Talk To Me

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlovely being alone can be.

Ellen Burstyn
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Hello Stuart
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My God, I need a friend !! (Oh, I said that already.)

Being alone is not just a matter of not having someone else around.

I have a room with music playing (Tannhauser at the moment), a couple of comfortable chairs and three windows. I have another room with a very large sofa, a table, a chair and two windows. I have a big kitchen with a table to sit around and three more windows. I have a nice big porch with a table and chairs, not much of a view but there is a wind chime and usually a refreshing breeze. I have a library of books and paintings spread out all over. I am all set up to receive visitors.

My apartment is a mess. The bed isn't made, there's stuff on the chairs, the books are stacked up in no particular order, there are paintings blocking some of the windows, the living room table is covered with litter, the kitchen table is pushed against the wall, the dishes aren't washed and I hardly ever go out on the porch. Why? Because no one visits me.

MY one friend Linda lives several towns away. Sometimes its weeks before I see her, and then it's usually business, not a social call.

I live alone, and sometimes I am alone. I'm not alone when I'm writing, like right now. But after I"ve written and edited this, I will put it on the "mail waiting to be sent" file where it will sit (until it's time to post it). And then my aloneness will echo from the walls.

I live in a world of ideas, but the ideas only go one way, out.

I read other people's journals and I get the same feeling, an attempt to communicate out to a nameless void, ideas going out from an aloneness. There is no doubt the Internet is a great boon for the human race, but its bad side is the abatement of real conversation. Some of my best memories are those times in the theatre when cast and crew get together between performances or on a break and converse. I miss that very much.

Where are the discussions? In school everything is computerized. In church one guy does all the talking. In Congress they just insult each other. In city council people talk just to hear themselves. TV interviews are just questions and answers.

I will never forget a discussion I had one evening about the creative process with three other artists. I spoke only English, one woman spoke English and Greek, one woman spoke Greek and French and the other man only spoke French. Everything had to be said 2 or 3 times. Those ideas got a real workout and I came away from it with knowledge.

Are people afraid of ideas, afraid of expressing them, afraid of having their ideas challenged, or accepted and improved on, or put with another idea creating a third one?

It's unlovely and unhealthy for a person to chew on his own thoughts all day simply because he is alone. Fortunately I have books to challenge and improve my thinking. They are filled with ideas, but I have no one to discuss them with.

Maybe I'll just play solitaire.
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DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
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You Choose

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

John Newman
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Hello Lily
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A belief is like a body of water. Naturally we should keep an eye on our beliefs because they tend to affect our behavior and our points of view about many things. For some a belief is allied to a religious faith. To others they may correspond to social and ethical matters and some beliefs are coordinate with natural laws. Almost all beliefs are found tied to opinions, which are usually the product of ideas. But whatever the origins and structures of one's beliefs they should be held up for review regularly.

Naturally we should look at our beliefs to see what they are made of but we should also determine how deeply and seriously held those beliefs are. Is your belief a bird bath, a pond, a lake and ocean? The deeper the belief the more changes it can go through, and that's a good thing. Opinions change and beliefs change along with them. If they don't things get muddy and dangerous. William Blake wrote "A man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind. "

Some people suffer from the ornery ego inflated problem of being possessive about their beliefs, holding on to some threadbare idea because they don't want to challenge or be challenged for it. That man's belief is a swamp unless he runs it past his reason a few times and cleans it up.

It is permissible and quite natural to have beliefs you can't prove as long as they remain beliefs, subject to review and change, and are not stated as truth.

To choose what to believe is our right as humans. Being told what to believe by someone else is not.

DB - Vagabond
Happy birthday JSB, wherever you are.
Never give up.
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The Contrapuntal Mind

Ideas control the world.

President James Garfield
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I once took a photograph of a stream, a clear slowly moving stream. It was a fascinating picture because there were a few autumn levees floating on the stream, reflected in it was the branch of a tree overhead still holding on to some of its leaves and some rocks on the bottom of the stream. It was a bright sunny day, the branch, the leaves and the rocks were well lit by the sun. The picture was showing three realities at once, the reflection of the branches, the gently rippling water supporting the floating leaves and the rocks underneath. All the great ideas that control the world exist on several levels.

Near where I took the picture there was a meadow with a very friendly horse. The horse came up to the fence to greet me and I took its picture also. I don't know what happened to those pictures. The got lost somewhere along the vagabond trail.

I remember that horse. It was easy to recognize it as a horse. It looked like a horse. It looked they way horses look. It was a horse. It was also a friendly horse. It behaved in a way only that horse could. It came to greet me. Other horses could greet me but they wouldn't be that horse. That horse could greet other people and probably did, but then it wouldn't be greeting me. I appreciated that animal who looked like a horse because it was a horse and a horse who was friendly toward me, because it was a friendly horse. But those experiences of appreciation enabled me to see and appreciate something else and that was the idea of horse. That horse is similar to a zebra. But it's not a zebra. A zebra is a different idea. I was beginning to see the ideas of natures creations. The ideas that control the world have several levels.

If you are fortunate enough to view a statue by Michelangelo you are seeing marble, Marble is a fascinating, beautiful stone and something to admire. You are also seeing a work of art, a figure well designed, beautifully formed and rendered for your pleasure in the medium of marble. And what you are also seeing if you are really observant is the idea of that marble statue, the idea of art. The thing in itself, its vitality and the idea of its existence. The idea of a statue which encompasses and explains all three. The idea of a horse. The idea of a stream. All the ideas that rule exist on several levels.

I am always urging people to listen to music they way I do. (Aw, here he goes again.) Music, as much as poetry, is an art form of ideas. One must look into the stream not just at it. One should listen into the music, not just to it. If you listen into a Bach cantata, when you hear a solo, you will also hear along with the song two or three other events happening in the orchestra. They are each individual expressions of the idea of music. It's called "counterpoint" and it's one of the ideas that rule the world.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 6 responses so far

I await your answer.
DB
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There Is Something More

I would put myself in the way of revelation.

Bate - The Vagabond
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Years ago I knew a lay preacher at a large Baptist church in Harlem. She wasn't clergy but she was a good woman, very devout and dedicated. She would often preach to the congregation of that church which she said had some members who had come through terrible times of poverty and drug addiction. Even though I was not a member of her church or even a church goer myself, and she knew it, she seemed to think I had positive advice to offer her and so she would discuss her sermons with me

One day she went through a list of Bible references and concluded that if you are a believing Christian then the answer to all of life's problems is faith. Well, that answer wasn't good enough for me, so I asked her if that was all there was to it. What else could there be? She went back into her references and said that she guessed love for God and man was part of it. "What else?" I asked. Then she came across things like honesty, compassion, obedience and so forth, and she finally said "You know what? You're right. There is always something more."

I had a conversation with a friend's 14 year old daughter who said her favorite thing to study in school was science. I asked her if she preferred lab science or field science and she said she wanted to do them both. It must be a very interesting and rewarding life to be a research scientist, not someone who mixes the same old formulas over and over again, but someone who is always in the process of discovery.

One of the great pleasures in my retirement is reading. I read all the time, books, magazines, newspapers. It's slow going because I have to use a magnifying glass, but I don't care. If I get my eyesight back I think I would read just as methodically as I do now because I don't want any ideas to pass me by. There are old forgotten ideas to rediscover, new discoveries, discoveries hidden in familiar material that I missed before, there are even discoveries within discoveries. Some discoveries are surprising and some are awesome.

My black lady preacher friend also said that even if we don't know they are there they remain to be revealed. One of the greet discoveries of all is that behind each new idea, even behind the process of discovery itself is something which has to be experienced to be understood. Even the most sublime idea is merely a sign post, a trail marker pointing us toward revelation, toward the awakened land of enlightenment. That I will find that road and stay on it is where my faith is.

Bate - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND CONTEST

You are to give me a song title or a lyric substitution for one of the words the word "pumpkin" as in "Somewhere over the pumpkin" of "My pumpkin 'tis of thee"

Enter as often as you want. The winner will be whoever can get the sour, angry, nihilistic judge to laugh so hard he pees in his knickers.,

Good luck
DB
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Inevitable Illumination 4/13/09

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.

Indian proverb
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Overtures of friendship to you
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It is a remarkable but often frightening thing to realize that all thoughts, ideas and beliefs will blossom someday in one way or another depending on where they are planted and how they are tended. These mental seeds are all around, looking for a place to land and take root. What am I growing in my field, something useful like roses, tulips, corn, potatoes, or stink weed, skunk cabbage, deadly nightshade?

If I wake up one morning and look out the window at my life and see weeds I know I've let the wrong seeds into my head. I have some uprooting to do. I have some replanting. It's strange, because the seed I hold in my hand knows what it is going to become, even though I don't. So I have to be very careful. Is it a seed of hope, beauty, truth, happiness or one of fear, hate and ugliness?

I also have to be careful where I put the seed. I have to make sure I have the right mental condition, the right attitude, the right soil, to inspire its proper growth. The same idea in one mind can make a genius while in another might make a mad man. One soil grows an Einstein another grows a Frankenstein. It's not enough just to have a good idea, you have to know what to do with it.

Then there's the matter of cultivating, nourishing and protecting it while it grows. Patience is required. The butterfly can't leave his cocoon until he's fully grown. A grand idea needs its own fulfillment time. An artist or a scientist may give a large portion of his life to bring a grand idea to maturity.

In my neighborhood there are a lot of children. Some of them are quite small and I sometimes wonder what that little one is capable of. Will he grow up to be a master musician? Will she become an astronaut and step on another planet one day? It's amazing to think that whatever they can do or become is already inside them waiting to be nourished, cultivated and illuminated. It's so vitally important to make sure that the thoughts they are encouraged to hold in their hands and plant in their lives are good ones.

And that is equally important for all of us, no matter how young we are.

What's in your garden?
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DB - Vagabond Journeys
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May there be nice newness in your life today.
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Precious Plenty 3/25/09

Life always spills over the rim of every cup.

Boris Pasternak
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Hail.
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It was a very unpleasant trip to the post office today. For one thing it was cold, and it was depressing mail that I had to send, the state of my hip made it extremely painful to walk more than a hundred feet or so and the post office is a long distance from my home. This town has almost no pedestrian benches and none en route. So by the time I got back here I was exhausted, in pain and in a very bad mood. I wanted to have a bite to eat and take a nap.

But I saw what appeared to be a white spot on the floor. I thought I had spilled some milk or flour or something. The last thing I wanted to do was to clean up a dirty spot . But I got a sponge and some water and sat down to clean it. Then I discovered that it wasn't a spot of dirt but a spot of sunlight. I sat looking at it and admired this one patch of sunlight smiling up at me. I thought how amazing it was that the sun will find it's way through all the nooks and crannies of the world to shine it's light, how every available spot on earth gets its share of sunlight, some more, some less, even if it's only for one day and a few minutes.

Then I thought about how it's the same with ideas. Wherever they may come from, we all get our share of ideas, some more, some less. The problem is that we so often ignore them, we don't take note of them, we don't take the trouble to think about them, to observe them.

In Anton Chekhov's play "The Seagull" the character of Trigorin, a writer, tells how he always carries a piece of paper in his pocket in order to jot down descriptions and ideas. Picasso used to make drawings on paper restaurant napkins and hotel stationary. I once saw a TV interview with Harold Arlen, the composer of the songs in "The Wizard Of Oz" who took a piece of music paper out of his jacket pocket to show that he always carried it with him in case he got the idea for a melody.
Then I remembered that I do the same thing myself. I always have a small note pad in my pocket to write down ideas I get from reading or thinking. I have a box full of those note pads. Some of the entries are excellent, some good, some not so good, some dreadful. Some of the good ones (I hope) make it onto my journal, Vagabond Jottings.

All these memories and realizations came to me because instead of lazily falling into bed for a well needed nap I decided first to clean up a spot.on the floor. Later, when I woke from my nap, the sun had moved on and the spot was gone. But the journey had been successful.

There's a hymn that reads:
The useful and the great,
The thing that never dies,
The silent toil that is not lost, -
Set these before thine eyes.

DB The Vagabond
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I don't care what the "meteorologist" says, It's spring.
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Qualitative Quest 2/24/09

Qualitative Quest

Atlas groaned only under the weight of the Earth.
Today we sweat under the burden of cosmic ideas.

DB - The Vagabond
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Good day Earthling.

It may some day be proven that human beings are the most arrogant, and hence, most ignorant creatures in the universe. We used to believe and proved, we thought, that the Earth was the center of the universe. After having to give up that canard, many now believe, and think they have proven, that the Earth is the only inhabited planet in all of creation. But with the increasing evidence that there might be extraterrestrial activity, the question comes up: Is there life on other planets? So far that question has only two answers: Why should there be? and Why not?

Science fiction writers, astronomers and cosmological theorists have had a grand old time with this subject. If there is life elsewhere we will probably know someday. If there isn't, we may never know it but we will keep looking.

Reason tells us that there must be some form of life existing somewhere out there. But reason itself is a questionable thing. It is merely the way humans think. But man cannot truly classify himself as a terrestrial rational being until he meets a non-terrestrial rational being. And if he were to find totally alien creatures who reason as well as, or better than, he does, he would have to conclude that reason is not what makes him human, that we reason because we're human, and not human because we reason. But what if reason is not the standard of universal mentality?

It seems as likely that there is a superior mode of thinking as there is that pigs can fly or that roses can grow at the bottom of the ocean. That is only because we can't think of one. But what if there is? What if our dedication to reason and our ability to think things through in a logical manner is just another form of believing that the Earth is the center of the universe?

There are some earthbound religions that teach that there is a higher form of thought than reason and that it is obtainable by the enlightened. Maybe that is so, and maybe it is a cosmic form of thought, shared by those whose dwelling place is an all-inclusive mental realm, no matter where they may come from.

I am a reasoning creature, and will no doubt remain so, ,I hope, for I see no better way. But I retain the right to have an open mind about unheard of and undreamed of possibilities in the universe of ideas.


DB - Vagabond Journeys
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If your sky is clear, look up and wave. Something may be watching.

Precise Purpose 2/23/09

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

Austin Phelps
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Welcome back.
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In Puccini's opera La Boheme, Colline decides to sell his overcoat to buy medicine in a futile attempt to help prolong the life of his roommate's girl friend. Even though it's an old coat it's deep pockets have held for him the best of poetry and philosophy. He loves that coat. Before he goes off with it, he sings a farewell to it "Addio, addio." It's a very poignant moment.

I used to sing that aria. (No, I used to pretend to sing it.)

One of the minor fears I've always had during my life, is that I would find myself stuck somewhere without something interesting to read. When I worked as a broadcaster in New York my reading schedule was brief and irregular at best. Being a radio announcer is busy and often difficult work and don't let anybody tell you differently. I always had a copy of the New York Times with me. Tucked in amongst the chit chat about the latest crime or political scandal, the war stories, the fashion and entertainment news, the weather information, the stock market quotes and the ball scores, there were stories written by people who had ideas to express. They may be new ideas, old ideas in a new articulation or forgotten ideas recovered and brought to print.

Margaret Thatcher once said that whereas England was formed from history, America was formed by philosophy.

Wherever I went I always had a book in my pocket. My friends knew that. I remember one evening sitting in DJ Moran's on 57th Street in Manhattan having a beer. Three guys came in. I knew one of them. He said "Hey D. What's in the pocket?" I said "Cervantes." The other two guys laughed until I took out my copy of Don Quixote and put it on the bar. They were not very impressed. So what? I didn't carry the book to impress people. I had it to read.

The world is made of ideas. Primarily and ceaselessly of ideas. There is no question about that. So whether you buy the overcoat or not, buy the book. And read it.

DB The Vagabond
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Time to put another stone down on that path you're building to your dream.