Yes!

I'm doing it. No blogging for a week. And the same, except for emergencies and truly urgent business, for email, social networking, and other online activity. I'll report back in a week or so. Meantime, will you cheer me on? With great affection and gratitude for all of you out there who do me the great honor of taking the time to follow my meandering thoughts... A bientot! Soon! Or, as Arnold has been known to say, I'll be back...

More on Connection

So I was thinking, yesterday, about our cultural addiction to wireless connection--the kind of connection that takes place not through actual human contact but rather through invisible, untouchable airwaves. I was wondering about the sacrifice involved: those people working their cell phones at the supermarket checkout counter, for example, were ignoring the possibility to connect with the human being in front of them, the one who was actually providing them with friendly service, in favor of a stream of digital "information" reaching them from that tiny, hand-held screen they were intent on.

I sometimes tease Ellie--well, often, really--for taking the time to go down to the bank in person and wait in that aggravating line for a teller when she could save a great deal of that time by making her deposits by mail and using the ATM. But she is quick to point out in response, a little bit tartly, that she does it this way because she would otherwise miss the human contact. She also points out, with some justice, that I spend a good deal of my time online--on the cell phone, on the computer, on the laptop--and that, consciously or not, I absent myself from whatever else is happening in the real world whilst I'm wandering off into the ether. And that, she is sure to add, includes herself.

Ouch! True enough. So I'm thinking--just thinking, mind you!--of dedicating our week-long trip to up north to a daring abstention from this addiction. I find that in fact it's a very scary proposition, and for that reason an important one to confront. To sever my "connection," if only for that single week, feels like the risk that I'll be severed forever. Suppose I make no entries on The Buddha Diaries or the still nascent Persist: The Blog? Will I forever be abandoned by all my readers? Obviously not, but that's the fear. Will the momentum that has begun to build around Persist come to an abrupt halt? Probably not, though I would have to expect it to slow down.

And what about that virtual ton of email I receive each day? There's a considerable percentage of spam, of course, and the junk mail seems to increase by the day. Gallery announcements and press releases are now done almost exclusively online, and these things occupy probably the most space in my mailbox. If I wish to keep abreast somewhat with what's happening in the art world, I need that information. Then there's a small flow of personal and business mail which has become quite essential. Yesterday--a not untypical day by any means--I received more than fifty emails, not counting those I consigned immediately to the trash. In the week I'm gone, then, I can expect to amass about 500 items of email. Some of it will be trashed before reading, but that still leaves a daunting pile of mail awaiting my return.

I'm still weighing this up, but one thing I have learned over the years is that the more an action seems frightening and unappealing, the more I stand to learn from risking it. Long-time readers of The Buddha Diaries will recall that I have had this concern in the past--and that I have always chosen, when traveling, to allow the blog to morph into a travel log. This time I'm thinking--horrors!--of taking the time off, having a real vacation, writing... nothing! As my friend Gary says, it will be good to allow time for the batteries to recharge.

As I mentioned, I'm still approaching this with a measure of caution--I guess I'm still leaving myself an out. But if you log on to The Buddha Diaries and find nothing new, please check back in after the vacation.

Dis-Connected--and Going Crazy

(Before I start, can I draw you attention to a very nice online interview with Greg Spalenka of Artist as Brand? Greg and I come at some of the same issues with different approaches, but there's a good deal we share in common, as you'll see from his questions and my answers.)

I sat down to write this morning but Ellie, upstairs in her office, discovered that the telephones had gone haywire. I'm not good in such circumstances. First, I just don't have the technical knowledge or skill to do anything about it; and as a result, my mind runs off shrieking into paroxysms of frustration. I've been running round the house from phone to phone trying to get one of them back on track, but pushing every button in sight does nothing to help. Now I'm back at my desk but my coffee has gone cold, my head is also a jumble of disconnected wires, and the phones still don't work. Ellie is upstairs in her office working through the maze of AT&T menus, trying to reach a human being to talk to.

Coincidentally, I was thinking earlier this morning that I'd write something about telephones. The thought was occasioned by an early trip down to the local market to buy a newspaper and some cans of 100 percent pumpkin. (You may be wondering why we needed 100 percent pumpkin so early in the morning. I'll digress enough to explain that George has been having unmentionable problems in the bowel department, and we remembered that pumpkin, in the past, had helped...)

So, back to the telephones. I stood in a short line at the checkout station and could hardly help but notice that every single person in the line had a cell phone in hand, and was either actually on the telephone, engaged in conversation with some person unknown to the rest of us, or perhaps checking email or the latest news. Every single person. Having made my purchases, I made my way out into the parking lot and found a couple more, similarly preoccupied. Had I not left my phone at home, I guess, to be scrupulously honest, I might have been fiddling with mine, too.

So I was thinking about connection, and how virtually non-stop electronic connection has become a way of life in today's society. What I saw at the market would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Now it's the norm. We expect connection whenever and wherever we are, and allow ourselves to go crazy when we're deprived of it. We tend to forget the paradox that when we're connected online, we're dis-connected from everything else around us--from the reality of life itself. I can't exculpate myself from this distressing new phenomenon: Ellie complains that the laptop gives me online access even in bed in the morning. And she's right. When I'm working on the computer, I'm somehow not really "there." And certainly not "here"--as in "here and now." My mind is elsewhere.

So it seems that vast numbers of us are elsewhere a good deal of the time. Walk down the street, stop for a cup of coffee at your local Starbucks, go our for dinner in the evening... you're surrounded everywhere by people who are not there.

"Only connect," wrote E. M. Forster at the end of his great novel, Howard's End. But I don't think he was envisioning the kind of connection we have today. "Only connect the prose and the passion," he continued, "and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die." The prose and the passion--how we live our daily lives, perhaps, and what we feel, what happens in the heart--will both be exalted as a result, and human love will be seen for the best that it can be. Are we not "living in fragments" with our bits and bytes, our tweets and Facebook communications with our "friends"? So who is the beast, and who the monk? The beast, the animal part of our human being, the part that exists only to satisfy the animal instinct, the competition for procreation and survival? The monk, deluded by some notion of spiritual purity, as disconnected from the world as those ascetic companions of the Buddha, before he found enlightenment?

Forster's "connect" seems to me to suggest a Middle Way, a place where compassion rules, where we accept both the demonstrable vulnerability of our humanity and the unattainable quality of perfection. In any case, it's a far cry from the kind of "connection" that our technological advances have to offer, where electronic impulses replace human touch and pixels of light stand in for the human face. I have something to learn from the panic that set in this morning, when the phones didn't work...

BuddhaFest

We can agree, can't we, that Washington DC is one place that would stand to benefit from a good Buddhist vibe? So it was a pleasure to hear, yesterday, from Gabriel Riera, on Facebook, about the planned BuddhaFest ("a film festival + talks and meditation") at the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University in our nation's capital. I think we should all contact our Congressperson and Senator to invite them to attend. Some hope, I guess. But, in the words of the song, wouldn't it be wonderful?

Monday, Monday

Have a great week! Oh, and check out the new topic on Persist: The Blog.

SLEEPING TOGETHER

For pretty much forty years, Ellie and I have been sleeping together in the same bed. Occasionally, true, we have found ourselves in situations—in hotels, for instance, or as guests in a friend’s home—we have slept in separate, but adjacent beds. There have been times, too, when either one of us has been on the road, away from home. But those occasions have been rare. Forty years times three hundred and sixty-five days equals… what? Fourteen thousand six hundred. Let’s say, then, that we have slept together at least fourteen thousand times.

I reflect on this because last night we slept in separate beds, in separate rooms. And no, we didn’t have a monumental row. We do have them, sometimes, but I can’t remember a single occasion when that has prevented us from ending up in our shared bed. No, the cause was different.

You see, I snore. I snore horribly, loud enough to shake the house, let alone to keep my poor wife awake.

It was perhaps fifteen years ago, on the occasion of a trip to Berlin and the uncommon luxury of staying in a luxury hotel—I need not go into the circumstances—that my snoring became intolerable. It ruined, for Ellie, what would otherwise have been a marvelous trip. The hotel pampered us. We had the opportunity to learn a great deal about the contemporary art scene in Berlin, one of the world’s great centers; to have some memorable meetings with world-renowned artists and collectors; and to visit not only the great art museums, but also some powerfully moving sites like the old Gestapo headquarters, still haunted by the spirits of those imprisoned and tortured there; Checkpoint Charlie and what remained of the Berlin Wall; and the then recently completed Holocaust Museum by the architect Daniel Libeskind.

All of which was ruined, for Ellie, by my snoring and her inability to get a decent night’s sleep. So on our return to Los Angeles, she prevailed upon me to do something about it. I had in fact gone to the Kaiser sleep clinic some while before, and had been diagnosed with sleep apnea. Without realizing it, I was waking more than thirty times a night for lack of breath. I learned at the time about the CPAP machine, a simple air pump with a sleeping mask that facilitates breathing. I had even given it a test run for a night, but was repelled by the necessity of having a mask over my face. Now, it seemed, the time had come to make another effort.

I have used the CPAP ever since. I do not like it. I sound like Darth Vader and look like Hannibal Lechter. But the damn thing works. I do not snore—except when the mask slips, which happens rarely enough not to be a serious problem. And I sleep a hundred times better. It still irks me to have to put the mask on my face every time I go to bed but recently, on those rare occasions when I have slept alone, I have learned that the quality of sleep is not the same without it.

So last night—to get back to my story—I prepared for bed and discovered that the clip that holds the soft plastic cover in place, to form a seal and provide a modicum of comfort, had somehow gotten disconnected from the mask. I searched the bedside drawer where I keep the mask. Nothing. I searched the floor around the bed. No. I searched through the bed linen… No plastic clip. I wash the mask often, and leave the component parts out in the garden to dry, so I wondered if the clip had dropped off there, and went out to look. I even checked in the container where our weekly gardener piles the swept leaves. No luck.

I decided eventually to try sacrificing comfort, tightening the straps that hold the mask in place to try to seal it that way; but as soon as I laid my head down, it became clear that air was leaking all over the place. Worse, the whole apparatus started to whistle alarmingly. After a few minutes, it was clear that there was no choice: I would have to go to the guest room to sleep.

Not a happy situation. I did not sleep well without my sleeping aid. In the middle of the night, George must have noticed I was missing, because he trotted into the guest room, where the bed is a shade to high for an easy leap, and demanded to be helped up. Ellie woke, distressed to have been abandoned not only by her husband but, now too, her dog. But the mishap did offer me the opportunity to reflect a bit on the fact I alluded to at the outset—that we have slept together, in one bed, for all these years.

As Ellie said, this morning, sleeping like this is surely part of the glue that holds a couple together. It’s not just about the sex—though that is of course a part of it, but one that does not need to be discussed here! Aside from the sex, there’s love at stake, and compromise. And sacrifice. There’s an accommodation involved in sharing a bed, which requires the actual, physical surrender of some personal space. So it’s about the bond of intimacy that grows, over the years, from sharing a proximity that tolerates all the farts and (well, mostly) the snores, the dreams and nightmares, the restless stirrings and the depths of a sound sleep. It’s a sharing that we rarely register consciously, but one that must surely have a profound effect on the unconscious mind, where so much that is important in our lives takes place.

There’s also a kind of exclusivity involved: in all these years, I have not shared a bed with anyone else—except George, of course, and over the years a few other sundry dogs and cats. Bed is the place of ultimate recourse, the place of recuperation and, when needed, of healing those mutually-inflicted wounds—often without words—by sheer proximity. So last night proved to be one of those “gifts wrapped in shit” that I often write about, offering both of us a moment to reflect on the value of what we have shared over the years: the opportunity to sleep together.

"Masterclass"

A friend just told us about this series, Masterclass, on HBO, and we watched a couple last night. (Don't know when they actually air, because our TV service automatically records HBO series; but they're well worth watching of you can find them.) The idea is for a handful of specially talented young students to encounter a "master" for two-three days--we saw them working with Olafur Eliasson, the Danish artist who works with light, water, color, and magical space modifications, both interior and exterior--he did the "waterfalls" in New York City you might have read about; Liv Ullman, the Norwegian actress whose work with Ingmar Bergman is legendary and who is now also a director; and the Spanish-born tenor, Placido Domingo. Quite a line-up of talent for these young people to learn from.

Amongst all the great reflections on art and the creative process, this one stands out:

"Don't ever feel ready"--Placido Domingo.

It's akin to my own adage, "How do I know what I think 'til I see what I say," because the suggestion it carries, for me, is that I must always be ready for the next discovery, the next surprise.

It has, too, some relevance to the discussion of "branding" that's still going on over at Persist: The Blog. As I see it, branding assumes that I already know who I am as an artist--writer, musician, actor... If I brand myself, I become a known entity. Creativity, though, is all about discovering who I am--those parts of me, those ideas, those paths I don't already know. This is what makes it exciting, and eternally new.

Persistence: A Portrait

Today, I post a portrait of persistence on Persist: The Blog. I hope you'll have a moment to check it out.

"Unmistaken Child," on Independent Lens

This PBS special brought me back to thinking once again about why I have not been able to call myself a Buddhist. Than Geoff (Thanissaro Bhikkhu) would tell me—has told me—not to worry my little head about such things, but the belief in reincarnation does seem to me to be the point at which Buddhism ceases to be the most healthy, rational, ethical way to live one’s life and becomes instead a religion. I struggle with this.

I hate to harp on about it, and realize that I speak out of very limited knowledge and understanding of these things, but I keep coming back to the position that everything about the teachings makes wonderfully good sense until we reach this ultimate point. As I have said perhaps too often in the past, I cannot wrap my mind around the notion that we keep returning to this world in a different incarnation after death until we reach enlightenment. It makes sense as a beautiful metaphor; not, to me, as a belief.

These thoughts inevitably occurred to me once again the other night as Ellie and I sat watching a recorded replay of “Unmistaken Child.” It’s the very beautiful, deeply moving story of a Tibetan monk, Tenzin Zopa’s search for the reincarnation of his beloved spiritual master Geshe Lama Konchong in the mountain villages of Tibet. After a long, arduous journey and many false leads he discovers, in a modest rural family, a chubby year-old boy who appears to recognize and “claim” the departed lama’s beads and other ritual objects. The boy‘s credentials are reviewed by the senior leaders, his astrological chart is examined, and he is eventually certified by the Dalai Lama himself as the authentic reincarnation of the master. The story ends with the tot’s richly ceremonial enthronement as the spiritual leader of his own monastery.

There is something extraordinarily compelling about this story. The majestic, snow-capped mountains and the green valleys of the region have something to do with it: the grand supremacy of nature over puny human beings is overwhelming. Unquestionable, too, is the faith of the villagers and the monks. Their faces radiate with it, and with the happiness it appears to bring them. To the Western mind, the circumstances of life are unimaginably bleak: tiny cottages of stone and wood, with only the barest of essentials; frigid temperatures and, in warmer weather, mud everywhere—most notably on the faces of the children! For heat, there are wood fires, and rough cots for beds. To most of us, it might seem impossible to find happiness in such harsh circumstances—but the eyes shine, the faces glow. Or am I projecting, along with the film-maker, my own patronizing and romantic dream about the uncomplicated rustic life?

The faith is touching. It is also omnipresent. We find ourselves on Tenzin Zopa’s journey in a world quite different from ours, where faith is less a matter of the loud profession of beliefs, of Sunday suits and sermons, and more a matter of the way life is lived, of daily ritual and observance. The monk’s profound love for his master amounts to a consuming passion, reflected in his dedication to the search. The faith of those he encounters along the way is clearly an essential part of their lives, and he is received everywhere with unquestioning respect for his spiritual status. There is a symbiotic relationship between the religious and the lay people that accords each his or her own standing—though it’s notable, as in all (?) religions, that the male predominates. The power rests clearly, in this Buddhist hierarchy, in the hands of men.

Religion as a way of life is one thing. It’s when it gets carried over into dogma and hierarchical structures—along with ostentatious ritual and what psychologists refer to as “magical thinking”---that my inner skeptic takes over. And all those things abound, it seems to me, in Tibetan Buddhism. True, there is something irresistibly appealing about those saffron robes and the colorful headgear, the chanting that seems to come from imponderable inner depths of being, the bowing and prostrations, the flapping prayer banners, the constant exchange of those white blessing scarves… There is something enchanting about the sober consultation with astrological charts, something seductive about a paternalistic authority that confers certainty and blessing, relieving us of a certain measure of responsibility and doubt…

And I do realize, of course, that this form of Buddhism is by no means the only one. There are many more “plain” practices than this, many more down-to-earth teachings and expressions of faith. But all of them, it seems to me, circle back to reincarnation and its companion concept, karma. Otherwise, there is nothing so far as I can tell to distinguish it from a philosophical understanding and a way of life—in which is suffices, amply, for me.

So I squirmed, in this story, to see a man as rational and enlightened as I believe the Dalai Lama to be, giving his seal of approval to those astrological charts submitted to him to validate the identity of this “unmistaken child.” I squirmed at what seemed, to my Western mind, an act of child abuse in snatching this child from his mother’s arms and his father’s loving care; at the sight of the little boy screaming as his head was forcibly shaved by the monks, despite his protests; at his bewilderment as the newly enthroned lama, approached for his blessing by untold masses of worshippers.

There is more to my skepticism, of course, than what I have touched on here. It reaches to religions other than Buddhism, and surely says as much about me as about the religions I mistrust. I plan to explore it further in another essay I have planned. Enough to say, at this point, that I loved "Unmistaken Child" despite—or perhaps indeed because of—the resistance that I felt.

The Fresh Air Fund

Readers will surely remember that The Buddha Diaries supports The Fresh Air Fund with donations, as well as passing along an occasional appeal for host families, to allow inner city kids some contact with the larger world around them in the summer time. (For more information, you'll find a tag lower down in the right-hand sidebar.) I myself am a great believer in the healing power of nature, and once again would like to let you know that the Fund is looking for good-hearted, generous hosts again this year. Should you be in a position to open your home to a small guest for a while this summer, or should you know of others who might be responsive to this call, please think about the joyful, educational experience you can bring to children who might know nothing of green fields and wide-open blue skies; and, of course, to yourself! Your action would be a blessing not only to the child involved, but to you, as host, and to all of us who are in search of a better world. With metta to all...

Gleefully Gaudy

We saw two terrific shows on our gallery tour at the end of last week. Well, three. But first these two...

(NOTE: The images on today's entry are pirated from various locations on the internet without specific permission. I trust that the artists in question will have no objection in the context of a few good words on The Buddha Diaries.)

At UCLA's Fowler Museum, there's a stunning exhibition of the work of Nick Cave called "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth." Which is where you might think you find yourself amidst the spectacularly weird and wonderful beings evoked by Cave's exotic costumes...

...full-body masks, complete with leggings created out of a splendid assortment of junk and costume jewelry and kitschy collectibles and children's toys and brightly colored furry stuff that, when worn (as you can see in the videos) shimmer magnificently with the movement of the human body. Cave's endlessly fertile imagination allows no boundaries between art and costume, contemporary and ancient, nor between civilizations and cultures. He plunders them all, gleefully, producing effects that delight the eye and provoke the mind in equal measures. Go to the website, click on the "Nick Cave Photo Tour" and treat yourself to a mind-trip the like of which you'd have to go far to see. This is a show about the sheer joy of difference and the oneness of everything. It's one of those shows that opens you up to the exuberant, immeasurable potential of the human spirit.

(Also at the Fowler, by the way, is a concurrent exhibition from the museum's collection called inter/sections:world arts/local lives, exploring "the roles that art plays in creating meaning and defining purpose for people across the globe." Okay. No matter what it's purpose, this show is chock-a-bloc with fascinating relics from far-flung cultures in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Americas... I had time only to breeze through it, ashamed to be walking past so much that called to my attention, so much of real value. The place feels haunted by the souls of the artists, craftspeople, shamans and others who created these manifestly spirit-pervaded objects; it's like a profound echo chamber in which the human spirit resounds at some unfathomable depth of consciousness. No coincidence, surely, that we went on to hear a lecture by the Jungian James Hillman later that same evening. But that's another story.)

Back to gaudy... After the Fowler, we stopped at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects and found the sassily titled show called Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl by Mikalene Thomas. These mixed media paintings incorporate rich swatches of material and glittering beads along with photographic and painted areas. They feature seated...

...or reclining odalisque-like figures of gorgeously seductive black women in colorful exotic environments, whose provocative poses and come-on looks are at once an homage to the delicious sensuality of their womanhood and an ironic reflection on the historical exploitation of their sex and race. The title, of course, harks back to the song recorded with languorous appeal by, among others, both Bessie Smith and Nina Simone. The pictures tease us with our own racial prejudices and tantalize us with their explicit sexuality. They also taunt the "educated" aesthetic eye with their finger-in-the-eye rejection of mainstream norms and their embrace, instead, of passionate commitment to a social statement. Those who know and admire the work of the late Robert Colescott will surely get an equal kick out of these paintings by Mikalene Thomas.

Both Cave and Thomas, by the way, are African-American artists. In case anyone was wondering.

Okay, then, I promised a third, unrelated to the first two unless by an exuberance of energy. This artist is Iva Gueorguieva--and I challenge you to pronounce her name. She's showing an impressive number of mostly very large paintings at Angles Gallery--the latter newly relocated from Venice to a site on La Cienega Boulevard adjacent to a number of other worthy galleries. Gueorguieva's paintings offer the curious eye a truly exciting adventure in rhythmic movement through canvases that evoke city-scapes...

...with all the familiar energy of city life--cars, freeways and highways, jagged architectural elements--in a post-apocalyptic chaos of disruption and decline. These are truly noisy and disturbing paintings, cut open and bandaged in some areas as if to relieve their emotional intensity and interrupt their boundless energy. They temper their aggression with a vulnerability that invites us into their surfaces and tells us something about our own.

So much for the gallery tour last week. I would mention other shows if there were time...

A New Question

I just posted a "question of the week" on Persist: The Blog. I'd love you to join in the discussion, if the question interests you. Meanwhile, I'm working on a piece for The Buddha Diaries which is about religion, faith, and related matters. I hope to have it ready to post tomorrow.

Oh, No...! (What's Wrong with TAM?)

We set out this morning on an unusually long route to Laguna Beach, in order to make a stop at the Torrance Art Museum (TAM) to see the current exhibition which features our old friend Roland Reiss along with a handful of the extraordinary number of artists who have learned from him--either from the example of his work, or from his many years' teaching at Claremont Graduate University. I had been looking forward to seeing the show and writing about it on The Buddha Diaries... but alas! the museum was closed. Not only that, it seemed that every road to the museum was closed, too. Still, we followed the multiple detours and arrived at the Civic Center where the museum is located, only to find that even the access to the Civic Center was closed off. A friendly cop on duty at the entrance to the parking lot informed us that everything was closed because of the day's "Armed Forces Day Parade," and that the museum was likely no exception. He was kind enough, even so, to allow us through to the parking lot to investigate, but his glum prediction proved right.

I don't make a practice of writing about a show I haven't seen. I had hoped, at least, to find out more details at the TAM website, to be able to share with you--but that is apparently closed, too, though whether due to the Armed Forces Day Parade or to some glitch in their computer system, I can't tell. So I'm writing blind, not even able to find out the names of the participating artists; and the only reason I choose to do so is because I'm pretty sure I won't be able to go back to the museum, and I wanted to write something about Roland. Something, that is, by way of a tribute to an artist whom I greatly admire and who has been, perhaps more than he knows, as much an "influence" in my life as he has been to those artists whose names I might now never be able to find out!

Let me tell your four stories about Roland. He has been around this planet even a little longer than I have, so I have known him for many years. I first came in touch with him when I went to see an exhibition of his miniature dioramas, mystery stories on three-dimensional table tops told in exquisite detail, whose narrative, like one of those French nouveaux romans was always as tantalizing as a roman a clef, but never quite explicable. I was enchanted, and wrote a review of the show which appeared, I believe, in one of the national art magazines. It was not long thereafter that one of these pieces came up at a charity auction, and Ellie and I found ourselves bidding for it in competition with one of the then major Los Angeles collectors. The lady proved too cheap to go up as far as the measly $600 we paid for it, and the piece has occupied a prominent place in each of our homes since then. I have lived with it, have seen that artwork every day of my life for at least twenty-five years, maybe more--if only, often, out of the corner of an eye--and its image and mystery remain imprinted on my brain.

Here's the second story. In the 1980s, I embarked on what turned out to be a relatively short-term a career as a mystery writer. (It was not my genre. This is, the essay.) Because they were set in the contemporary art world, my novels had art terms for their titles. The first was called Chiaroscuro. The second, after a consultation with Roland, was called Dirty-Down. (The dirty-down, for those not in the know, is the term that describes the process of making something new--a forgery, say--look old, and the title came from Roland's own bag of studio tricks.) At the time, the late 1980s, he had moved on from those miniature dioramas to creating huge, rough-made, giant tumbling figures, larger than life-sized and falling somewhere between the tragic and the absurd. He kindly allowed me to use an installation shot of these figures for the cover of the book.

Third story. Ellie and I were to be honored by LA Artcore for quite a large number of combined years' involvement in the Los Angeles contemporary art community, I as a writer and critic, she as a former gallery owner, a consultant to private and corporate collections and, most recently, a mentor and coach to working studio artists. We were asked to suggest a suitable speaker to introduce us and sing our praises, and I could think of no-one better qualified than Roland--not only an artist but an educator and, a one time, a fellow art school dean. I was not misguided. He did a wonderful job, flattering me far beyond my just deserts, but in the nicest possible way!

And story number four. Even after retirement from conventional higher education, Roland could not quite manage to give up teaching. I suppose he never will, in one way or another. He started a series of summer workshops for dedicated studio painters up in the mountains at the Idyllwild art school facility, and the series became a mecca not only for painters of all stripes (forgive the pun), but also for guest speakers, some of them of considerable renown. I felt honored, a few summers ago, to be among them; and it was that experience, speaking to artists about the art world and my expectations of art, that led me to reflect on the numerous essays I had written and published over the years. I re-read some of them, edited some of them here and there, and found myself with the book that turned out to be Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce. I feel strongly that this slim volume of essays is a summation of a good deal of thinking over the years, about what it means to be an artist or a writer, and how to "persist" in what is today a highly commercialized environment. I am grateful to Roland for having set me on this path.

I know that this endlessly productive man continues to work daily in his studio. Ellie and I were over there a while ago, and found him engaged in a new series of large, wildly flowery, ebulliently baroque paintings guaranteed to raise the hackles of any mainstream critic. We also attended a big birthday bash for him--one of those that end in a zero, but whose first numeral can go unmentioned. I was one of the invited speakers, and was pleased to be able to return the favor he had performed for me at that honoring ceremony, years before.

So this is my tribute. I had hoped, as I say, to do it in conjunction with the exhibition that eluded us. Failing that, for all those who live in the Southern California area, please accept this as my injunction to make the pilgrimage to the Torrance Art Museum. Just be sure to call ahead!

Sending Metta...

... this morning to that young boy who is the sole survivor of that airliner crash in Libya. His body is mangled, his brain as yet incapable of accounting for what happened to him. He has not yet been told that his parents and his brother perished in the crash. He has inevitably much suffering ahead of him. May he in time be restored to happiness in his life...

And, in widening circles, sending metta to all those recovering from accidents in the world, and to all those recovering as a result of violent crime, social unrest, and war. (I think of Thanissaro Bhikkhu, now visiting in Thailand at the moment when the civil unrest has turned bloody...) May they all find true happiness in their lives.

And thinking these thoughts, I find myself struggling with the attempt to fit all this in with the concept of karma. Many of the people suffering in this way are the innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control--at least in this life, and I have a really hard time taking past lives into account. The laws of cause and effect make good sense to me in almost every aspect of our lives, but how do we apply them to the case of that nine-year old boy who narrowly escaped death in a plane crash, and who will suffer from the trauma of it for the rest of his life?

It's a tough one to wrap my mind around. In the meantime, it does make sense to send metta...

That Puppy Dog

Okay, you know
the story, how

the puppy-dog, un-
leashed will soon
rip up your home.

He'll gnaw the legs
of the table, chew up
your favorite slippers.

He'll take a piss
on the carpet, make
life a misery.

Train him, this
same puppy dog
's your friend forever.

Rilke, the poet, wrote
famously "you must
change your life."

I say, rather, and more
simply, you must
change your mind.

Branding

We have a conversation going over on Persist: The Blog this week about "branding." Do you have any thoughts about this? Does the idea of branding appeal to you? Is it a necessary evil for one who's involved in creative work--perhaps even for a blogger--if one wants to be "successful"? Or is it anathema? I'd really love to have the input of The Buddha Diaries readers, since so many of you are clearly creatively-inclined. If the topic pricks your interest, it's an easy hop over to Persist: The Blog, where you can either "comment" as usual, or send lengthier thoughts to me vie the email address given in the sidebar. It's my hope to make the site as interactive as possible, and not just a place for me to bloviate!

A Wake-Up Call

We received this beautifully written and moving story yesterday from our friend and neighbor, the singer/songwriter Cindy Alexander. It's an important reminder to all of us to pay attention to the signals that our body sends us, and not to neglect or minimize them.

THE BEST MOTHER'S DAY GIFT: MY HUSBAND, THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN

I know that Chip is hesitant to share his story in fear of seeming dramatic, but leave it to the TMI Drama Queen (me) to be the one that truly believes that this is a story that needs to be told because it could save someone's life.

It all started about six months ago. Chip was feeling a lot of tension and tightness in his chest, back, neck and in his words it was "like I needed a massage all the time." When the sensation didn't go away, we made an appointment with our general practitioner for a check-up. The EKG and chest xray were clear, and although his cholesterol was on the high side, Chip was told that he should let go of the concern that he could drop dead of a heart attack, and was given a prescription for a muscle relaxer with a side note to drop the cheeseburgers and fries. Let me say here that Chip is always hesitant to take medication and never even filled the prescription. He continued to feel "tightness" on and off but wasn't concerned because he attributed it to muscle aches due to the daily lifting of our twin daughters.

Let me add that looking at Chip, you would never think he had health issues. He looks at least 10 years younger than his age, is not overweight, and plays drums for 4-5 hours consecutively, two to three nights a week.

Fast forward to last week. Chip was walking up the stairs - just a few steps. He put his hand to his chest and said "there it is again - that tightness." But this time it was much stronger. He told me he felt like he just climbed several hundred stairs rather than just plain several. That was it.... I made the next available appointment with a renowned cardiologist who has taken care of other members of my family.

Dr. Ron Karlsberg saw Chip this past Friday afternoon, May 7th. After taking a medical history (which includes the fact that both of Chip's parents had heart related issues and his brother had heart surgery at 50), a new EKG and some blood work, we were told our options. We could wait until Monday to do a stress test (since it was already late Friday afternoon and no one was available to perform the test), and if that came back positive he'd have to go for an angiogram. However, if he had any more chest "tightness" he must proceed directly to the ER where they would monitor him over the weekend and probably make him wait until Monday to do a stress test, we'd have to wait for the results, and then possibly do an angiogram. OR, we could take a new test (CT coronary angiogram) and see pictures of his heart which would reveal blockages (or the lack thereof) in 15 minutes. We were also told of the very slight possibility that the CT could miss blockages in certain areas. But after considering all of the options, coupled with our deep concern that something just wasn't right, within the hour, Chip was undergoing a test NOT covered by our insurance and not generally approved in medical community because of its ramifications on both the business and practice of medicine. Bottom line: It was the best $1500 we ever spent. We knew in FIFTEEN MINUTES that one of his arteries was almost completely closed. We were at Cedars about 20 minutes later and Dr. Karlsberg arrived a few minutes after. By 6:30 pm Chip was in the Cath Lab and by 8:30 he was recovering in a hospital room with two stents in his heart. Chip dodged a bullet. His life was saved. There is so much synchronicity in this story that I can't get into it....but we were ALL saved.

This was the best Mother's Day present I could have asked for: my husband has a new lease on life, and so does our family. We won't look back.


Love,
pnut

PS: On Friday, before we saw Dr. Karlsberg, Chip decided to test his heart by running up and down the stairs that run next next to our home - a good 40 or so of them. Point of interest: He felt NO chest pain and was not out of breath. At some point, his wallet fell out of his pocket. By the time we got to our appointment, he had no ID, no cash, no credit.... While Chip was undergoing his surgery, I received a call that someone had left a note on our door that they found the wallet, turned it in to a local school and it was locked up safe and sound. What a great day for Chip. Angels everywhere. :)

Cindy adds: "I hope his story will inspire others to listen to their bodies and not take a Dr.'s word before their own gut feeling." Thanks for the reminder, Cindy. We're happy for the happy outcome--on all counts! Our best wishes to Chip for a speedy recovery, And thanks for allowing me to share this story with readers of The Buddha Diaries.

Biodiversity

This saddening and frightening BBC report on the third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) was forwarded to me this morning by my friend Gary at CHI SPHERE. The basic principle of karma makes good sense to me: that actions have consequences--good actions bring about beneficial consequences, while unskillful, harm-causing actions bring about undesirable ones. It also makes perfect sense to me that this principle should operate on a global as well as an individual scale. The logic is compelling: our actions as a species will inevitably bring proportionate returns. Skillful, conscious actions will serve to benefit all of us who inhabit this planet--including the beautiful diversity of our fellow-travelers on the journey of birth, illness, aging and death. Our careless, ignorant ones will bring the results of carelessness and ignorance that we should have learned to expect. Unhappily, along with all of our brilliant scientific and technical advancements, we are still characterized as a species by a great deal of willful ignorance and a sense of arrogant entitlement when it comes to sharing our natural home with other species, whether plant or animal. Will we learn in time to save ourselves from the perfectly well-known, well-understood and easily anticipated results of our behavior? Or will we choose, instead, to fly in the face of what we know--along with the urgent messages from the planet itself--and suffer the consequences? In the long term, frankly, it matters little to the immense universe, on the backside of which we are the merest pimple.

A Sunday Kvell

(That's a "boast," for you non-Yiddish speakers... Well, that's not strictly accurate. Boasting is what you do to the world outside. Kvelling starts within. The word derives from the German quellen, meaning to swell, which is what the heart does, with pleasure and pride.) So this here's a story written, unaided, by my 8-year-old granddaughter, Georgia Clothier. Read it, all you sci-fi writers, and weep! Ray Bradbury, move over!

CLICK BEEP MMMM was all I could hear when I was up in the enemy control center. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever been through. I knew I was trapped and could not leave until I surrendered. I didn’t want to betray my spy team but I did not want to die so it was a tough decision. I figured if I found the x panel I could have them under my control but where was it? I took a paper clip out of my pocket and twisted it in the lock that held the brown ropes which trapped me. Then I untied the ropes and sand began to pour through tiny holes in the metal walls beside me. Now I was really trapped. there was a sudden crash and a zap of a super laser. I knew it must have been someone but who? A few more zaps and thumping of more heavy boots came to my ears and the person who crashed through the window was heading towards me. Was it friend or foe I did not have a clue but it was heading at a rapid speed. THUMP THUMP ZAP ZAP ZAP once again but this time it was louder and clearer. They were coming closer by the second. Suddenly the man with the laser shouted “I must help my friend!” now I knew it was my partner, Bill. I suddenly remembered about the sand. It was up to my chest! “help” I cried in a great hurry. The black wooden doors flew open and all of the sand rushed out. There standing in front of me was Bill. We wasted no time. He threw me a parachute and a laser and we ran as fast as we could to the window. “look out” cried Bill as a bullet shot towards me. I ducked. It hit the window. I stood on the ledge took a breath and jumped. Bill came flying after me. I pulled the string and the parachute shot up above me. We walked back to the h.q. and told everybody what had happened. “Peter” asked Bill. “how long did it take for the sand to reach your chest?”

“about 3 minuets” I replied. I knew we had to go back to get the X panel so I went to collect my things. I collected everything I might have needed and put them all into my backpack. I pulled on my steel studded boots and my bulletproof jacket. Last of all I strapped my helmet on. I was ready to go. I slipped on the backpack and hurried down the stone steps. Bill was waiting for me there. We ran down the streets and burst through the window. I pulled out my laser and held it up. Someone snapped and an army troop marched out from nowhere. I pulled the trigger and a purple electric zap came shooting out. I pulled it again and the same happened. They suddenly dashed forward and it began. One was heading straight for me so I pulled the trigger. He stumbled backwards and landed heavily on a pile of boxes. I rushed forward and pulled it again he jumped in shock and fell backwards knocking over 3 of his team mates. I held the trigger down and turned around zapping 20 enemy’s and the knocked over 10 more when falling. In the corner of my eye I noticed a round disc. It was the X panel! I rushed forward holding the trigger down in case anyone got in my way. I stopped to take some duct tape out of my backpack and ripped some off. I taped the trigger down so I wouldn’t have to hold it down. I dashed forward and stopped at the disc. I pulled and tugged at it and finally screwed it off. I carefully placed it in my bag. I dashed back to the main room and found Bill shooting and zapping. I told him I had got it and we raced to the window. I jumped smoothly and tugged the string, I landed on the pavement and we walked back to the h.q. Boss was very pleased so we fitted the panel In and finally we got the computer to work!

See what I mean?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

We caught up with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo the other day, and I liked it a good deal. I read the Stieg Larsson book a while ago--looking to find a reference to it in The Buddha Diaries, I note that I was reading it in Paris in April of last year--and found it gripping. I can't honestly recall how it ended, but I've heard the movie ended a bit differently. As I remember it, the book spent far more time on the theme of corporate corruption--the kind we have witnessed to our cost on Wall Street in the past couple of years--and threaded it in with the theme the movie chooses to focus on: that of sexual deviance. The book made no bones (excuse the pun!) about the parallels between the two, from the abuse of power to unbridled excess and greed.

I liked particularly that this film was so un-Hollywood. It includes, certainly, some sensational brutality, but such scenes are presented without the visual delight that Hollywood seems to take in violence; they are short, ugly, and accompanied often not by a melodramatic musical score but by elegant passages of classical music, which serve paradoxically to highlight their inhumanity. There are no "stars." Well, perhaps these faces are familiar to Scandinavian audiences, but to me there was not a single known visage in sight. Their appeal is not the easy good looks or beauty of the movie-star persona; these were faces with character, faces on which some human history was written.

And the acting is terrific, from the "girl" of the title, whose affect-less, punk exterior covers for a wounded, vulnerable core to the maligned, soon-to-be-imprisoned reporter who is hired for his investigatory skills by a wealthy industrialist, intent on discovering the murderer in the bosom of his family. The characters are allowed to build slowly, patiently, and indeed keep building and changing until the end. So, too, are the scenes. There's no rush into anything here. The camera allows the action of each scene to develop in its own time, rather than feeling the need to get to the point and move on to the next. It's an action movie with a leisurely pace, whose settings, both interior and exterior, allow time for the eye to explore their subdued natural beauty or their architectural and decorative detail.

My quibble? The plot, towards the end particularly, seems to lose some of its clarity and focus, straying off at times in the direction of the improbable and seeming to struggle to tie up every loose end. My own bias, too, would have been to make more of Larsson's prescience about the causes of the global financial debacle. I'm looking forward to reading the second in the ill-fated Stieg Larsson's series of three books, completed but unpublished before the author's untimely death. Ellie is reading it now, and is clearly hooked. My son, though, who is a hardened reader of the hard-boiled stuff, told me that he had to put it down before he finished it, because it was so brutal. I'll let you know what I think when I inherit the book from Ellie. But she's a slow reader.

The Pesky Fifth

I should not have had that second martini out on the patio last night. But at least it brought with it the benefit of having finally emptied the last dregs of the bottle of Ketel One vodka that has been sitting in the freezer since we bought it in preparation for the visit of my sons, a few weeks back. They preferred Scotch whiskey. So I have felt obliged, in the interests of non-wastefulness, to indulge in a small glass, a modest glass, each evening. Last night, out on the patio in the twilight with our good friends Brian and Mary, seemed like a good moment to apply the finishing touches to the bottle.

The fifth Buddhist precept, for those unaware of these guidelines for good living, is that which enjoins us to "abstain from fermented drink that leads to heedlessness." And that includes, as I understand it, all non-medical artificial stimulants. Unlike the locally more famous Ten, the precepts are not Commandments; they are more "thou shallt do better if..." than "thou shallt not." They include, of course, abstention from taking life, from taking that which does not belong to you, from false or idle speech, and from harmful sexual activity. The fifth, quoted above, is the one that gives me the most difficulty because I do like a good glass of wine. Well, the truth is, it's a precept I have chosen not to observe. As I say fairly frequently, I lay no claim to being a Buddhist.

As I say, I do enjoy the pleasures of a glass of wine. They include not only the sophisticated taste and the enhancement it brings to the tastes of a good meal, but also the pleasant buzz that distances us just a little bit from the daily woes; and the warmth of friendship, the softening of the barriers of social propriety, that familiar merriness. All of which, of course, are basically illusory. And with age comes an increased awareness of the less welcome effects of booze: the feeling of bloat that seems to follow even a single glass of wine these days; the losing battle with that spread around the waist; the dehydration that ensues, causing a more restless and shallower sleep. Not to mention the addling of the brain, that "heedlessness" the precept refers to, the waking up with a mind that is not as clear and ready to go to work as one might like.

So I know the principle behind the precept is sound. Actions, as the Buddha also said, have consequences. If one is to be "healthy and wise"--forget the "wealthy"!--abstinence from alcohol makes very good sense. As do the other precepts, if not as a moral code, simply as a guide to a healthy life in mind and body. Here's an excellent essay by Thanissaro Bhikkhu which argues the case with his customary wisdom, impeccable logic, compassion, and clarity. "The Buddha," he starts, "was like a doctor, treating the spiritual ills of the human race. The path of practice he taught was like a course of therapy for suffering hearts and minds." As the Christians say, Amen to that!

So that pesky fifth does make good sense to me. But then, like most of my fellow human beings, I'm a creature full of contradictions, and I too often fail to do what I know is best for me. At least the bottle of Ketel One is gone!

Four Principles

Today, on Persist: The Blog, the four Buddhist principles of success.

Stoning

I know something about men. I say this without boasting, but rather out of the experience of nearly twenty years’—eighteen, to be precise—association with the ManKind Project and its training programs. I have watched men explore the deepest secrets of their hearts and souls. I have done the same, with the support of other men. So I know a bit about the masculine psyche, about men’s anger and hatred, about their pains and fears, about the wounds they carry and the tenderness of which they are capable behind the veneer of invulnerability and strength.

I say all this in the context of having watched the powerful, deeply disturbing Iranian film, The Stoning of Soraya M, a story based on true events of the recent past. A woman waylays a stranded journalist from the outside world and tells him the story of her niece, Soraya, mother of two daughters and two sons, falsely accused of adultery by a husband who wants to leave her for a younger woman. Only her honor and fidelity protect her. Determined to have his way, the villain enlists the support of the local mullah in perverting the Islamic faith of his fellow-villagers. Starting with a whisper campaign of innuendo and rumor, he succeeds in provoking their outrage, and stokes the flames with lies, intimidation, and threats until he has “witnesses” to her infidelity. She is condemned and, under sharia law, is stoned to death.

The stoning itself has to be amongst the most brutal scenes I have ever watched on film. The woman is buried, waist-deep in the village square, her hands bound in front of her. A line is drawn in chalk perhaps ten yards from the spot, and the men of the village stand behind it, enraged, and hurling insults before they begin to cast the stones the boys have gathered for them into piles. The woman's father is the first to cast a stone, whipped into pain and fury by the calumny. He misses. Several times. When some begin to see this as a sign from God that she is innocent, the husband picks up stones himself and draws first blood. Then he forces his two sons to cast the next ones...

This is not a film about Islam, nor even about sharia law—or only incidentally so. Stoning was a practice used by Jews and Christians, too. And let's not forget the equally hideous history of burning "witches" at the stake. No, it's a film about men and women, and particularly about men. It's about the fear of the power of women that promotes misogyny and the abuse of masculine physical strength, about the insecurities and fragile egos that instill in men the need to dominate. The fear and mistrust run deep, to the womb itself, and the passage from the womb into the world. The urge for power springs from sources equally deep, from the act of procreation and the aggressive physicality of genital arousal. The overwhelming majority of men experience it--even, as we know recently, supposedly celibate Catholic priests, who prove that the urge that comes along with it is virtually irresistible.

This phenomenon--the rod, the phallus--has come to be culturally associated with power, dominance, authority. It's the source of great pride and joy in men, but also of still greater insecurities around virility, stamina, size, self-worth. It becomes readily the emblem of our personal power--or powerlessness--such that men are often driven to prove their manhood through sexual violence, addiction, or abuse. Jealousy and possessiveness are expressions of these same insecurities, as are shame and guilt. Infidelity, whether real or suspected, involves an invasion of ownership, a loss of power that threatens the ego and humiliates the man, provoking rage. By extension, of course, it has become a common truism to see male vulnerability and sexual insecurity at the root of many of the troubles that plague our planet.

Be that all as it may, it's intensely troubling to see the tragedy of Soraya play out on the screen. This is not a film for those whose sensibilities are easily offended. It is, though, one of the most powerful indictments I have ever seen of the vile abuses of religious fervor of which men are capable. If you can bear it, see it. It lays bare some dreadful truths about humanity.

Tarring & Feathering

A comment, yesterday, from my friend at Chi Sphere brought to mind an image I have myself been playing with. It used to be--in the bad old days, of course: in medieval times (we're so much more enlightened now!)--that human miscreants were tarred and feathered to humiliate or punish them for their misdeeds. Now, our species is caught in the act of tarring our feathered ones...

... our fellow travelers on life's journey whose worst crime is to able to do naturally what we can do only with the aid of noise-some and polluting mechanical devices: they fly. We're also, if "unintentionally," bringing death to those who live in another alternate element, the water: the fish...

... crustaceans, shellfish, turtles...

In our insatiable need to exploit the Earth's resources, we humans arrogantly assert our primacy over all other species. It is not unreasonable to believe that in the not-too-distant future they will have their revenge--as this brilliant talk by the British cosmologist Sir Martin Rees suggests.

(With apologies to The Getty and the Huffington Post, where I purloined these images.)

The Culture of Excess

It's no coincidence, surely, given my current activities around the web, that this book should have come into my hands. It's called The Culture of Excess, by the clinical psychologist J. R. Slosar. His subtitle is "How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success." Readers of "The Buddha Diaries" and my new blog, "Persist: The Blog" will be aware that I put out this question via Facebook and Twitter, "If you're a creative person, how do you define success in this commercialized world?" And you will know, too, that I received an enormous amount of responses, comments, tweets--and quite a good deal of thanks for bringing up the question. It obviously reached a lot of people where they live.

There are an awful lot of us who are uncomfortable with the culture we have collectively created over the past century of our history. A great deal of that discomfort seems to turn outward, erupting in the form of almost willful ignorance and anger--a manifestation, perhaps, of the nature of that culture, and where the cultural trends have led us. For most of those who responded to my question, though--creative people, involved in one way or another in the arts--the discomfort tends to become introspective, a sense of frustration and bewilderment that centers around the conflict between the inherently generous act of making something and putting it out into the world, and the indifference or hostility with which it is too often received.

In The Culture of Excess, Slosar writes of a "cultural narcissism" that infects American society. "Today's sense of reality," he writes, "is characterized by immediacy, illusionary expectations, inflated self-concepts, a demand for a perfect image, and loss of privacy and access to our inner world." The drive to succeed, he suggests, brings along with it a disproportionate sense of self-entitlement and leads to the kind of disastrous arrogance we have seen recently in the financial industry. He traces the effects of its toxicity in every warp of our social fabric, from our religious practices and beliefs to our disagreements over health care and immigration policies, from our sports heros and pop idols to our education system, our self-destructive eating habits, our very identities and the way in which we construct them. Everywhere, this collective binge and worship of the self and its needs contributes to a growing ethical decay that threatens to undermine our contemporary culture and, worse, the future of our planet. Hence, as I understand Slosar's argument, the need to recover self-control and come to a healthier understanding of what we really need if we wish to be "successful" human beings.

What's needed, Slosar argues, is a transition from "Generation Me" to "Generation We"--a radical shift from traditional American thinking which has been rooted, since the origins of the country, in the supremacy of the individual. It has often struck me--and I think I myself have often argued, in The Buddha Diaries and elsewhere--that our obsession with individual rights has run amok. Perhaps it's my own European origins, but I believe strongly that there has to be a symbiotic relationship between the individual and society, and that the individual must give as well as take, must embrace responsibilities in the relationship, as well as demand rights. Looking around at the political stalemate and the refusal to compromise that characterizes our national life today, it's hard not to conclude that we have reached the end of the road so far as the "maverick" is concerned--or the "rugged individual"--and that we must all learn, left and right, to yield some part of our right-eousness if we are to move forward from this place. (I have often argued, with regard to the attacks on Obama from both left and right, that his attempt to find a rational Middle Way is exactly what we need; but I recognize that we may well destroy the man out of our own individual intransigence before the necessary work gets done.)

It's not a popular view. I'm not past rebelling against it myself, when it comes to compromising on some of my own deeply held beliefs. That's perhaps the natural human instinct. But we won't get anywhere if the current cultural climate persists, and I appreciate Slosar's efforts to point us toward some sanity in this world gone mad with self-adulation and self-entitlement, and to suggest ways in which this trend may be reversed. Indeed, must be. He brings to his writing not only the dispassion of a clinical approach to understanding human nature, but also the passion of one who seeks to make a difference. What he has written is not an "easy read"--though it's absolutely readable. It's a serious book, with all the formality of a serious academic study, including a myriad of footnotes. It will take time and patience to follow his carefully reasoned arguments, but time and patience, in this case, will surely be rewarded. His message is a deeply important one for our too often, regrettably adolescent minds!

Success--My Own Take

Please go here, today, to read my entry. Thanks. And have a great week!

Not To Be Mean, But...

.... what to make of this poll of Republican voters? My son sent me the link to this Daily Kos entry yesterday, and what it suggests about self-identified Republican voters is breathtaking ill-will, ignorance and stupidity. I had wanted to credit them with better than this.

39 percent believe that Obama should be impeached (for what "high crimes and misdemeanors?) and 29 percent on top of that are "not sure" whether he should be impeached or not!

63 percent believe that he's a "socialist", and another 16 percent are "not sure." Do they even know what socialism is? Do they have social security? Medicare? Do they use the public school system? Drive on state and interstate highways?

An astounding 36 percent believe that Obama was not born in the United States, and another 22 percent are not sure--leaving only about one third of Republicans who believe that he was born in the US!

24 percent believe that Obama "wants the terrorists to win," and 33 percent profess to be unsure about this.

And how's this? 53 percent of self-identified Republicans believe that Sarah Pail is more qualified to be President of the United States and 33 percent are unsure. Leaving only 14 percent of them who believe Obama to be more qualified.

The rest of it--on the issue of gay rights, for instance--is too despicable to mention. I had wanted to hang on to the remnants of my equanimity when it came to politics, but it just gets harder and harder when you read this kind of thing. A recent poll, as I recall, suggested that the tea-baggers were of above-average intelligence. Or education. Or something. With people who hold these outrageously absurd beliefs, how is that possible?

As my son said in his cryptic, one-word email: "Creepy."

Stones...

... from the beach this morning.

Love that monochrome...