Closed

A new wave of anti-Semitism alarms France, so magazines say. The Jews back in the dock. Reminded me of this novel about a little Jewish boy in America. Living with his family that has fled Europe to start life afresh. The boy has no idea what had happened back in Europe, his questions are not answered. One fine day, the Red Cross deposits Grandpa home in an ambulance. Old, senile, survivor of the Holocaust, not completely there. Always smiling, talking only to himself, living in a different world only he knew. The little boy is very curious about this mystery, but does not know what to do, he just cannot get beyond the veil.

One day at school he learns about number locks. That a combination of numbers can be used as an unlocking mechanism. He remembers the strange numbers branded on Grandpa's arm. (By the Gestapo, but he does not know that). So one evening, alone with Grandpa in his dimly lit stuffy basement room, he sits in front of the old man and repeats the numbers in a quiet slow voice, like a magician, trying out all possible permutations. Hoping one of them will unlock Grandpa, the secret world that he inhabits. But Grandpa continues to smile unseeing, talking in a strange mumble as always, lost beyond comprehension.

In the end the boy gives up in frustration. He realizes, with a feeling of suddenly having grown up, that Grandpa has closed himself in a world from where nothing, not even the magic of numbers, can free him.

Dec 2003

September

September
by Linda Pastan

it rained in my sleep
and in the morning the fields were wet

I dreamed of artillery
of the thunder of horses

in the morning the fields were strewn
with twigs and leaves

as if after a battle
or a sudden journey

I went to sleep in the summer
I dreamed of rain

in the morning the fields were wet
and it was autumn.

He knows - or maybe even he does not!

"Ali said: None may arrive at the Truth until he is able to think that the Path itself may be wrong."

from 'Thinkers of the East, Studies in Experientialism'. Page 38. Idries Shah

 

And a friend sends these brilliant responses to my excerpt Doubt is not paralysis. Certainty is.:

 Richard Feynman:

"...I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing - I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things. But I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here......

But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose." (This is the state I am currently in, so I can totally relate to this statement :))

From this brilliant 5-min video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3846497984030197366

 

The Rig Veda: 

From the Nasadiya Sukta - the Creation Hymn:

“After all, who really knows what happened and who can presume to tell it? What is the origin of creation? For even the Gods themselves are younger than it. 

He, whether he created it or did not, He who surveys it all from the highest heaven, He knows - or maybe even he does not!" 

http://www.apamnapat.com/articles/Suktas003.html

Fulfilment, Fun, Therapy: The Ugly Indian Way

"Today, I feel a sense of fulfillment that I haven’t experienced in a long time" - said one of our volunteers. Scenes from our Cleaning-up-Bangalore spot fixing effort with the Ugly Indians.

If someone tells you that cleaning up muck and dirt and painting walls with your friends is both fun and therapeutic, believe them. None of us have felt this great in a very long time. Amazing what team-work can do, and how good it feels.

My friend A and her 1.5 year-old son were the stars of the show - I hope she is an inspiration to mothers who keep their kids away from so much experience "because they are too young". That kid is one of the most peaceful, friendly, accommodating children I have ever seen - she takes him everywhere. He's got a solid grounding in social responsibility.

Photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/106491954401233999557/FulfilmentFunTherapyTheUglyIndianWay

Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/theuglyindian1?feature=mhee#p/u/1/9PyfUw-Al-4

The Ugly Indians: http://www.theuglyindian.com


On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/123459791046618

Mail them at theuglyindian@gmail.com if you want to volunteer for a similar activity with your friends or family. Click on The Ugly Indian label below this post to know more  about them.

And please do spread the word - thank you!

Doubt is not paralysis. Certainty is.

From  Preface to "Doubt: A Parable", by John Patrick Shanley:

“What is Doubt? Each of us is like a planet. There’s the crust, which seems eternal. We are confident about who we are. If you ask, we can readily describe our current state. I know my answers to so many questions, as do you. What was your father like? Do you believe in God? Who’s your best friend? What do you want? Your answers are your current topography, seemingly permanent, but deceptively so.

Because under that face of easy response, there is another You. And this wordless Being moves just as the instant moves; it presses upward without explanation, fluid and wordless, until the resisting consciousness has no choice but to give way.

It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake; like you’ve gone the wrong way and you’re lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.

…….Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite—it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.

Doubt is not paralysis. Certainty is. Doubt keeps the doors and windows open. Belief is one room with no way out. Do not let others impose a polarity of response on you. You need not live a reactive life. Don’t look to have life explained to you, presented to you. Live the life that emanates from your interior greatness. Be an overwhelming bounty of impressions, ideas, conflicting theories, and let the propellant behind all this be generosity. A giving.

Never look to the opposite side to change. It is always your turn to change. Society begins and ends with each of us. If you want to reverse some frustrating polarization of thought you encounter in others, I invite you to passionately doubt everything you believe."

Over

And so the time of the squirrel-thief is also over....

How long does a squirrel live? I hope you left well-fed, and content...I miss you, old friend.

http://whilethereisstilltime.blogspot.com/2007/09/zen-moment.html

Rest

Returning to Toni Morrison, of the rich language that makes you gasp in surprise and awe. And whose prose somehow always reminds you of Tracey Chapman and her songs of freedom and escape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orv_F2HV4gk

.............................................................................................

"She thinks she longs for rest, a carefree afternoon to decide suddenly to go the pictures, or just to sit with the birdcages and listen to the children play in the snow.

This notion of rest, it's attractive to her, but I don't think she would like it. They are all like that, these women. Waiting for the ease, the space that need not be filled with anything other than the drift of their own thoughts. But they wouldn't like it. They are busy and thinking of ways to be busier because such a space of nothing pressing to do would knock them down. No fields of cowslips will rush into that opening, nor mornings free of flies and heat when the light is shy. No. Not at all.

They fill their mind and hands with soap and repair and dicey confrontations because what is waiting for them, in a suddenly idle moment, is the seep of rage. Molten. Thick and slow-moving. Mindful and particular about what in its path it chooses to bury. Or else, into a beat of time, and sideways under their breasts, slips a sorrow they don't know where from.

A neighbour returns a spool of thread she borrowed, and not just the thread, but the extra-long needle too, and both of them stand in the door frame a moment while the borrower repeats for the lender a funny conversation she had with the woman on the floor below; it is funny and they laugh - one loudly while holding her forehead, the other hard enough to hurt her stomach.

The lender closes the door, and later, still smiling, touches the lapel of her sweater to her eye to wipe traces of the laughter away then drops to the arm of the sofa the tears coming so fast she needs two hands to catch them...."

Page 17, 'Jazz' by Toni Morrison

To let it go...

to live in this world, you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal:
to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver

Joe Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi, of the amazing piano pieces:


Resphoina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aysPO5j59YQ&feature=related

YouTube Mix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6YiZGJp35U&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AVGxdCwVVULXff4Cix4VjHF25C7TlGjryk

Buck Up

 Continued, from the post below:

"In June 1974 the Broadway producer Joshua Logan described his manic-depressive illness to a session of an American Psychiatric Association meeting in New York. Logan was one of the most talented producers, having a string of hits, including the musical South Pacific to his name. In the course of his frank and revealing address he had this to say about the 'come on and buck up' approach.

"It seemed to me that all friends of the average human being in depression only knew one cure-all, and that was a slap on the back and 'buck up'. It's just about the most futile thing that could happen to you when you're depressed. My friends never even hinted to me that I was really ill. They simply thought I was low and was being particularly stubborn and difficult about things. If anyone had taken charge and insisted that I go to a mental hospital I probably would have gone straight off. Instead they simply said 'Please don't act that way. Please don't look at your life so pessimistically; it's not as bad as you think. You'll always get back to it. Just buck up."

The point of this book is for fewer people to say 'buck up' and more people to know what to say and do when confronted by a depressed person or when depressed themselves. Given the prevalence of depression, all of us at some time in our lives will either be depressed ourselves or close to someone who is.

"Depression and How to Survive It"

Spike Milligan and Anthony Clare

Arrow Books 1994

Another one gives up

So friend calls to say that X committed suicide today, after a long struggle with depression. In spite of all the help we tried to get for her, she'd remained inaccessible, trapped behind a wall that no one could get through.

Remembered these lines from a book I read after I discovered that Spike Milligan, the man I always considered the funniest guy ever (And then a passing hippopotamus stopped by and said: "Hi, I'm a passing hippopotamus!", "Der British is terrible cooks, thought Looney, they even burnt Joan of Arc") "suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten major mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year":

 "A reason why people are often hesitant about offering help is that someone who is depressed may appear changed in one or more ways. People who have interviewed Spike Milligan when he is depressed and who may never have known him any other way often describe him as misanthropic, angry, bitter, unforgiving, even humorless. When depressed,  many of us become more unattractive than usual. People who can only see disaster, who fear the worst, who believe the worst about themselves and their fellow-men, are rarely stimulating companions. This is one of the reasons why people who are depressed become socially isolated even if they were not that at the outset.

One way to cope is to remember that the side of the person you see is just that - one side. Every one of us, however, is multidimensional, multifaceted. However, the depressed person recognizes and shows but one side. Don't get taken in."

Page 196. The Role of Relatives and Friends
from "Depression and how to survive it" Spike Milligan and Anthony Clare

Little Things

Inbox, from a long time ago:

"I don't care
if you've got funny ears
or funny hair
or a lighthouse on your head
all that matters
is if you've noticed
little children, fallen leaves, and sunsets
and have wondered
if he'll have you back
when your time's done." 
 
"... like Sartre said, there is no love apart from the deeds of love, no genius apart from genius expressed."
 
"...be kind and smile a lot. people tend to remember you for little things like that." 

Et entendre ton rire comme on entend la mer....

Renaud, Mistral Gagnant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYb_aYgmGP4

Ah... m'asseoir sur un banc
cinq minutes avec toi
et regarder les gens
tant qu'y en a

Te parler du bon temps
qu'est mort ou qui r'viendra
en serrant dans ma main
tes p'tits doigts

Pi donner à bouffer
à des pigeons idiots
leur filer des coups d'pied
pour de faux

Et entendre ton rire
qui lézarde les murs
qui sait surtout guérir
mes blessures

The only good fight

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation.

Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.

If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."

Charles Bukowski, 'Factotum'

Where have you been?

Chris Rea: Blue Cafe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pYwZQDQEb4&feature=related


Where have you been?
Where are you going to?
I want to know what's new
I want to go with you

What have you seen?
What do you know that is new?
Where are you going to?
Because I want to go with you
So meet me down at the Blue Cafe....