We may not achieve everything we strive for, but if we strive for everything, what we do achieve will be amazing.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Ken
****************
Ah strife. Ah failure. A frustration. All of those things we all have to face in life. "If at first you don't succeed drop it, forget it, give up and run away." Right? Wrong. Success is failing nine times out of ten tries. Knowing that and remembering it in the sweat of struggle will poke a big hole in the seemingly solid armor of frustration and futility.
Edward Phelps wrote "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything" The important thing is to not look back. You tried, you lost touch, you messed up, you failed, you learned a lesson, now get on with life. If it's truly important you will do it right eventually.
Everything starts with an idea, then follows imagination and a vision. A plan is designed and the proper tools are gathered whether they be physical, financial, emotional or intellectual.. Then a hypothesis is formed and the testing begins. At some point you or someone else will ask "Can you really do that>" You have a choice of answers, either "I don't know but I'm going to try." or "Yes."
So you begin and at first things go along great. But then uunexpected problems occur. Maybe you have to rethink your design, or maybe you have to keep going assured that it's the best plan. Thumb your nose at failure and make the adjustments you have to make. Then proceed. As you get close to your goal the going gets very rough. It's painful. It's quitting time? No. Remember Roger Bannister who broke the 4 minute mile barrier. He said "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."
So you win and you have the right to claim the joy of accomplishment. You carry the blazing torch of achievement. But this one happy fact I can tell you that I learned from my unpredictable vagabond life. No matter how much you do there is always more to be done.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
******************************
Showing posts with label Dana Bate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dana Bate. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Summer Mornings
Be a summer morning to your friends.
Dana Bate
*****************
Hello Margie
******************
While the dew still bathes the grass.
While the leaves and petals open up to kiss the daylight.
While the coolness of the night still lingers on your land.
While the unknown stressful dreams slip into oblivion.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
Before the humidity of hard work fills the air.
Before the heat of purpose takes the wheel.
Before the noise of human life drowns out the song.
Before the blaze of struggle scatters peace.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
When the hot wind chides at work not finiashed.
When the crack of thunder signals fear.
When the smack of lightening tears at hopes.
When the drowning rains wash out the plans.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
After the firs starts to cook the meal.
After chores take their toll in sweat.
After obligations are bundled and removed.
After today's expectations fade.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
When night descends with darkness and doubt.
When there are still mountains to climb and seas to cross.
When regret looms for the stack of lost, forgotten years.
When sorrow turns down the covers for another stressful dream.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*******************************
Dana Bate
*****************
Hello Margie
******************
While the dew still bathes the grass.
While the leaves and petals open up to kiss the daylight.
While the coolness of the night still lingers on your land.
While the unknown stressful dreams slip into oblivion.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
Before the humidity of hard work fills the air.
Before the heat of purpose takes the wheel.
Before the noise of human life drowns out the song.
Before the blaze of struggle scatters peace.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
When the hot wind chides at work not finiashed.
When the crack of thunder signals fear.
When the smack of lightening tears at hopes.
When the drowning rains wash out the plans.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
After the firs starts to cook the meal.
After chores take their toll in sweat.
After obligations are bundled and removed.
After today's expectations fade.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
When night descends with darkness and doubt.
When there are still mountains to climb and seas to cross.
When regret looms for the stack of lost, forgotten years.
When sorrow turns down the covers for another stressful dream.
Be a summer morning to your friends.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*******************************
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Up The Mountain
The best use of philosophy is to open the door and invite a walk in the garden of thought.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Diane
****************
"Watchman, tell us of the night."
When you stop thinking, night falls.
-------------------------------------
I enjoy reading philosophy (as I have said ad tedium). And I particularly like it when the philosophers don't agree with each other. There would be no point to philosophy or any form of original thought if they did.
Many philosophers through out the years of recorded history have started out on the journey as mathematicians, measuring the length, breadth and depth of human experience. And then a day comes when they reach the foot of the magic mountain of enlightenment or what they believe or hope is enlightenment and the climb begins. There may be only one summit but the choices of how to reach it are many. And that poses a problem for some people.
I know of a Museum of Philosophy that has a lot on interesting displays and biographical material about the world's philosophers But there is also a computer with a program that lets you answer a whole string of questions, and at the end will suggest a philosopher or two that best agree with your answers. It's a Find Your Own Philosopher game. The temptation is to then read that philosopher's works and none others. One thinks one has found his master and enlightenment is inevitable. But is it?
It's practically impossible to know at the beginning if that philosopher's trail up the magic mountain is a right one. Does it reach the summit or does it lead you into an intellectual gully? You won't know till you get there. The danger is to concentrate on your master's words and ideas to the exclusion of any conflicting thoughts. To follow in the footsteps of one only guru may lead to the green pastures of peace and knowledge. But by not challenging those footsteps as you go you may end up in the shadows.
Most of the inspired philosophers I have read, from Plato to recent times, all say, in one way or another, that the purpose of philosophy is not to tell you what to think or how to think but to get you to think for yourself. In other words there is a general acknowledgment that we are capable of exploring our own thinking, forming our own opinions and testing them out, making up our own minds. Original thought is the birthright of the human being,
That leads to another and even greater opportunity and obligation for the thinking person, the one who has accepted the responsibility of his own mentality. Somewhere along the pathway in that garden of thought are philosophers who know and warn that the issues of our lives are so much rooted in our thoughts that we ought to be careful about what we think. Hence the challenge to every aroma in the garden and every thought that passes through the air like a dandelion seed. And thus the discipline of looking ahead, deciding what you want and what you don't want and tracing them back to the thoughts which produce them.
The same watchman who guards the entrance to the garden is also the guide who can steer us to our right paths if we are awake, alert and thinking.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Diane
****************
"Watchman, tell us of the night."
When you stop thinking, night falls.
-------------------------------------
I enjoy reading philosophy (as I have said ad tedium). And I particularly like it when the philosophers don't agree with each other. There would be no point to philosophy or any form of original thought if they did.
Many philosophers through out the years of recorded history have started out on the journey as mathematicians, measuring the length, breadth and depth of human experience. And then a day comes when they reach the foot of the magic mountain of enlightenment or what they believe or hope is enlightenment and the climb begins. There may be only one summit but the choices of how to reach it are many. And that poses a problem for some people.
I know of a Museum of Philosophy that has a lot on interesting displays and biographical material about the world's philosophers But there is also a computer with a program that lets you answer a whole string of questions, and at the end will suggest a philosopher or two that best agree with your answers. It's a Find Your Own Philosopher game. The temptation is to then read that philosopher's works and none others. One thinks one has found his master and enlightenment is inevitable. But is it?
It's practically impossible to know at the beginning if that philosopher's trail up the magic mountain is a right one. Does it reach the summit or does it lead you into an intellectual gully? You won't know till you get there. The danger is to concentrate on your master's words and ideas to the exclusion of any conflicting thoughts. To follow in the footsteps of one only guru may lead to the green pastures of peace and knowledge. But by not challenging those footsteps as you go you may end up in the shadows.
Most of the inspired philosophers I have read, from Plato to recent times, all say, in one way or another, that the purpose of philosophy is not to tell you what to think or how to think but to get you to think for yourself. In other words there is a general acknowledgment that we are capable of exploring our own thinking, forming our own opinions and testing them out, making up our own minds. Original thought is the birthright of the human being,
That leads to another and even greater opportunity and obligation for the thinking person, the one who has accepted the responsibility of his own mentality. Somewhere along the pathway in that garden of thought are philosophers who know and warn that the issues of our lives are so much rooted in our thoughts that we ought to be careful about what we think. Hence the challenge to every aroma in the garden and every thought that passes through the air like a dandelion seed. And thus the discipline of looking ahead, deciding what you want and what you don't want and tracing them back to the thoughts which produce them.
The same watchman who guards the entrance to the garden is also the guide who can steer us to our right paths if we are awake, alert and thinking.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Three Little Girls Are We
A child is a wondrous thing.
Dana Bate
***************
Hello Linda
***************
On my journey Friday the 13th along the ledges of the Universe I went through a door of peace into a friend's shop. Among the shopkeeper's customers were a father and two small children. He handed the shopkeeper two dollars and asked for quarters, which she smilingly gave him. He then gave them to his children so they could buy their sodas from the soft drink machine. The little girl was so small she could hardly reach the slot. Her slightly taller brother helped her while their father watched. When one of the quarters fell into the coin return her brother took it out and gave it back to her. The innocent determination and concentration on that little girl's face was a delight to see. She finally got her Pepsi.
The scene next door to me is one of Nature's sinister sporting events. My neighbors are a man, woman and child. The woman is the mother of the little girl. The man is not her father. The couple fight often, very loudly and with the worst language. When they do I can sometimes hear the little girl shouting "No. No." When the child does something one of them doesn't like and tries to discipline her the other adult takes the girl's side thus bringing on another fight. She is continually being flung back and forth across the family line like a volley ball. She's a lively, energetic child who talks a lot. But I think she speaks her own invented language because whenever I can hear her clearly I don't understand what she's saying. I wonder about her future.
Entering the Temple of Revealed Wisdom I came down the steps into the local library one day when I still had my cane. I got about 4 steps from the bottom when a very small girl approached the stairs to go up. When she saw me she stepped back to let me come down. I stopped, pulled over to the side and said "Come on." She ran up the steps and as she passed me she said in the tiniest little voice "Thank you." The library attended, who was sitting across from me, saw the whole encounter and was smiling. I walked over to her and said "If that's the future of America we've got nothing to worry about."
Unfortunately, maybe it isn't.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
********************************
Dana Bate
***************
Hello Linda
***************
On my journey Friday the 13th along the ledges of the Universe I went through a door of peace into a friend's shop. Among the shopkeeper's customers were a father and two small children. He handed the shopkeeper two dollars and asked for quarters, which she smilingly gave him. He then gave them to his children so they could buy their sodas from the soft drink machine. The little girl was so small she could hardly reach the slot. Her slightly taller brother helped her while their father watched. When one of the quarters fell into the coin return her brother took it out and gave it back to her. The innocent determination and concentration on that little girl's face was a delight to see. She finally got her Pepsi.
The scene next door to me is one of Nature's sinister sporting events. My neighbors are a man, woman and child. The woman is the mother of the little girl. The man is not her father. The couple fight often, very loudly and with the worst language. When they do I can sometimes hear the little girl shouting "No. No." When the child does something one of them doesn't like and tries to discipline her the other adult takes the girl's side thus bringing on another fight. She is continually being flung back and forth across the family line like a volley ball. She's a lively, energetic child who talks a lot. But I think she speaks her own invented language because whenever I can hear her clearly I don't understand what she's saying. I wonder about her future.
Entering the Temple of Revealed Wisdom I came down the steps into the local library one day when I still had my cane. I got about 4 steps from the bottom when a very small girl approached the stairs to go up. When she saw me she stepped back to let me come down. I stopped, pulled over to the side and said "Come on." She ran up the steps and as she passed me she said in the tiniest little voice "Thank you." The library attended, who was sitting across from me, saw the whole encounter and was smiling. I walked over to her and said "If that's the future of America we've got nothing to worry about."
Unfortunately, maybe it isn't.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
********************************
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Old Timers
Old folks are people who have been young longer than young folks.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Stuart
***************
When I was younger I frequently played characters who were much older than myself because of my imposing voice and presence. I tried in my acting to approximate what I thought old and late middle age was like. I feel slightly embarrassed about that now. At my current age of 73 I realize now how youthful those men actually were. I would like to go back and play some of those characters again, and do it right. It's a great mistake of the younger generation to assume and ascribe to men and women of advanced years necessary decrepitude, loss of strength and abilities, memory failure and even disgusting attitudes about life and the young. "He's just an old curmudgeon." I'm fond of iterating that the reason old folks can't remember things is because there are things old folks don't want to remember.
I knew an actor about my age who, when we reached our 40's, began describing all the things that would go wrong with me. Soon this would start giving out, after a while I would be losing that and eventually I would have to have the other thing done to me. I completely rejected the whole theory from my own thinking. I saw him again years later and he was suffering from all the things he had described. I wonder what he thought when he saw that I wasn't.
A few years ago two younger people I know decided that the next logical step for me was to sign myself over to the soft featherbed of assisted living/nursing home, to put myself into the hands of the doctors, obtain my wheelchair and sit around preparing to die. One of them even said I would be bed ridden in six months. I laugh "Yes, I'm bed ridden every night and when the sun comes up in the morning, I'm healed."
Many artists, writers and thinkers have accomplished their greatest and most important work at the tender ages of 80 or 90. That's a fact of life, don't waste your time doubting it. Age may be pasted on to the basic model but the man and woman underneath is also still the boy and the girl.
There is no reason to stop and capitulate to anyone's idea of old age, even your own. Even though he went deaf Beethoven continued to compose some of the world's greatest music. As George Washington wrote "It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing." And that's why I say -
Never Give Up
DB, and the Magical Vagabond Journeys
************************
SUMMER QUESTION
I recently received a peck on the cheek from two members of the female persuasion. Besides those I haven't experienced a real kiss in many, many years. I have no flowers. There is nothing growing outside, no trees, no bushes, no flowers, just a few pathetic weeds here and there. That, thankfully, does a lot to discourage the mosquito population, but it doesn't give me much in the way of flora. So I pose this question for those of you who have more experience in these matters.
-------------------------------------------------
Which is more important, a flower or a kiss? Why?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Stuart
***************
When I was younger I frequently played characters who were much older than myself because of my imposing voice and presence. I tried in my acting to approximate what I thought old and late middle age was like. I feel slightly embarrassed about that now. At my current age of 73 I realize now how youthful those men actually were. I would like to go back and play some of those characters again, and do it right. It's a great mistake of the younger generation to assume and ascribe to men and women of advanced years necessary decrepitude, loss of strength and abilities, memory failure and even disgusting attitudes about life and the young. "He's just an old curmudgeon." I'm fond of iterating that the reason old folks can't remember things is because there are things old folks don't want to remember.
I knew an actor about my age who, when we reached our 40's, began describing all the things that would go wrong with me. Soon this would start giving out, after a while I would be losing that and eventually I would have to have the other thing done to me. I completely rejected the whole theory from my own thinking. I saw him again years later and he was suffering from all the things he had described. I wonder what he thought when he saw that I wasn't.
A few years ago two younger people I know decided that the next logical step for me was to sign myself over to the soft featherbed of assisted living/nursing home, to put myself into the hands of the doctors, obtain my wheelchair and sit around preparing to die. One of them even said I would be bed ridden in six months. I laugh "Yes, I'm bed ridden every night and when the sun comes up in the morning, I'm healed."
Many artists, writers and thinkers have accomplished their greatest and most important work at the tender ages of 80 or 90. That's a fact of life, don't waste your time doubting it. Age may be pasted on to the basic model but the man and woman underneath is also still the boy and the girl.
There is no reason to stop and capitulate to anyone's idea of old age, even your own. Even though he went deaf Beethoven continued to compose some of the world's greatest music. As George Washington wrote "It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing." And that's why I say -
Never Give Up
DB, and the Magical Vagabond Journeys
************************
SUMMER QUESTION
I recently received a peck on the cheek from two members of the female persuasion. Besides those I haven't experienced a real kiss in many, many years. I have no flowers. There is nothing growing outside, no trees, no bushes, no flowers, just a few pathetic weeds here and there. That, thankfully, does a lot to discourage the mosquito population, but it doesn't give me much in the way of flora. So I pose this question for those of you who have more experience in these matters.
-------------------------------------------------
Which is more important, a flower or a kiss? Why?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Clear Out The Foes
Loving your enemies means you must forgive them. But it does not mean that you must believe them, respect them or trust them.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Sue
****************
The worst kind of enemies are those you make yourself through carelessness, selfishness and unnecessary animosity. By those enemies you need to be forgiven. But what happens when you make an enemy without being brutish to them? That usually comes about because someone expects something from you which is either too much or too little of who you really are. Or that person has simply put the blindfold on when it came to thinking clearly about you and seeing the real person you are. That form of misunderstanding can cause a lot of alienation and loss of friendship. But does it make for an enemy? It might.
But, as I turn that mirror around and gaqze at my own nature, I realize that I have enemies whom I thought were friends, because I expected too much from them. I inaccurately judged the characters of some people because I wanted them to be who I thought they were, who I thought they represented themselves to be. I can't believe, respect or trust those people, but I can forgive them for their masquerades and forgive myself for being fooled.
Then there are people who just don't like you. They probably don't know why but they will find a reason to justify their hatred. It is quite impossible to trust someone who hates you, but, though difficult, it's not impossible to forgive them for their hatred.
One must be prepared to defend oneself against one's enemies if the enmity spills over into some kind of attack, but revenge is not the intelligent defense. Forgiveness is. It doesn't even need to be expressed. It just needs to be chosen and confirmed in one's own thinking. One can go through thinking about all the things one should have said or done but the fact that they weren't said or done allows for peace.
It's hard to forgave you enemies. Life is hard. But it can be lived more easily without having enemies occupy space in your mind.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
*************************
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Sue
****************
The worst kind of enemies are those you make yourself through carelessness, selfishness and unnecessary animosity. By those enemies you need to be forgiven. But what happens when you make an enemy without being brutish to them? That usually comes about because someone expects something from you which is either too much or too little of who you really are. Or that person has simply put the blindfold on when it came to thinking clearly about you and seeing the real person you are. That form of misunderstanding can cause a lot of alienation and loss of friendship. But does it make for an enemy? It might.
But, as I turn that mirror around and gaqze at my own nature, I realize that I have enemies whom I thought were friends, because I expected too much from them. I inaccurately judged the characters of some people because I wanted them to be who I thought they were, who I thought they represented themselves to be. I can't believe, respect or trust those people, but I can forgive them for their masquerades and forgive myself for being fooled.
Then there are people who just don't like you. They probably don't know why but they will find a reason to justify their hatred. It is quite impossible to trust someone who hates you, but, though difficult, it's not impossible to forgive them for their hatred.
One must be prepared to defend oneself against one's enemies if the enmity spills over into some kind of attack, but revenge is not the intelligent defense. Forgiveness is. It doesn't even need to be expressed. It just needs to be chosen and confirmed in one's own thinking. One can go through thinking about all the things one should have said or done but the fact that they weren't said or done allows for peace.
It's hard to forgave you enemies. Life is hard. But it can be lived more easily without having enemies occupy space in your mind.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
*************************
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Who Is Able?
Depressing things are somewhere around all the time. Look them in the face when you have to, but don't give them any authority.
Dana Bate
*****************
Hello Arlene
*****************
God does not make cripples.
Since I've been walking on crutches I have observed a not so strange dichotomy among my fellow earthlings. I don't know if there are any perfect people living on the planet. If there are I wish they would come out of hiding. I guess everyone has something wrong with them that poses a problem to living a perfectly happy life. Most of my problems have been of the invisible variety, namely with teeth, eyesight, tender feet and stomach trouble. But now that I'm on crutches my infirmity is out there for all the world to see.
If I approach the door to the supermarket some people will hold the door for me, others will purposely not. If I am crossing the street and the light changes one driver will wait until I am safely on the side walk while another will blow his horn to get me to hurry.
What has divided the human race in half when it comes to dealing with someone who is crippled? What I used to think was just simple rudeness and selfishness, I've come to understand has a psycho-philosophical basis for it. There are some people who are disgusted by and unable to look upon other people's defects. Maybe they go into denial, or turn away because they find it offensive or maybe, what is even worse, they say "There but for the grace of God go I."
There are those who would deny a blind person the right to have books in Braille or to allow sign language for the deaf at a public event. They are offended by kneeling buses and ramps for wheelchairs. They would deny any special privileges for the mentally disabled. It's the your-on-your-own mentality.
There is a word to describe this kind of thinking, it's "ableism." An ableist is one who believes a disabled person is a drone on society and should not be allowed to suck the vitals out of everyone else's life by being indulged in their incompleteness and awarded special considerations the rest of us have no need for.
But the very worst kind of ableists are those who say that if you are born blind or become blind through illness or accident then it is God's will and we have no right to interfere. That is gross, raging, fire breathing hypocrisy disguised as religious sentiment.
Ableists have no authority in my world. I can't agree with nor understand them. But if one doesn't want to hold the door open for me, it's okay, I'll get there anyway. And I'll take my time crossing the street, thank you.
DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
***********************
Dana Bate
*****************
Hello Arlene
*****************
God does not make cripples.
Since I've been walking on crutches I have observed a not so strange dichotomy among my fellow earthlings. I don't know if there are any perfect people living on the planet. If there are I wish they would come out of hiding. I guess everyone has something wrong with them that poses a problem to living a perfectly happy life. Most of my problems have been of the invisible variety, namely with teeth, eyesight, tender feet and stomach trouble. But now that I'm on crutches my infirmity is out there for all the world to see.
If I approach the door to the supermarket some people will hold the door for me, others will purposely not. If I am crossing the street and the light changes one driver will wait until I am safely on the side walk while another will blow his horn to get me to hurry.
What has divided the human race in half when it comes to dealing with someone who is crippled? What I used to think was just simple rudeness and selfishness, I've come to understand has a psycho-philosophical basis for it. There are some people who are disgusted by and unable to look upon other people's defects. Maybe they go into denial, or turn away because they find it offensive or maybe, what is even worse, they say "There but for the grace of God go I."
There are those who would deny a blind person the right to have books in Braille or to allow sign language for the deaf at a public event. They are offended by kneeling buses and ramps for wheelchairs. They would deny any special privileges for the mentally disabled. It's the your-on-your-own mentality.
There is a word to describe this kind of thinking, it's "ableism." An ableist is one who believes a disabled person is a drone on society and should not be allowed to suck the vitals out of everyone else's life by being indulged in their incompleteness and awarded special considerations the rest of us have no need for.
But the very worst kind of ableists are those who say that if you are born blind or become blind through illness or accident then it is God's will and we have no right to interfere. That is gross, raging, fire breathing hypocrisy disguised as religious sentiment.
Ableists have no authority in my world. I can't agree with nor understand them. But if one doesn't want to hold the door open for me, it's okay, I'll get there anyway. And I'll take my time crossing the street, thank you.
DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
***********************
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sing A New Song
I have sung my swan song so many times I no longer believe it.
Dana Bate
*****************
Hello Lily
******************
"Swan song" is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. (Wikipedia)
I've made those sweeping dramatic gestures in the past of endings, last acts, final curtains, finishes, Usually it was done out of a feeling of disgust or dissatisfaction with what I was doing. Sometimes it was an emotional reaction, sometimes it was just the end of a contract, once or twice it was a matter of drop everything and run. Those were the necessary terminations.
Now in my golden years I don't want to think about endings. Things are never over in my mind. Everything in my life has a future to it, especially myself. Now I am more than considering, I'm planning to return to New York City where I belong. What for?
When I was a teenager I discovered I had talent as an actor. I took that talent and increased my skills to include being a broadcaster. Along the way I studied art and became a painter. There is more to learn about all of those skills. After I retired (another swan song) I became a writer, having nothing else to do.
Now, with an accumulation of creative skills, I'm living in a place where I can't use them. So the only sane and sensible thing to do is to go where I can. There are ideas in the fire to get me there. But I always have an open invitation for anyone who can help me do it.
I have things to do. I have made many investments in my future. I need to get there to collect.
DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
********************
Dana Bate
*****************
Hello Lily
******************
"Swan song" is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. (Wikipedia)
I've made those sweeping dramatic gestures in the past of endings, last acts, final curtains, finishes, Usually it was done out of a feeling of disgust or dissatisfaction with what I was doing. Sometimes it was an emotional reaction, sometimes it was just the end of a contract, once or twice it was a matter of drop everything and run. Those were the necessary terminations.
Now in my golden years I don't want to think about endings. Things are never over in my mind. Everything in my life has a future to it, especially myself. Now I am more than considering, I'm planning to return to New York City where I belong. What for?
When I was a teenager I discovered I had talent as an actor. I took that talent and increased my skills to include being a broadcaster. Along the way I studied art and became a painter. There is more to learn about all of those skills. After I retired (another swan song) I became a writer, having nothing else to do.
Now, with an accumulation of creative skills, I'm living in a place where I can't use them. So the only sane and sensible thing to do is to go where I can. There are ideas in the fire to get me there. But I always have an open invitation for anyone who can help me do it.
I have things to do. I have made many investments in my future. I need to get there to collect.
DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
********************
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Choose Your Results
If your life is orbiting around a single reference point, make it a healthy one.
Dana Bate
*************
Hello Marty
**************
Years ago, among my many other jobs, I conducted some seminars in public speaking. The seminar was in New York City. At the beginning of the first session I asked each of the participants to stand and speak for a minute about themselves and any special interests they had. One fellow spoke about his love of gambling. I lectured briefly and then we went to lunch. When we returned from lunch the man wasn't there. He didn't reappear later or on any of the other days he had paid for. I knew exactly where he was. He had talked himself into a mini vacation in Atlantic City. Obviously gambling was more important to him than learning to be a better public speaker. Gambling was evidently what his real life was about.
I know drinkers whose life is centered around sucking intoxicating liquids out of a bottle any way they can.
I know drug users whose lives defined by smoking, sniffing, swallowing some sort of dope or injecting it into themselves through a needle..
To those people losing money, getting disgusting or paranoid, sloppy and sulfuring withdrawal pains are not results but annoying intrusions on the otherwise happy times they would be having.
The danger is in just that. There is so much enthusiasm connected to whatever the particular habit is that one forgets how self destructive it is. In fact the enjoyment is so great that anything negative about it will usually be ignored.
I used to know some drug users in New York who talked of nothing else but the drugs, what they were, where they got them and when they took them and never about their families, the work or their careers.
Enthusiasm is a very good thing if it's focused in the right direction. Enthusiasm is among the first steps toward any activity. A further step is imagining and determining what the result will be of that activity. Is it a waste of money with negative and possibly dangerous outcomes? Or is it rather something that will provide a happier and better life for you and for those around you. People for whom the center of their lives is involved in working a successful business, raising a family or even tending a flower garden may have a positive, healthy point around which their lives are orbiting.
It isn't difficult to find such a focal point if one looks for the right results and strives for them. A clean, clear, positive, happy life is not found in the dope, the booze or the roulette wheel. Those are where death is found.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
****************************
Dana Bate
*************
Hello Marty
**************
Years ago, among my many other jobs, I conducted some seminars in public speaking. The seminar was in New York City. At the beginning of the first session I asked each of the participants to stand and speak for a minute about themselves and any special interests they had. One fellow spoke about his love of gambling. I lectured briefly and then we went to lunch. When we returned from lunch the man wasn't there. He didn't reappear later or on any of the other days he had paid for. I knew exactly where he was. He had talked himself into a mini vacation in Atlantic City. Obviously gambling was more important to him than learning to be a better public speaker. Gambling was evidently what his real life was about.
I know drinkers whose life is centered around sucking intoxicating liquids out of a bottle any way they can.
I know drug users whose lives defined by smoking, sniffing, swallowing some sort of dope or injecting it into themselves through a needle..
To those people losing money, getting disgusting or paranoid, sloppy and sulfuring withdrawal pains are not results but annoying intrusions on the otherwise happy times they would be having.
The danger is in just that. There is so much enthusiasm connected to whatever the particular habit is that one forgets how self destructive it is. In fact the enjoyment is so great that anything negative about it will usually be ignored.
I used to know some drug users in New York who talked of nothing else but the drugs, what they were, where they got them and when they took them and never about their families, the work or their careers.
Enthusiasm is a very good thing if it's focused in the right direction. Enthusiasm is among the first steps toward any activity. A further step is imagining and determining what the result will be of that activity. Is it a waste of money with negative and possibly dangerous outcomes? Or is it rather something that will provide a happier and better life for you and for those around you. People for whom the center of their lives is involved in working a successful business, raising a family or even tending a flower garden may have a positive, healthy point around which their lives are orbiting.
It isn't difficult to find such a focal point if one looks for the right results and strives for them. A clean, clear, positive, happy life is not found in the dope, the booze or the roulette wheel. Those are where death is found.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
****************************
Friday, April 27, 2012
The Fire Bird
There is a phoenix inside of you. Know what to do when the flame erupts.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Ken
****************
The phoenix is a fabled bird with brightly colored feathers. Legend has it that the phoenix lives for a long time but then one day it builds a nest. Sitting in the nest it catches fire and nest and bird are both destroyed in the fire and reduced to ashes. But out of the ashes comes an egg. The egg is hatched and the phoenix emerges to live again.
There are times in life when things don't feel right. Our mood is dark and gloomy, perhaps we are having twinges of fear and don't know why. We are disturbed and confused.
Then we try to do things to compensate and erase the gloom. We may listen to some of our favorite music or go for a walk, do some shopping, or pick up a book or magazine and try to read ourselves out of our morose mood. But those things don't help.
Some people will go off to the doctor and get a prescription for pep pills of some kind, some mood altering substance, or some will drink liquor or take illegal drugs, or some similar extreme and excessive behavior all in the attempt to ignore the signs from within ourselves that something important is taking place.
THE NEST Transitions are never easy. They usually begin with an unsettling dissatisfaction with things and at first it is hard to determine what we are dissatisfied with. We may not know until a crises occurs if we keep pushing our uncomfortable feelings out of the way. But the omens are insistent enough that we finally have to pay attention to them.
THE FIRE "Put off the old man...put on the new." When it becomes clear what the transition is that is taking place we discover changes in our lives. Old things about ourselves that we are reluctant to discard suddenly become useless and are cast off and thrown into the fire. It's difficult. Memories will remind us of the fine, former feathers we used to display. Forget them.
THE EGG Then the period of adjustment comes. We have to get used to ourselves in a new light of understanding. We may feel a sense of loss. Uncomfortable memories wail come to remind usof who we used to be and will make us want to recapture some of that life.
THE BIRTH There is a definite gestation going on now and the new person is about to emerge with a fine new set of feathers and a new life. Most of the old life is still with us but now we have a different point of view about things that are important to it. When the new birth is accomplished flap your wings in joy. The gloomy days are over.
Check you Hands of the Vagabond http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/
Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Ken
****************
The phoenix is a fabled bird with brightly colored feathers. Legend has it that the phoenix lives for a long time but then one day it builds a nest. Sitting in the nest it catches fire and nest and bird are both destroyed in the fire and reduced to ashes. But out of the ashes comes an egg. The egg is hatched and the phoenix emerges to live again.
There are times in life when things don't feel right. Our mood is dark and gloomy, perhaps we are having twinges of fear and don't know why. We are disturbed and confused.
Then we try to do things to compensate and erase the gloom. We may listen to some of our favorite music or go for a walk, do some shopping, or pick up a book or magazine and try to read ourselves out of our morose mood. But those things don't help.
Some people will go off to the doctor and get a prescription for pep pills of some kind, some mood altering substance, or some will drink liquor or take illegal drugs, or some similar extreme and excessive behavior all in the attempt to ignore the signs from within ourselves that something important is taking place.
THE NEST Transitions are never easy. They usually begin with an unsettling dissatisfaction with things and at first it is hard to determine what we are dissatisfied with. We may not know until a crises occurs if we keep pushing our uncomfortable feelings out of the way. But the omens are insistent enough that we finally have to pay attention to them.
THE FIRE "Put off the old man...put on the new." When it becomes clear what the transition is that is taking place we discover changes in our lives. Old things about ourselves that we are reluctant to discard suddenly become useless and are cast off and thrown into the fire. It's difficult. Memories will remind us of the fine, former feathers we used to display. Forget them.
THE EGG Then the period of adjustment comes. We have to get used to ourselves in a new light of understanding. We may feel a sense of loss. Uncomfortable memories wail come to remind usof who we used to be and will make us want to recapture some of that life.
THE BIRTH There is a definite gestation going on now and the new person is about to emerge with a fine new set of feathers and a new life. Most of the old life is still with us but now we have a different point of view about things that are important to it. When the new birth is accomplished flap your wings in joy. The gloomy days are over.
Check you Hands of the Vagabond http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/
Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Cause And Effect
Aim your stick, not the cue ball.
Gemine Lentine
----------------------------------
Direct the play, not the players.
Dana Bate
***************************
Hello Sandy
***************************
I wonder how many things don't get done or get done in a slip shod and sloppy manner because the doer started out with the wrong idea. There is a tendency among otherwise intelligent people to ga after an effect rather than investigating and performing the cause that brings on the effect.
Think of an aspiring rock guitarist who wants to sound like Eric Clapton. He listens to Clapton records and does his best to mimic what he hears. And maybe he does well at mimicry, but in the meantime he hasn't really learned how to play the guitar, which if he did could come up with his own sound and wouldn't have to imitate anyone.
I have auditioned with actors who had a perfectly fine speaking voice but as soon as they were presented with a script started to sound like Marlon Brando. And some women wanted to be Katherine Hepburn.
I had the unfortunate experience one hour of performing a scene for an NYU Film School directing class. I don't know if the teacher was just playing a stupid game with the class or if he really didn't know what he was talking about. I tend to think it was the latter, And the reason I think so is that I have worked with young folks fresh out of a school somewhere who have wrong and useless ideas which they learned and have to unlearn quickly if they wish to keep working..
An actor makes a choice based on his understanding of the play and the character. He acts on that choice. If a good director doesn't see and hear what he wants he will ask for a different choice, or suggest one, if he has the imagination for it. A bad director will criticize the performing of the scene without knowing the choice, which causes a lot if misunderstanding and wastes a lot of time. Going for effect instead of cause is a big mistake. Some people won't learn that lesson.
There's a story my own director/teacher told me about his teacher, Maria Ouspenskaya. She was working on a scene with an actor and the director was giving her a lot of confusing notes. Finally she said "Do I want him, or don't I want him?" The director said "You want him." "OK" she said and played the scene the way the director wanted.
We should never be blamed for missing the target. We should only be blamed for not aiming at it.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************
Gemine Lentine
----------------------------------
Direct the play, not the players.
Dana Bate
***************************
Hello Sandy
***************************
I wonder how many things don't get done or get done in a slip shod and sloppy manner because the doer started out with the wrong idea. There is a tendency among otherwise intelligent people to ga after an effect rather than investigating and performing the cause that brings on the effect.
Think of an aspiring rock guitarist who wants to sound like Eric Clapton. He listens to Clapton records and does his best to mimic what he hears. And maybe he does well at mimicry, but in the meantime he hasn't really learned how to play the guitar, which if he did could come up with his own sound and wouldn't have to imitate anyone.
I have auditioned with actors who had a perfectly fine speaking voice but as soon as they were presented with a script started to sound like Marlon Brando. And some women wanted to be Katherine Hepburn.
I had the unfortunate experience one hour of performing a scene for an NYU Film School directing class. I don't know if the teacher was just playing a stupid game with the class or if he really didn't know what he was talking about. I tend to think it was the latter, And the reason I think so is that I have worked with young folks fresh out of a school somewhere who have wrong and useless ideas which they learned and have to unlearn quickly if they wish to keep working..
An actor makes a choice based on his understanding of the play and the character. He acts on that choice. If a good director doesn't see and hear what he wants he will ask for a different choice, or suggest one, if he has the imagination for it. A bad director will criticize the performing of the scene without knowing the choice, which causes a lot if misunderstanding and wastes a lot of time. Going for effect instead of cause is a big mistake. Some people won't learn that lesson.
There's a story my own director/teacher told me about his teacher, Maria Ouspenskaya. She was working on a scene with an actor and the director was giving her a lot of confusing notes. Finally she said "Do I want him, or don't I want him?" The director said "You want him." "OK" she said and played the scene the way the director wanted.
We should never be blamed for missing the target. We should only be blamed for not aiming at it.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Improvise
Concentrate on the things that grow in the garden of your mind and don't play with imaginary toads.
Dana Bate
******************
Hello Jon
******************
Years ago, when I was preparing an Off Broadway play in New York, there was a director who took much fiendish delight in playing stupid games with his actors. Some directors, unfortunately, are like that. This was a serious play about drug addiction called "A Hatful Of Rain." My intuition told me that I probably didn't want to work with this director but the two younger actors in the show were very sure that I was the one they wanted for the role, so I signed the contract.
All of the other actors had been working on the play for several days and were familiar with the script. I had only read it once, but the director wanted us to start off improvising. Now improvisation is an old technique in theatre but it is only useful if you know something about the story and the character you play. It is unfortunate that a lot of English teachers don't understand that principle.
One of the actors in this play was a very good improvisor and took up about a half hour treating us to a long and involved scenario which was very interesting but had nothing to do with the play. When my turn came I had nothing to say since I wasn't that familiar with the story. The director pushed me to do something and I came up with an improvisation that was of no use to me or anyone else. Finally I insisted that we were just wasting time. We had 2 weeks before opening and I needed to learn the lines and study the script. The director had no choice but to relent.
The human being is an endlessly fascinating creature. We are capable of understanding great ideas, of making elaborate plans and carrying them out, of creating great beauty and contributing great value to the society in which we live. And what do we do? We fret. We worry about tomorrow, we think of all the things that could go wrong, we imagine complex but totally fictitious scenarios and let them fill our thoughts, we get caught up in strange rituals which govern our daily activities for the sake of a false sense of security, while at the same time we ignore the things that are really important until they insist themselves upon us. We play with toads and let the garden go.
Mental discipline isn't all that difficult. It just takes a choice. And it takes focus. I admit I can fill up my thoughts with all sorts of slimy things hoping around in my mind. Who can't? It seems to be a law of nature that if you leave something alone long enough it will disintegrate. The correct therapy to cure a disintegrating mind is to start using to think in a positive and disciplined manner.
Good conversation is another healthy activity, but it has to be "good" conversation not the negative, down focused junk talk that some people like to engage in. When you witness an exchange of ideas slowly morphing into a toad change the subject or walk away. That's an improvisation leading nowhere.
Projects that occupy your mind are excellent therapeutics against toads. I find it in writing, painting and lately rearranging my new home. It isn't hard to find something to do to focus your mind out of the cobwebs of low level toad mentality onto a higher plane of experience. If in doubt read a good book.
An actor has to have intense concentration when he is on the stage. Whenever my inner monitor told me I was losing concentration I would ask myself a question about something that had just been said or done in the play. It gave me a fresh approach to what I was doing there and what followed was like new to me, an improvisation.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
Dana Bate
******************
Hello Jon
******************
Years ago, when I was preparing an Off Broadway play in New York, there was a director who took much fiendish delight in playing stupid games with his actors. Some directors, unfortunately, are like that. This was a serious play about drug addiction called "A Hatful Of Rain." My intuition told me that I probably didn't want to work with this director but the two younger actors in the show were very sure that I was the one they wanted for the role, so I signed the contract.
All of the other actors had been working on the play for several days and were familiar with the script. I had only read it once, but the director wanted us to start off improvising. Now improvisation is an old technique in theatre but it is only useful if you know something about the story and the character you play. It is unfortunate that a lot of English teachers don't understand that principle.
One of the actors in this play was a very good improvisor and took up about a half hour treating us to a long and involved scenario which was very interesting but had nothing to do with the play. When my turn came I had nothing to say since I wasn't that familiar with the story. The director pushed me to do something and I came up with an improvisation that was of no use to me or anyone else. Finally I insisted that we were just wasting time. We had 2 weeks before opening and I needed to learn the lines and study the script. The director had no choice but to relent.
The human being is an endlessly fascinating creature. We are capable of understanding great ideas, of making elaborate plans and carrying them out, of creating great beauty and contributing great value to the society in which we live. And what do we do? We fret. We worry about tomorrow, we think of all the things that could go wrong, we imagine complex but totally fictitious scenarios and let them fill our thoughts, we get caught up in strange rituals which govern our daily activities for the sake of a false sense of security, while at the same time we ignore the things that are really important until they insist themselves upon us. We play with toads and let the garden go.
Mental discipline isn't all that difficult. It just takes a choice. And it takes focus. I admit I can fill up my thoughts with all sorts of slimy things hoping around in my mind. Who can't? It seems to be a law of nature that if you leave something alone long enough it will disintegrate. The correct therapy to cure a disintegrating mind is to start using to think in a positive and disciplined manner.
Good conversation is another healthy activity, but it has to be "good" conversation not the negative, down focused junk talk that some people like to engage in. When you witness an exchange of ideas slowly morphing into a toad change the subject or walk away. That's an improvisation leading nowhere.
Projects that occupy your mind are excellent therapeutics against toads. I find it in writing, painting and lately rearranging my new home. It isn't hard to find something to do to focus your mind out of the cobwebs of low level toad mentality onto a higher plane of experience. If in doubt read a good book.
An actor has to have intense concentration when he is on the stage. Whenever my inner monitor told me I was losing concentration I would ask myself a question about something that had just been said or done in the play. It gave me a fresh approach to what I was doing there and what followed was like new to me, an improvisation.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Ideas
A great idea can't be expressed too often or in too many ways.
Dana Bate
**********************
Hello Ken
**********************
It's a question of approach and acceptance. We are all individuals and therefore different from each other in spite of our similarities. Babies are born not knowing everything, although I claim they probably know more than we imagine they do, they are after all thinking creatures. As time goes by they accumulate knowledge and ways to articulate what they see, feel and think. Some sort of language is developed. At last the spoken language becomes writing and other forms of communication.
Along with other developments of a human being come preferences, ways that define our character and impulses that move us in the directions of our lives.
The great ideas of the world exist in many forms but all of them are not ideas themselves but the trail markers along the pathways. Great writers reach into the bottomless well of words to describe what lives in their minds in it's purest form. One may not learn from the written word to seek the true ideas behind them. That is a matter of preference.
A painter has in his hand a brush with which he can stroke the formless truth of things and point the way to its understanding. My favorite painting is "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse. One person may look at it and see the triangles and curls. another will see the tensions of life when the conflict of need, desire and fulfillment cross each other.
Music is another, and perhaps the greatest, communicator of ideas. The poetry that accompanies the melody of a song or the grand interlocking levels of an orchestra will bring a listener on to the trail that the music is pointing toward, the trail that leads to where the music leaves off and the lush forest of pure thought is found.
How we approach literature and works of art determines how close we get to understanding the great ideas that foster them. But it is also important to know that the ideas are there seemingly hidden behind the words. Knowing that means that someday at some time the idea will open up itself and the illumination of one's thinking will happen.
It is important, therefore, to make the right choices. Suppose you go out to buy a chair, You go to the furniture store and look over all the chairs. You sit in a few. The chairs all perform the same function, but one is the right one for your room. One of them provides the looks and the comfort you want. You take it home and it becomes a part of your life.
Suppose you decide to buy a work of art, a painting let's say. You will exercise the same or more care in making a choice about that. That painting will probably be with you the rest of your life, speaking to you every day, leading you to where the trail begins.
Then let's say you go to buy a Beethoven symphony. Now it's not only the music itself but the degree of enlightenment of the conductor and the members of the orchestra who perform the music that determines how much and how true the experience is to the ideas of the genius who was on the trail to them.
It is the nature of Truth to reveal itself. Being aware and observing the world around us in all of its articulations surprises happen and treasures are revealed. And when they open up a door or light up a trail marker the voyage to a better understanding of ourselves as individuals continues and the destination becomes closer.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*******************************
Look here. I am about to close down this invitation if I get no more offerings.
This is an invitation for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The end of the year is upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I think people have things to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on Chanukah, Christmas, Ashura, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, New Years Eve. or any subject you wish or associate with this holiday season.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 10 Guest Authors so far. Check them out.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB
***************************
Dana Bate
**********************
Hello Ken
**********************
It's a question of approach and acceptance. We are all individuals and therefore different from each other in spite of our similarities. Babies are born not knowing everything, although I claim they probably know more than we imagine they do, they are after all thinking creatures. As time goes by they accumulate knowledge and ways to articulate what they see, feel and think. Some sort of language is developed. At last the spoken language becomes writing and other forms of communication.
Along with other developments of a human being come preferences, ways that define our character and impulses that move us in the directions of our lives.
The great ideas of the world exist in many forms but all of them are not ideas themselves but the trail markers along the pathways. Great writers reach into the bottomless well of words to describe what lives in their minds in it's purest form. One may not learn from the written word to seek the true ideas behind them. That is a matter of preference.
A painter has in his hand a brush with which he can stroke the formless truth of things and point the way to its understanding. My favorite painting is "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse. One person may look at it and see the triangles and curls. another will see the tensions of life when the conflict of need, desire and fulfillment cross each other.
Music is another, and perhaps the greatest, communicator of ideas. The poetry that accompanies the melody of a song or the grand interlocking levels of an orchestra will bring a listener on to the trail that the music is pointing toward, the trail that leads to where the music leaves off and the lush forest of pure thought is found.
How we approach literature and works of art determines how close we get to understanding the great ideas that foster them. But it is also important to know that the ideas are there seemingly hidden behind the words. Knowing that means that someday at some time the idea will open up itself and the illumination of one's thinking will happen.
It is important, therefore, to make the right choices. Suppose you go out to buy a chair, You go to the furniture store and look over all the chairs. You sit in a few. The chairs all perform the same function, but one is the right one for your room. One of them provides the looks and the comfort you want. You take it home and it becomes a part of your life.
Suppose you decide to buy a work of art, a painting let's say. You will exercise the same or more care in making a choice about that. That painting will probably be with you the rest of your life, speaking to you every day, leading you to where the trail begins.
Then let's say you go to buy a Beethoven symphony. Now it's not only the music itself but the degree of enlightenment of the conductor and the members of the orchestra who perform the music that determines how much and how true the experience is to the ideas of the genius who was on the trail to them.
It is the nature of Truth to reveal itself. Being aware and observing the world around us in all of its articulations surprises happen and treasures are revealed. And when they open up a door or light up a trail marker the voyage to a better understanding of ourselves as individuals continues and the destination becomes closer.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*******************************
Look here. I am about to close down this invitation if I get no more offerings.
This is an invitation for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The end of the year is upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I think people have things to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on Chanukah, Christmas, Ashura, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, New Years Eve. or any subject you wish or associate with this holiday season.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 10 Guest Authors so far. Check them out.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB
***************************
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Winter Wings
Winter comes in on eagles' wings.
Dana Bate
********************
Hello Jon
********************
During the past decade I spent one Christmas in sunny southern California, one in frozen northern Vermont and all the rest in unpredictable eastern Pennsylvania. Being an incurable northeasterner I enjoyed the Vermont Christmas the most, I think. The people, the cats, even the snow covered back yard.
I don't know what the reason is for actually looking forward to the winter months. Maybe it's age, experience, the robust challenge of dealing with cold weather: snow, sleet, freezing rain and temperatures below any human comfort.
Winter is a time for learning lessons. How strong am I? How adroit am I at getting over snow banks and down icy sidewalks? How prepared am I at putting up with the slap of brazen winds? And how well, when the end of the year festivities are over and the last lifeless bit of champagne from the New Years Even party has been tilted from the bottom of the glass, will I deal with the dregs of the long winter to follow, it's depressions and it's relentless lack of colors? The shortness of the daylight and the length of the darkness? The emotional temptations of the attacks from the nasty angel on my aloneness?
I do look forward to Winter in spite of all those things because I know how strong I will prove myself to be. And in spite of my cane and my geezerness (geezerality? geezership? geezerosity?) I shall face the flapping, predatory wings of Winter with cheerfulness. And I will do that because I want to.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
Look here.
This is an invitation for anyone and everyone to post a entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The end of the year holidays are soon upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I know that people have a lot to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your journals, but to add to the joy of my own celebrations is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on Chanukah, Christmas, Ashura, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, New Years Eve. or any subject you wish or associate with this holiday season.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 8 Guest Authors so far. Check them out. Can i hear from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America? All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB
***************************
Dana Bate
********************
Hello Jon
********************
During the past decade I spent one Christmas in sunny southern California, one in frozen northern Vermont and all the rest in unpredictable eastern Pennsylvania. Being an incurable northeasterner I enjoyed the Vermont Christmas the most, I think. The people, the cats, even the snow covered back yard.
I don't know what the reason is for actually looking forward to the winter months. Maybe it's age, experience, the robust challenge of dealing with cold weather: snow, sleet, freezing rain and temperatures below any human comfort.
Winter is a time for learning lessons. How strong am I? How adroit am I at getting over snow banks and down icy sidewalks? How prepared am I at putting up with the slap of brazen winds? And how well, when the end of the year festivities are over and the last lifeless bit of champagne from the New Years Even party has been tilted from the bottom of the glass, will I deal with the dregs of the long winter to follow, it's depressions and it's relentless lack of colors? The shortness of the daylight and the length of the darkness? The emotional temptations of the attacks from the nasty angel on my aloneness?
I do look forward to Winter in spite of all those things because I know how strong I will prove myself to be. And in spite of my cane and my geezerness (geezerality? geezership? geezerosity?) I shall face the flapping, predatory wings of Winter with cheerfulness. And I will do that because I want to.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
Look here.
This is an invitation for anyone and everyone to post a entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The end of the year holidays are soon upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I know that people have a lot to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your journals, but to add to the joy of my own celebrations is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on Chanukah, Christmas, Ashura, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, New Years Eve. or any subject you wish or associate with this holiday season.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 8 Guest Authors so far. Check them out. Can i hear from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America? All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB
***************************
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
To Flip Or Not To Flip
The choices we make determine the choices we get to make.
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Abu Sunbul, Egypt
*************************
I once knew a young man who was a typist for a law firm but who had plans to become rich. One day he said "The only thing I want to worry about is whether to shop at Gucci or Fendi." He might as well have said Tiffany or Cartier. Those may be hard choices for a wealthy person, but they are non choices for a man on a limited budget such as myself. Sometimes, if I happened to go that way, I would stop and admire the fabled window displays at the Tiffany building. But go through the front door? No.
Rich or otherwise our lives are comprised of choices. Like beads on a string, one choice leads to another and another after that. And each choice we make eliminates all the others, at least temporarily. It's very tempting to look back over our lives and wonder what would have happened if we had gone left instead of right, or if we had taken a chance on something which we avoided. But it's a thoroughly pointless pastime. You didn't go left, you didn't take the chance, so don't think about it. Or if you do, do it to learn about yourself. (Arlene understands that. Don't you Arlene?)
Choices are very simple, whether to have a fried egg or a boiled egg for breakfast. On the other hand they may be very complicated, which college to go to, what career path to take, whether to get married or not, where to settle down. Once one of those choices is made it opens up a whole series of other choices, other beads for the string, and each one of those choices presents another series of choices. Ethical, financial, social, professional, religious, physical, etc. we never run out of choices.
Some things look like choices which aren't. Did you choose to drop that jar of jam on the floor? Of course not. It's what to do next that is your choice Did you choose to have the automobile accident? No, but what's next, to go and rage at the other driver or to calmly get the important insurance information and get on with life? Sometimes life throws us a curve ball. The choice is to hit it or let it pass.
I used to be a horse player, I wagered money on horse races, and I was good at it. I made a profit because I was very careful and conservative about how I used my money. I carefully researched every horse in a particular race, never played favorites because they were favorites, or long shots because they were long shots. The odds didn't concern me. Profits large or small were what concerned me. I used to refer to it as investing in a small business, with four legs, a head at one end, a tail at the other and a small person sitting on it. A major lesson I learned from that experience was that the time to worry is before I put my money down, not after. Once the wager is placed sit down, enjoy the sunshine, watch the race and wait for the result.
Sometimes it seems as if life is waiting for you to make a decision, but not offering any advice. Then as soon as you make a choice life says "Okay. In that case you have the following options" and you wonder why you didn't know the options before hand. It's not knowing what is behind the doors you are facing that makes life frustrating and makes choosing difficult.
Then there comes the most difficult choice of all, to give up on life or to go on living.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?"
(Shakespeare)
Drowning in a sea of troubles is a very real possibility and a very real choice. But if the only armor you have against the approaching tide is a rock then throw the rock at the sea and search for another one. The tide will go out and if you fill up the shore with enough rock hard choices when it comes back in again it may not reach you.
To compromise myself by letting all the results of my wrong choices and the flying arrows of outrageous bad luck wash over me and then quitting the fight is not my option. Even in the face of creeping errors and meager opportunities, I have other roads to seek and other doors to open. In front of all the great philosophers I read, from ancient Greece to modern California, my rule of life is summed up in three simple words: never give up.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Dana Bate
****************
Hello Abu Sunbul, Egypt
*************************
I once knew a young man who was a typist for a law firm but who had plans to become rich. One day he said "The only thing I want to worry about is whether to shop at Gucci or Fendi." He might as well have said Tiffany or Cartier. Those may be hard choices for a wealthy person, but they are non choices for a man on a limited budget such as myself. Sometimes, if I happened to go that way, I would stop and admire the fabled window displays at the Tiffany building. But go through the front door? No.
Rich or otherwise our lives are comprised of choices. Like beads on a string, one choice leads to another and another after that. And each choice we make eliminates all the others, at least temporarily. It's very tempting to look back over our lives and wonder what would have happened if we had gone left instead of right, or if we had taken a chance on something which we avoided. But it's a thoroughly pointless pastime. You didn't go left, you didn't take the chance, so don't think about it. Or if you do, do it to learn about yourself. (Arlene understands that. Don't you Arlene?)
Choices are very simple, whether to have a fried egg or a boiled egg for breakfast. On the other hand they may be very complicated, which college to go to, what career path to take, whether to get married or not, where to settle down. Once one of those choices is made it opens up a whole series of other choices, other beads for the string, and each one of those choices presents another series of choices. Ethical, financial, social, professional, religious, physical, etc. we never run out of choices.
Some things look like choices which aren't. Did you choose to drop that jar of jam on the floor? Of course not. It's what to do next that is your choice Did you choose to have the automobile accident? No, but what's next, to go and rage at the other driver or to calmly get the important insurance information and get on with life? Sometimes life throws us a curve ball. The choice is to hit it or let it pass.
I used to be a horse player, I wagered money on horse races, and I was good at it. I made a profit because I was very careful and conservative about how I used my money. I carefully researched every horse in a particular race, never played favorites because they were favorites, or long shots because they were long shots. The odds didn't concern me. Profits large or small were what concerned me. I used to refer to it as investing in a small business, with four legs, a head at one end, a tail at the other and a small person sitting on it. A major lesson I learned from that experience was that the time to worry is before I put my money down, not after. Once the wager is placed sit down, enjoy the sunshine, watch the race and wait for the result.
Sometimes it seems as if life is waiting for you to make a decision, but not offering any advice. Then as soon as you make a choice life says "Okay. In that case you have the following options" and you wonder why you didn't know the options before hand. It's not knowing what is behind the doors you are facing that makes life frustrating and makes choosing difficult.
Then there comes the most difficult choice of all, to give up on life or to go on living.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?"
(Shakespeare)
Drowning in a sea of troubles is a very real possibility and a very real choice. But if the only armor you have against the approaching tide is a rock then throw the rock at the sea and search for another one. The tide will go out and if you fill up the shore with enough rock hard choices when it comes back in again it may not reach you.
To compromise myself by letting all the results of my wrong choices and the flying arrows of outrageous bad luck wash over me and then quitting the fight is not my option. Even in the face of creeping errors and meager opportunities, I have other roads to seek and other doors to open. In front of all the great philosophers I read, from ancient Greece to modern California, my rule of life is summed up in three simple words: never give up.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Fiddle Sticks
There are many theories about art, from philosophers, academics, critics and others, but for the artist there is only one practice, and it cannot be put into words.
Dana Bate
*******************
Hello Bridgeville, Delaware
*******************************
I knew a bass violinist who practiced and played as any other musician would. But sometimes I would see him just staring at the instrument from across the room as if it was a strange being filled with silent mysteries.
I had the same experience once when I purchased a charcoal pencil. It wasn't the first charcoal pencil I owned, but it was brand new and before I sharpened it I just stared at it imagining what mysteries were waiting for me from that primitive drawing material wrapped in wood.
A bass violin and a charcoal stick don't have much in common except one thing, potential. The fiddle isn't going to do anything until the musician sets one of those strings vibrating. The stick isn't going to do anything until the artist applies it to a piece of paper. But then the process begins. One tone leads to another, one line to another. Something vital is taking shape. The practice of imagination, of artistic creativity is happening and a dialogue is taking place, fingers are reaching for tones that want to be heard and lines that want to be seen, choices are made that insist on themselves.
For the poet the words the poem needs and insists on live in the great cosmos of language, waiting to be found, plucked and drawn out. The poet is practicing the art of poetry, the dialogue is alive, the lines vibrate.
We do not think of beauty or truth. If the work is done right things happen, they reveal themselves, they live always as potential within the fiddle and the stick, but when drawn out and given wings they attache themselves with a delicate and invisible force to the artist and his world.
Let the critic say what he wants, he will not know the magic moments of conversation between the artist and his work, the divine dialogue that has no name.
Dana Bate
(never give up)
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Dana Bate
*******************
Hello Bridgeville, Delaware
*******************************
I knew a bass violinist who practiced and played as any other musician would. But sometimes I would see him just staring at the instrument from across the room as if it was a strange being filled with silent mysteries.
I had the same experience once when I purchased a charcoal pencil. It wasn't the first charcoal pencil I owned, but it was brand new and before I sharpened it I just stared at it imagining what mysteries were waiting for me from that primitive drawing material wrapped in wood.
A bass violin and a charcoal stick don't have much in common except one thing, potential. The fiddle isn't going to do anything until the musician sets one of those strings vibrating. The stick isn't going to do anything until the artist applies it to a piece of paper. But then the process begins. One tone leads to another, one line to another. Something vital is taking shape. The practice of imagination, of artistic creativity is happening and a dialogue is taking place, fingers are reaching for tones that want to be heard and lines that want to be seen, choices are made that insist on themselves.
For the poet the words the poem needs and insists on live in the great cosmos of language, waiting to be found, plucked and drawn out. The poet is practicing the art of poetry, the dialogue is alive, the lines vibrate.
We do not think of beauty or truth. If the work is done right things happen, they reveal themselves, they live always as potential within the fiddle and the stick, but when drawn out and given wings they attache themselves with a delicate and invisible force to the artist and his world.
Let the critic say what he wants, he will not know the magic moments of conversation between the artist and his work, the divine dialogue that has no name.
Dana Bate
(never give up)
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Don't Look Back
Contents:
1. Don't Look Back
2. Spring Question
3. Contest Contest
-------------------------------
Memories are slowly throbbing into forgetfulness.
Dana Bate
******************
Hello Arauca, Colombia
""""""""""""""""""""""
There's a famous Japanese film called "Rashomon" directed by Akira Kurosawa. The story is about a husband and wife traveling through a forest. They are attacked by a bandit who rapes the wife. The husband dies. The story is played out 4 times and each time it's different. All three of the characters claim to have killed the husband, including the husband himself through the voice of a medium. But a simple rag picker who was hiding in the bushes and saw the event happen claims the husband accidentally fell on his own sword. It is a mystery that is never solved because we are not told which story is true if in fact any of them are.
What the movie depicts is the unreliability of subjective realism. Many of my memories, and yours, are fictionalized recreations of events that seem to have taken place. In all likelihood no film was made at the time you did things or things happened to you that you now grasp with certainty in your memory. If someone was there who witnessed the events and recalled them to you they might seem to be totally different experiences from the ones you remember.
That I like my version of the events I cherish in my memory is a comfortable state of mind but why should I hold on to a fiction, if that is what it is. We struggle to let go of bad memories. And so we should, because they negatively affect our lives. Lessons learned? Get on with life. But holding on to good memories may be just as destructive, particularly if they mislead us.
"Live for today. Live for the now." People are always saying things like that. I agree, but I say "Live for the future also." I think one of the best treatments for the condition known as oldness is to have a future and be working toward it. In fact having more than one future is preferable. The repetition of ones daily chores and duties loses its hum drum, threadbare old rags if it is helping to define a future.
I sometimes cite people, places and events from my past to illustrate a point in this journal. Some stories are rich enough in lessons to mention more than once, but I don't dwell on them.
Out behind the theatre there is a park with benches, and every day a small gathering of old men sit around, like birds on a fence, and talk about things. One of them tells about when he used to go fishing. Another one who was in the Navy during the war in the Pacific tells about surviving the typhoon, as if he was teaching a history class. A third who still has a head of hair tells the same old lame jokes about his "hairdresser." When I worked at the theatre and had a break, I would sometimes sit out in the back, at a respectable distance, and listen to them. I soon realized they were telling the same stories to each other over and over again. One of the younger ones once said to me "You see these old guys here? They can tell you what happened 40, 50, 60 years ago, but they can't remember what they had for breakfast It's pitiful." I kept wondering if one day one of those old coots would get tired of the repetition, get up and go do something brand new. I hope so.
It doesn't concern me to remember what happened 40, 50, 60 years ago, and I'm not worried if I can't remember what I had for breakfast, although I probably do. I'm only concerned if I can't remember what I was about to do. But give me a moment and I'll think of it. I'm not senile, just slow. I'm 72, I have a right to be slow.
So I let the memories throb themselves into oblivion while I think about what I'm going to do this afternoon, tomorrow, next week, next year. Every day is a new day and a new life.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
Never give up.
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Contest Contest
It's time to put the Ipod in its place.
I am stealing this one from Beth. Don't tell her.
Ipod = ________.
You are to come up with a song or other title in which you substitute the word "Ipod" for one or two of the other words. Example:
"Somewhere over the Ipod"
Answers will be published every day. Send them to:
dbdacoba@aol.com
Looking forward to your clever entries.
DB
************************
1. Don't Look Back
2. Spring Question
3. Contest Contest
-------------------------------
Memories are slowly throbbing into forgetfulness.
Dana Bate
******************
Hello Arauca, Colombia
""""""""""""""""""""""
There's a famous Japanese film called "Rashomon" directed by Akira Kurosawa. The story is about a husband and wife traveling through a forest. They are attacked by a bandit who rapes the wife. The husband dies. The story is played out 4 times and each time it's different. All three of the characters claim to have killed the husband, including the husband himself through the voice of a medium. But a simple rag picker who was hiding in the bushes and saw the event happen claims the husband accidentally fell on his own sword. It is a mystery that is never solved because we are not told which story is true if in fact any of them are.
What the movie depicts is the unreliability of subjective realism. Many of my memories, and yours, are fictionalized recreations of events that seem to have taken place. In all likelihood no film was made at the time you did things or things happened to you that you now grasp with certainty in your memory. If someone was there who witnessed the events and recalled them to you they might seem to be totally different experiences from the ones you remember.
That I like my version of the events I cherish in my memory is a comfortable state of mind but why should I hold on to a fiction, if that is what it is. We struggle to let go of bad memories. And so we should, because they negatively affect our lives. Lessons learned? Get on with life. But holding on to good memories may be just as destructive, particularly if they mislead us.
"Live for today. Live for the now." People are always saying things like that. I agree, but I say "Live for the future also." I think one of the best treatments for the condition known as oldness is to have a future and be working toward it. In fact having more than one future is preferable. The repetition of ones daily chores and duties loses its hum drum, threadbare old rags if it is helping to define a future.
I sometimes cite people, places and events from my past to illustrate a point in this journal. Some stories are rich enough in lessons to mention more than once, but I don't dwell on them.
Out behind the theatre there is a park with benches, and every day a small gathering of old men sit around, like birds on a fence, and talk about things. One of them tells about when he used to go fishing. Another one who was in the Navy during the war in the Pacific tells about surviving the typhoon, as if he was teaching a history class. A third who still has a head of hair tells the same old lame jokes about his "hairdresser." When I worked at the theatre and had a break, I would sometimes sit out in the back, at a respectable distance, and listen to them. I soon realized they were telling the same stories to each other over and over again. One of the younger ones once said to me "You see these old guys here? They can tell you what happened 40, 50, 60 years ago, but they can't remember what they had for breakfast It's pitiful." I kept wondering if one day one of those old coots would get tired of the repetition, get up and go do something brand new. I hope so.
It doesn't concern me to remember what happened 40, 50, 60 years ago, and I'm not worried if I can't remember what I had for breakfast, although I probably do. I'm only concerned if I can't remember what I was about to do. But give me a moment and I'll think of it. I'm not senile, just slow. I'm 72, I have a right to be slow.
So I let the memories throb themselves into oblivion while I think about what I'm going to do this afternoon, tomorrow, next week, next year. Every day is a new day and a new life.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
Never give up.
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Contest Contest
It's time to put the Ipod in its place.
I am stealing this one from Beth. Don't tell her.
Ipod = ________.
You are to come up with a song or other title in which you substitute the word "Ipod" for one or two of the other words. Example:
"Somewhere over the Ipod"
Answers will be published every day. Send them to:
dbdacoba@aol.com
Looking forward to your clever entries.
DB
************************
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Solving The Puzzle
Some of the mountains I have climbed turned out to be made of Paper Mache, while some of the simple jig saw puzzles of life seem to have an infinite number of pieces.
Dana Bate
***********************
Hello Atlantica, Bolivia
************************
One of the most amusing exercises in the arena of mental competition is when a philosopher or other thinker propounds a solid, sturdy idea and creates a phalanx of those who are armed and ready to prove him wrong and is met by another one just as determined to prove he's right. A whistle is blown and the fight is on. What makes it even more interesting is that there is no end game.
People are still trying to prove the Socrates was right, or wrong. But Socrates said "For knowledge too cannot continue to be knowledge unless continuing always to abide and exist. But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and if the transition is always going on, there will always be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known."
Well !! That sort of erases the lines on the playing field and takes down the goal posts. So why are we trying to know things if all we know is there is nothing to be known? (I'm sure Socrates had a sense of humor, a guy I would have liked.)
The gray bearded, brass knuckle fact is that everything is in transition. Does that mean we should stop trying to know anything since there is nothing that can be known. If that's so then we should close all the schools, burn the books, bury the paintings, lock up the labs, stop playing music and, in short, stop thinking. I once read about a Swami in India who spent his life staring at the sun until he was totally blind because the sun was the only thing that didn't change.
I also remembering reading a solipsistic music critic of the 17th Century who said that all the possible combinations of tones had already been invented and there would be nothing new in the field of music. That was before Bach, Handel, Haydn. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mahler, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ellington and Brubeck.
A physicist was asked if he didn't find it frustrating that the theories of natural law kept changing with new discoveries. He replied that that's what made it so exciting. An old cactus in the desert will suddenly sprout a blossom. A new galaxy will be discovered. An eagles egg will crack open and a new life will emerge into the world.
One should not claim that the mountain is solid, impenetrable rock and not Paper Mache until one climbs it, as Socrates and many other have done. He who collects the largest number of jig saw puzzle pieces may know a lot more than I do, but he will never know it all.
DB - The Vagabond
-------------------------
Never Give Up
************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Dana Bate
***********************
Hello Atlantica, Bolivia
************************
One of the most amusing exercises in the arena of mental competition is when a philosopher or other thinker propounds a solid, sturdy idea and creates a phalanx of those who are armed and ready to prove him wrong and is met by another one just as determined to prove he's right. A whistle is blown and the fight is on. What makes it even more interesting is that there is no end game.
People are still trying to prove the Socrates was right, or wrong. But Socrates said "For knowledge too cannot continue to be knowledge unless continuing always to abide and exist. But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and if the transition is always going on, there will always be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known."
Well !! That sort of erases the lines on the playing field and takes down the goal posts. So why are we trying to know things if all we know is there is nothing to be known? (I'm sure Socrates had a sense of humor, a guy I would have liked.)
The gray bearded, brass knuckle fact is that everything is in transition. Does that mean we should stop trying to know anything since there is nothing that can be known. If that's so then we should close all the schools, burn the books, bury the paintings, lock up the labs, stop playing music and, in short, stop thinking. I once read about a Swami in India who spent his life staring at the sun until he was totally blind because the sun was the only thing that didn't change.
I also remembering reading a solipsistic music critic of the 17th Century who said that all the possible combinations of tones had already been invented and there would be nothing new in the field of music. That was before Bach, Handel, Haydn. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mahler, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ellington and Brubeck.
A physicist was asked if he didn't find it frustrating that the theories of natural law kept changing with new discoveries. He replied that that's what made it so exciting. An old cactus in the desert will suddenly sprout a blossom. A new galaxy will be discovered. An eagles egg will crack open and a new life will emerge into the world.
One should not claim that the mountain is solid, impenetrable rock and not Paper Mache until one climbs it, as Socrates and many other have done. He who collects the largest number of jig saw puzzle pieces may know a lot more than I do, but he will never know it all.
DB - The Vagabond
-------------------------
Never Give Up
************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Widow's Mite
You are declared interest in Nature's bank account.
Dana Bate
********************
Hello Brunei
********************
I knew of a woman who worked at the same job, or the same type of job, her entire life and when she retired she not only collected Social Security, she had a balance in her savings account of $175,000. When she was asked how she had accumulated so much money she gave a two word answer: "Compound Interest."
I have never been able to stock up on any appreciable hoard of funds during my vagabond life. I have no secret stash in a bank tucked into a remote and anonymous city on the edge of an ancient river. I have no numbered Swiss bank account. I have no trillion dollar lottery ticket to cash in when I feel like it. I have a meager saving account in my credit union and yesterday I had to take some of it out because I ran out of money but not out of needs.
I don't like to do that and I certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
But I have another savings account that I make deposits in all the time and hopefully not too many withdrawals. My shoulders are weighed down by the waight of the youngsters standing on them. But they are strengthened by the shoulders I stand on. There is a mystical bond that exists between me and some individual who lived hundreds of years ago, someone I've never heard of.
Once upon a time a man or a woman did something positive and progressive for the world, and as a result my life, in some small way, is easier. At another time someone did something magnanimous for humanity and my life is benefiting from it in grand ways. I am living interest in the account to which those people contributed in their lives. People who did not enjoy the freedom I have dreamt about it, spoke and wrote about it even, often, at the risk of their lives. Those who did not have the knowledge I have questioned old ideas, investigated and made discoveries which became part of the great account. What do we owe those people? Just to enjoy what they left for us and to make sure the account grows for the people who follow us.
My life could be better. Whose couldn't be? The reason it isn't is because there have always been those who contributed nothing to the savings but instead just withdrew from the account. The regressive, negative, nihilistic, backward thinking and backward moving, frightened and squeamish wasters of the great accomplishments of the past and previous generators, have dipped too much and too often into Nature's bank account. Even so it has not been depleted, though one might think that is what the plunderers want.
Sweeping things under the carpet does not clean the room, erasing a problem does not solve it, laws do not create ethical behavior. Unlike the negativists, those who pull down, those who withdraw from Nature's bank to discard the gains, the future must be considered. A decision has certain results. Logic demands them. Reason will reveal them.
Every positive step forward, even a halting, stumbling, uncertain one deposits value in the bank amd interest will accrue. Every act of kindness, charity, tolerance, cleaning, improvement, invention, design, completion, inspiration, discovery, no matter how small, is an investment in the future. Even the slightest sliver of advanced thinking and doing will brighten the life of someone years from now who has never heard of you. The mite of value you place in the world's cup will grow and interest will be declared.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
One day puzzle,
"Every Jefferson, Nixon and Truman. Or,
Every ----------. ------------- and -------------.= Tom, Dick and Harry.
Geo was the one to break the tape, soon followed by Sue.
Those were the only contestants. What's the matter with you people?
***********************
One day puzzle,
How many "f"s are there in the following statement.
The first of the few faces
you see if you look carefully
will be of a famous father.
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
**************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Dana Bate
********************
Hello Brunei
********************
I knew of a woman who worked at the same job, or the same type of job, her entire life and when she retired she not only collected Social Security, she had a balance in her savings account of $175,000. When she was asked how she had accumulated so much money she gave a two word answer: "Compound Interest."
I have never been able to stock up on any appreciable hoard of funds during my vagabond life. I have no secret stash in a bank tucked into a remote and anonymous city on the edge of an ancient river. I have no numbered Swiss bank account. I have no trillion dollar lottery ticket to cash in when I feel like it. I have a meager saving account in my credit union and yesterday I had to take some of it out because I ran out of money but not out of needs.
I don't like to do that and I certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
But I have another savings account that I make deposits in all the time and hopefully not too many withdrawals. My shoulders are weighed down by the waight of the youngsters standing on them. But they are strengthened by the shoulders I stand on. There is a mystical bond that exists between me and some individual who lived hundreds of years ago, someone I've never heard of.
Once upon a time a man or a woman did something positive and progressive for the world, and as a result my life, in some small way, is easier. At another time someone did something magnanimous for humanity and my life is benefiting from it in grand ways. I am living interest in the account to which those people contributed in their lives. People who did not enjoy the freedom I have dreamt about it, spoke and wrote about it even, often, at the risk of their lives. Those who did not have the knowledge I have questioned old ideas, investigated and made discoveries which became part of the great account. What do we owe those people? Just to enjoy what they left for us and to make sure the account grows for the people who follow us.
My life could be better. Whose couldn't be? The reason it isn't is because there have always been those who contributed nothing to the savings but instead just withdrew from the account. The regressive, negative, nihilistic, backward thinking and backward moving, frightened and squeamish wasters of the great accomplishments of the past and previous generators, have dipped too much and too often into Nature's bank account. Even so it has not been depleted, though one might think that is what the plunderers want.
Sweeping things under the carpet does not clean the room, erasing a problem does not solve it, laws do not create ethical behavior. Unlike the negativists, those who pull down, those who withdraw from Nature's bank to discard the gains, the future must be considered. A decision has certain results. Logic demands them. Reason will reveal them.
Every positive step forward, even a halting, stumbling, uncertain one deposits value in the bank amd interest will accrue. Every act of kindness, charity, tolerance, cleaning, improvement, invention, design, completion, inspiration, discovery, no matter how small, is an investment in the future. Even the slightest sliver of advanced thinking and doing will brighten the life of someone years from now who has never heard of you. The mite of value you place in the world's cup will grow and interest will be declared.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
One day puzzle,
"Every Jefferson, Nixon and Truman. Or,
Every ----------. ------------- and -------------.= Tom, Dick and Harry.
Geo was the one to break the tape, soon followed by Sue.
Those were the only contestants. What's the matter with you people?
***********************
One day puzzle,
How many "f"s are there in the following statement.
The first of the few faces
you see if you look carefully
will be of a famous father.
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
**************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Leave The Cat Alone
Anyone who can laugh at another creatures suffering had better be prepared to laugh at his own.
Bate
**************
I don't want to write this entry, but a long time ago I said I would, so here it is.
One day I was standing in a radio studio with another announcer, a young, talented, intelligent fellow, when we were visited by a goon, another fellow who used to hang around and do odd jobs trying to get on the air. He told us about his friend's cat. It seems his friend, for a joke, would put his cat near a wall, then rub its fur the wrong way and watch it hit its face into the wall. The goon then broke out in a big loud laugh. The other announcer and I were quiet for a moment and then he said that it seemed the friend was a sick person. I agreed. A dark cloud fell over the face of the goon. He didn't understand it but he realized there were at least two people in the universe who did not think abusing an animal was funny.
Something I have never been able to understand is sadism, the enjoyment people get out of cruelty, Why does the human race allow and find pleasure in bull fights, dog fights, cock fights and other forms of animal savagery? The Europeans used to enjoy bear baiting and horse baiting. Now there are fox hunts which don't allow the fox to escape. I heard of one which took 7 minutes for the fox to die. There are fox hunts in America that plug up the fox hole for the same reason. Is it so much fun to watch the dogs tear apart the living fox?
When I was a kid there was a guy who would catch a frog, tie it to a string, tie the string to a stick and hold the frog over a fire watching it jump around trying to escape from the flame, The guy would laugh as if it was a comedy act. I was always glad when the frog got away.
Here in my own county there are boys who will catch a feral cat and barbecue it, enjoying the screeching. Some people will catch a dog and skin it alive. They take videos of these things and post them for others to "enjoy."
In some places they poke out the eyes of birds so they will sing. Or cut off their feet so the birds can't land and will fly until they drop dead.
I recently read an article written by a man who was interviewing some boys who had been brought in on animal abuse charges. He was a crime reporter and said he thought he was fairly hard nosed and toughened about things, but the stories of abuse some of these boys told him made him gasp.
What has been woven into the human race that allows for the level of viciousness practiced by some twisted people? What can be done to cure it? How can compassion for our fellow creatures be injected into the sadists of the world? How can the urge for cruelty be erased from human consciousness? With no laws to protect animals in unenlightened countries, loosely defined and laxly enforced laws in more modern countries, the miserable lives of some laboratory animals, the wretched events in some slaughter houses and the barbaric cooking methods of some kitchens, it seems like a totally impossible thing to convince the human race to start taking care of its animals instead of torturing them.
I'll leave this topic now except to ask one more question. Eagles are cruel, predatory beasts. They don't like to eat anything that's dead. Instead they rip pieces off the squirming, writing creature under their feet to feed themselves and their young. Why is the eagle our national symbol?
DB
*********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
Bate
**************
I don't want to write this entry, but a long time ago I said I would, so here it is.
One day I was standing in a radio studio with another announcer, a young, talented, intelligent fellow, when we were visited by a goon, another fellow who used to hang around and do odd jobs trying to get on the air. He told us about his friend's cat. It seems his friend, for a joke, would put his cat near a wall, then rub its fur the wrong way and watch it hit its face into the wall. The goon then broke out in a big loud laugh. The other announcer and I were quiet for a moment and then he said that it seemed the friend was a sick person. I agreed. A dark cloud fell over the face of the goon. He didn't understand it but he realized there were at least two people in the universe who did not think abusing an animal was funny.
Something I have never been able to understand is sadism, the enjoyment people get out of cruelty, Why does the human race allow and find pleasure in bull fights, dog fights, cock fights and other forms of animal savagery? The Europeans used to enjoy bear baiting and horse baiting. Now there are fox hunts which don't allow the fox to escape. I heard of one which took 7 minutes for the fox to die. There are fox hunts in America that plug up the fox hole for the same reason. Is it so much fun to watch the dogs tear apart the living fox?
When I was a kid there was a guy who would catch a frog, tie it to a string, tie the string to a stick and hold the frog over a fire watching it jump around trying to escape from the flame, The guy would laugh as if it was a comedy act. I was always glad when the frog got away.
Here in my own county there are boys who will catch a feral cat and barbecue it, enjoying the screeching. Some people will catch a dog and skin it alive. They take videos of these things and post them for others to "enjoy."
In some places they poke out the eyes of birds so they will sing. Or cut off their feet so the birds can't land and will fly until they drop dead.
I recently read an article written by a man who was interviewing some boys who had been brought in on animal abuse charges. He was a crime reporter and said he thought he was fairly hard nosed and toughened about things, but the stories of abuse some of these boys told him made him gasp.
What has been woven into the human race that allows for the level of viciousness practiced by some twisted people? What can be done to cure it? How can compassion for our fellow creatures be injected into the sadists of the world? How can the urge for cruelty be erased from human consciousness? With no laws to protect animals in unenlightened countries, loosely defined and laxly enforced laws in more modern countries, the miserable lives of some laboratory animals, the wretched events in some slaughter houses and the barbaric cooking methods of some kitchens, it seems like a totally impossible thing to convince the human race to start taking care of its animals instead of torturing them.
I'll leave this topic now except to ask one more question. Eagles are cruel, predatory beasts. They don't like to eat anything that's dead. Instead they rip pieces off the squirming, writing creature under their feet to feed themselves and their young. Why is the eagle our national symbol?
DB
*********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 7 responses so far
I await your answer.
DB
******************************
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