Sidetracked Charley

Some days Are so heavy I want to hide Let  it all squeeze me into the earth.   This has been one of those weeks. What seems so very clear to me seems so absurd to others. And what they say seems to make sense to them but reaches no connection in my soul or heart. Clearly there is a disconnect. A total failure to communicate. So why is everyone continuing to talk? I want to ask them what they want for lunch. Pizza or hamburgers? That is where hostage negotiators begin. With the simple stuff. Coke or Pepsi. But in this day and age I fear even those simple questions are not simple. Asking them could lead to bigger verbal wars. I know people in the south which define friends on the basis of Coke or Pepsi. You are obviously a northerner and ergo an enemy if you like Coke. And where do I, who likes water or coffee, fit in that paradigm. It classifies me as a bleeding heart liberal an acquaintance recently pronounced and I felt absolutely no reason to continue the ...

Communication was easy once. Besides what was there to talk about? You walked up to another person and either threw down your club or threw it at their head. But as times went by it got a bit more complicated. "Honey, I told you to fix the stairs." "Yep," "So you going to do it?" "Not inclined to." And so with the introduction of the mother-in-law was born the third party negotiator. I did not say necessarily independent. Everyone has a dog in the hunt. King Arthur introduced the concept of the shape of the table. Have you ever followed one of those openings to peace or truce negotiations? Weeks can be spent on the shape of the table. You could argue they are not fighting during that time if the third party made a truce part of the prelude to the shape of the table. There are not that many shapes. Could we just universally decide on round and go from there? Which brings us to language. Sometimes this is why the war began. And th...

In the Mists In the mists shadows come and go. Shapes appear and are erased by the mists. In the mists the truth appears and vanishes. I have a creative mind too much influenced by the great philosophers. I do not think they teach philosophy as much any more. It isn't on the tests in high school and in college they are too busy teaching what we once learned in high school. But in the ancient age I matriculated in we studied them all; Plato, Aristotle, Descartes.   I loved Jean Paul Sartre and acted in No Exit in high school. My senior paper was on Kierkegaard. I lived existentialism.   And in college I went on to all the moderns and immersed myself in essays and sat around the student union building with like minded students and discussed reality. Yours versus mine. We do not see the world the same you know. Well, I know. Or think I know. I think and therefore I am. So communication has really always been an interesting experiment in my...