One problem I see with materialism is that it means there isn’t a reason for anything. If you’re sad take a pill, since the causes are immaterial. No need to query the reason, just fix the effect.
Can we not grow now?
Bummer,
LWIII

Today we discuss attention. Paying attention. For our purposes we will define attention as energy. The Dog Whisperer has taught me that. Energy alone does exist. It’s not a physical manifestation, yet there is actual measurable energy, a vibration, a feeling-tone, or something that is real.
Attention – paying attention – is bringing more energy to [...]

Why is a question I’ve been asking ever since I learned the concept of ask. Why am I here? Why is it like this? Why anything and everything?
Think I finally may have the answer.
Always figured I would have to find a spiritual answer to that question, my existential yawp. An implied communication from God or [...]

Memory: ‘tis ever been both my curse and my bane. Ha, okay, I guess there must be something good about memory, if I can remember what it is.
Today’s post is coming to you courtesy of @davidbmetcalfe, renowned creative director of the Absurdist Monthly Review, as well as a master tweeter and superb necktie picker-outer. I [...]

I asked a Twitter pal to give me a topic for today’s blog, and she offered up a doozy: The value or not of bare naked truth: Is truth a fact, or relative?
Truth is one of my favorite subjects, so this should be fun, though I have covered truth-ish ground before. A line from a previous [...]

So what’s up with the Golden Rule? I think it sucks. If I followed the Golden Rule I’d be in jail right now.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Pfft. Like even. If I did unto others the way I wish they did things to me, everybody would hate me. I’m just [...]

I keep getting this sneaking suspicion that bad is good. May be that’s easy to say from the relative isolation of high atop my rusty tower here in the mutant forest, but it seems true. So much good comes from bad that how can bad be bad?
Of course too much bad is not a good [...]

That’s the writer’s life – set yourself an impossibly hellish goal and go for it. I could fill pages on just the difference between women, and there I go and put men in there too. Not to mention how peevish this kind of talk can make the womenfolk. I could be in trouble again.
Oh well, [...]

Something about the artistic temperament loves an edge, a place to hang over so one can stare down into the horrid black-eyed abyss of nothingness and say neener neener. Came across a great quote from that one guy:
Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall.
~ Salman Rushdie

Art is like that: vertigo. [...]

As a quasi-intellectual (meaning I like to learn but ain’t that good at it) I think it’s about time for me to mention Postmodernism. I know, late as ever, since we’re already into Post-Post, from the faint rumblings that reach my cortex from smart people, but what the hey.
I was introduced to postmodernism by accident, [...]

This is the story of how I learned that my body is a butthole.
I was something of a chunky child, not hugely so, but definitely “big boned”. And, like many middle children, my older sibling was a golden child, lithe and sunny and smart. I was middling in many things, being middle and all – [...]

The ultimate battle. The mightiest of all supreme ya yas – good versus evil – or, as one might put it, good v bad.
The battle between good and evil is like most everything, depends on how you look at it. To my mind, it’s not so much a battle between opposites as it is a [...]

Seems like mostly we don’t decide what we’re going to like. We just like it and go with that. I know I never decided to like blue, or trees, or not flossing. It just came to me. Like seafood – it’s not my fault it came with lemon-butter sauce.
I never heard anyone say, “You know, [...]

Nature abhors a vacuum. And so do I. Which is why I’m so glad I just paid the carpet cleaners a hundred bucks to come in and clean up my floor. Dirt begone! Now that it’s dry and the chemical smell is gone, it’s darn perky around here.
 
Actually, nature adores a vacuum, if you judge [...]

Today we groove.
On words.
Most people have at least a vague idea what grooving is, but hardly anybody knows what a ya ya is. That’s what makes it such a handy phrase. Not sure what ya ya is myself, but I’m definitely grooving on it today.
I think it changes.
Ya ya!
LWIII

Today’s topic is beauty, brought on by the fact that Cleopatra walked into the pool room down at the local fitness club this morning. I was backstroking my leisurely way down the middle lane, watching the ceiling tiles pass by in succession over my head and pondering the nature of liquid reality, when what should [...]

Ain’t fear a beaut? It sure kicks my ass.
Frank Herbert wrote that Fear is the mind-killer. Not so certain that’s true with me. Fear is more of a heart-killer, to my taste. It kills my heart, wounds my spirit, busts my incentive. Fear and mind? It does make me dumber, but that mind kicks into overdrive. [...]

If there’s a general, he must be your relative.
This theory, of course, depends on the relativity of relativity, that is on how relative one considers relationship to be. It also depends on words, unfortunately, but we won’t get into that, pretending, as usual, that we’re not using any, so things go smoother.
Your scientific observer,
LWIII

Maybe I should be a poet. Being sick is perfect for poetry, getting all swoony and rolling your eyes back, sighing a lot and wishing things were different somehow, placing the reverse of your trembling fingers on your wide, high, yet sweaty forehead and sticking your butt out in a tragic manner.
Oh okay, poet’s ain’t really [...]

I don’t care much for reality. It’s all right as far as it goes, I suppose, but it doesn’t really interest me. My friends hear me say that frequently. I’m not sure they know what I mean.
What I mean is that my experience of reality is that it’s always defined by the other guy. “Here’s [...]