from our five senses into our brain, and you know they, the senses, are unreliable and it, the brain, is judge and part.

How near is near?, how warm is love? How silly am I? What color is your time?

All this seems so inconsistent, I can touch things and people, I can feel feelings, that "must" be reality!, then again, I can have dreams which are so "real" I can vow they really happened.

Conclusion: We can experience reality, we cannot understand it.

Science says it can "understand", can it? or does it only "interpret" it?

Words, again we are in the need of definitions. The never-ending game of life!

© 2007 Soother.

Explaining the unexplainable (Soliloquies)

2006-04-06T12:41:00.000-03:00

Can you hear the inner voice?

It is always asking...
Those questions, that inquisitive probing. The old "W" queries.

Reality is a foggy sea where our selves sail, each one of us in a different boat.
Some are full of lights and contraptions to send signals, other with just a positioning light and a small flag.
We drift along.
Sometimes we are so near one another we think we can communicate and start to send frantic signals from our decks.
From the other boat seems as if there was an understanding and it sends signals back.
After a while we feel we are communicated, but are we?
Up to a point, maybe, enough to drift along, to feel we are not utterly alone, it is possible to exchange tokens, but we cannot, ever, to board the other boat, to feel the "other" reality.
Questions stand alive, scorching us as a burning iron:
Why am I estranged this way?
What is the reason of this severe exclusion?
How can I feel other people feelings, share their tenets, know what "red" means, really means, in their minds, and why I cannot do it!
Cool!

Like it or not we must treasure second best, that poor imitations of true sharing: friendship, partnership, love, or worst yet "third best" hugs, kisses and that being so near but never near enough! poor sad, frantic signals sent from our loneliness.

Is this all that there is? Is madness the ruler of this happenstance?
If you tell me that you believe this, I must take it as true, but is it? How I, or even you for that matter, know it is true. Have you dived into the deep inners of your consciousness? Have you probed all possibilities?, or this belief is only the product of disappointment, an expression of rage against the unassailable fortress of the unknown. Do you think the unknown exists? Can I say I do not know the unknown and still look into my own feelings?

Seems so sad but no, it is not so...
Cheer up, in this reality there is no eternity, nothing is forever and that is good!

© 2007 Soother.

At sea, far away (Soliloquies)

2006-04-04T23:57:00.000-03:00

This was home for some time
Free space, great view of the sea, fish, salty smells, and waves.

Ninety five miles from mainland and solitude make the day to day chores important.

A babel of Portuguese, Indonesian, Chinese, Thai, some German, a tbsp of Spanish, several flavors of English... and Pidgin, of course, when you could not find any other tool for communication.

Sometimes, father Poseidon wanted to know what were those weird biped doing on the platform, so it raised tall waves, asked Eolo to roar with high gales, and Zeus to send rain as a heavy curtain and thunderbolts to see better. Awesome and scary, those who were not working on the deck ran downstairs to the cozy and covered entrails of the platform.

When the full moon started to rise on a calm sea everybody was on the deck, it was (is) a sacred view. Casta diva in her pure splendor.

I wondered many times, we were coarse, hard men toiling in a difficult and dangerous task but the mystic of a full moon mesmerized us as if we were a bunch of poets with a sensible soul, but then again, maybe we were and we had it.

© 2007 Soother.

Love, that misconception (Soliloquies)

2006-04-04T23:53:00.000-03:00

It is here, the silence, this blessed vacuum the world have forgotten. The expectation of what is to come...

The first score of "E lucevan le stelle" starts, without breaking the silence!
Oh! miracle of the sounds blended with stillness in a corporate spirit under the pale light of the stars. Recollection begins:

Even the creaking of the gate of the orchard when Floria arrives is a compound of anticipation.

Love is a misconception, selfless giving is nearer to love than to please or to be pleased. Floria's scent is a heady feeling, her languid rest in Mario's arms, the sweet kisses and the slow caresses, the feverish movements of Mario's hands divesting her of her veils make us think of LOVE, but it is only love.

Exhilarating, intoxicating love, the pleasure of contact, of possessing, of being possessed, to please, to be pleased, but not to give with no reward. Valid, yes! Needed, of course! Species require this!

But...

What is left if we accept this irrational notion?, this idea, crazy idea, of giving without waiting a reward! where is Romance?, the bitter-sweet pathos that gives life in that starred night, the last night of Mario's life, to the melancholic feeling of loss and belonging?

So love becomes Love, something in between, neither the whole LOVE, nor the unconscious "sarko", the half animal compulsion that keep us alive. Romanticism is saved, life is worth to be lived!

But time "fugit", time is an uncompromising vector born and lost in Eternity. It does not understand anything except flowing and Mario cannot stop the need of expressing his disappointment in losing life when he loved it most...

© 2007 Soother.

Read to dismiss dismal hours (Soliloquies)

2006-04-04T23:50:00.000-03:00

The best way to be lost in reality is to keep a book open.

Today is a melancholic, slow paced day. I can see through the window patches of the garden already soaked, even if only a fine drizzle is coming down from a forbidden sky.

This drizzle has been painting the landscape with its wet small brushes for hours now. The sun, hiding its magnificent corolla from humankind behind the thick cover of low clouds, is a wraith in "firedom".

I feel alone but not lonely, seeking to disperse the foreboding this misty rain brings into my soul I went digging into my library and lo! in one of the small shelves, to the left, in the Fantasy classification tab I found:

Fredric Brown's From these Ashes

Back, back in time, out of the drizzle, out of the melancholic mood, out of this world, into reality of fiction, into illusion and mirth...

© 2007 Soother.

Literature, foundation of the Soul (Beliefs)

2006-04-04T23:43:00.000-03:00

Literature, the distinguished goddess, with her golden wings called imagination and reality transports the faithful into the weightless world of fantasy or factual deeds, tapering the boundary between illusion and actuality.

© 2007 Soother.

Opera, the gate to heaven (Beliefs)

2006-04-04T21:52:00.000-03:00

Opera, where Euterpes excels and takes the soul to pristine ecstasy in giving a totally different meaning to the last line of Tosca:

[O Scarpia] Avanti a Dio!

Yes! to let music spread its charms into our heart is a way to be in the presence of God.

© 2007 Soother.

Books, the muezzins (Beliefs)

2006-04-04T17:04:00.000-03:00

Books, the muezzins of Muses, call the worship hours of drama, comedy and fiction for the literate faithful to commune with an elemental deity that transcends the illusion of reality.

© 2007 Soother.