Monday, December 31, 2012

P.S.- This is wordy, even for me. I'm sorry. See it through anyways, huh?*

P.P.P.S.- If you're in a hurry, feel free to skip the first two thirds, and cut in at 'Plvs Vltra'.

I'm scrambling to write this now, and not tomorrow, though I'm already far too delayed and late, lest this be seen as my grand rallying cry for 2013, or a sendoff to 2012.

It's neither.

I made two New Year's Resolutions for 2012 though, as a rule, I don't do New Year's resolutions. They strike me as pretentious, over-zealous, and consequently, ill-fated.  I have made one other in my life-- for 1993. I kept it up through that entire year, and solidly for nearly a decade afterward. But that's otherwise.

The first was derived from some of the problems I felt in my life that came home with me from the UK-- primarily, the loss and declension of viable, worthwhile relationships due to modern society.  So I opted to give up texting for one year. Because I am tired of relationships at arms' length. I had enough of that while overseas-- every relationship I was involved in (other than the one I should actually have been investing in and nurturing) was conducted electronically.  So, because I wanted to maintain healthier relationships, I vowed to use my phone only as a phone. Because I feel people are worth that. If it's too big a hassle for me to call someone that I desired a conference with, then they were not getting the most of my attention and respect. By the same token, I felt that if anyone wanted me to be a part of their life badly enough, they'd call.  As a rule, they didn't.  I discovered, quickly, that texting is simply how we communicate now. Veering off this course proved highly inconvenient and bothersome to the relationships I most wanted to enhance, ultimately irritating those around me.  So, I resumed texting. And, eventually, rejoined Facebook. I really hate that I'm a sellout.

The second, again, was a direct result of the previous year and the upheaval it contained. I decided to be a better person. Simple. Do what I said I'd do, be where I said I'd be. Stop lying unnecessarily or otherwise.  Show respect and deference to those I came in contact with, value those around me. Pour myself out for the betterment of others. I feel this has been a hit-and-miss.  Those that I most desired to see my new self-awareness and social concern didn't, or weren't directly benefited by what feeble gestures I could offer them. I only came up short, I was only a letdown.  The people who might've noticed simply by routine contact with me already thought I was a pretty good guy. So they weren't impressed either. On the upside, if I ever did let them down, I probably did it less recently.

I will not be making a resolution this year. But I am hurrying to the heart of this matter lest merely by temporal association, you think that is my objective.

Carlos V, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, had his motto interwoven repeatedly into the repetitious patterns of the ceiling of his throne room in the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain. The angular Latin text fits magnificently into the Moorish tiles and endless tessellations, and I stood transfixed when I walked into the room.

Plvs Vltra.

In English, our nearest translation is 'further on', though a direct translation might be something akin to 'better added' or 'the best to come'; in Spanish it's more like 'there is more'. And these, particularly the first, have been my rallying cry for the last 7 years. Or, should have been. I've lately, or all my life, been guilty of just letting life happen to me. It's the down side of being easy going. So, along with 'more better things will be added Further On', I append the following:

One step in the right direction, every day.

That conveniently doesn't take into account the missteps I'm likely to take while our little terrasphere swings me to a routinely sufficient solar viewpoint, but let's not be pedantic. There is an endpoint toward which I am striving and I intend to address the getting there every time I crawl out of my bed/hammock/large pile of blankets. Life ought not to just happen; once in awhile it needs to be achieved. The best roads aren't necessarily straight, but they go somewhere.

*P.P.S.- 'P.S.' means 'post-script', if you were unaware (and thereby, 'P.P.S.' means post-post-script), indicating that the note was added after the main body of the letter. Locating a postscript at the bottom of a letter seems a bit redundant, I think, because it's Obviously added afterwards. But that's just semantics. I therefore added my postscript Prior to the main body of the text because After re-reading this mental oatmeal, it occurred to me that you might need a push to carry on through. In the event You feel the need to institute a New Year's Resolution, why not take up locating all of your postscripts into the top margin of any notes or letters you send? Think about that the next time you sit down to your typewriter, eh?

Thursday, November 08, 2012

This Day in History

In light of the upheaval or lack thereof in our lives over the last 24 hours, this, that I wrote a few years back in Scotland:

Today in history:
   chances were taken
      fortunes were lost,
         hands were given,
            salads were tossed.
People who would never hear one another's names
Died, and were born.
Souls that might've been mates
missed one another
in the infinitesimal eternity of milliseconds that separates
       a train being late
and a train being on time.

Great Things were done and applauded,
Normality prevailed unheeded.
Carpets were sold,
   transmissions rebuilt,
      test tubes examined,
         calamities claimed lives,
            and coffee was served.

The Mighty exalted,
The Lowly oppressed,
Joy in the Morning,
Contentment at Rest.

            But as for myself on This Day,
I lived long enough to see the clouds that blew in
            blow on out again
      just like millions of others
and other than that,
unless I write it here,
the minutiae of this momentous microcosm
                                 might not ever get writ.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Remember me?

Ostensibly, I started a blog to record the more profound of my inner musings, those most worth sharing. That was 7 years ago this month, I believe, or very nearly so.  I could look at back posts to ascertain for certain, but not without saving this incredibly deep delving entry where it stands, backing out, and starting over.  Tedium.

Any rate, if you muse through all I've had to say here-- and nothing in over 2 years at that-- you'll see that my high calling has plummeted and that what I have here is a vehicle via which I may moan over all that is not right with the world.  I suppose the rest of you have friends or facebook or both to commit this necessary outpouring to.  As I hate facebook and am trying to retain the few friends I've whittled myself down to, I do my complaining to the wider, emotionally uninvolved world.

So, for today's lighthearted pedantry:

I'm on gmail.  If you're not, or are simply using a different version than I, you may not know that gmail has a feature whereby it google does a random word search through my email text, and provides an information bar above your listed mail informing you of websites or recipes that you might also be interested in, due to its prowess with content association.  Today's bit of random brilliance read:

Recycling.  Film canisters can be used to hold nails, thumb tacks, and other small bric-a-brac.

Film canisters?