FitFalls

Pragmatism in politics feels like another way of saying we are ok with a total, fundamental lack of moral clarity and moral purpose to guide us. I don't understand how liberals/centrists (and even conservatives/republicans) fail to grasp the ethical argument for electing Bernie. I have hope that the clarity of the moment might sway some, but it's astonishing how deeply capitalist ideology has us in its grips, which is to say we desire a "return" a "status quo," and thus a continuation of injustice and malfunctioning and accommodation to the gods of capitalist profit over the needs of ordinary people. Biden's absurdly defeatist message gives mental relief while Sanders message is simply feared and cannot be accepted or tolerated. While what I hear and see in Sanders's campaign, or movement such as it is, is a plea to our fundamental goodness, a demand for systems of justice for all, and basic, common sense plans that will help the needy and, ultimate

Little dog paws peek out beneath the blanket. One paw then two. Then a soft brown nose. My heart swells. My dogs look in their eyes full of love. I'm distracted now by Chris's voice coming from upstairs. This whole work from home due to "The Plague" i.e., covid-19 is something I said I wanted -having him around would feel nice, not being alone or lonely. But it also feels a little invasive, I guess. What do I mean by "invasive"? i just mean that I can spread out in solitude,be who and how I want. Another presence means I can't be totally myself. What do I mean by "totally myself"? I mean that, alone, I don't have to put on a show or worry about how others perceptions of me require me to address and adjust to their need, for their need to engage with me as they , as he sees best. I've noticed that I tend to deflect writing into a kind of "other" space, I use one might instead of I might or they when I mean he or her. Why? becau

Pain. Isn't pain the biggest fear of all.? The avoidance of pain and searching for pleasure. In Buddhism these two things are at the root of all suffering because they are both forms of attachment. But today, I'm seeing people all over social media feeling sad and complaining about having to shift their lives and I feel no pity. Rather, I feel mainly total impatience and irritation. There is a way in which political concerns dry up compassion at the individual level. Who can feel sorry for the privileged middle class person in the face of all the unaddressed suffering in the world. And the thing about the buddhist attachment hypothesis, if you will, is that it seems predicated on ignoring how certain people suffer because they have an "attachment" to, like, basic life. Bare life, as the philosophers say. But the sun is coming in and I can get just about any music I want to listen to pumped into my house at the mere statement: "Alexa play..." I am the queen

The opening of a field... That's a poem by Robert Duncan. I think. I'm not even going to try and be "writerly" or "clever" or "thoughtful" today. I am worried, I guess. Or manufacturing worry out of all the opportunities around me. It's not boredom exactly. Just an arrow looking for a target. I must aim myself at something or someone. And yet, if you were to give me a specific task, even one that I ostensibly enjoyed. I would reject it. I wish I could write like Anne Boyer. How does she do it? How much confidence, discipline, ego, desire does one have to muster to write so confidently, at such depth of thought? I don't think I can muster that intensity for that long in myself. Today seems set up by distraction. Like I had hold of a creative thread just a few days ago but now it's vanished. Some small imp of a "muse" left my shoulder. Confidence is optimism. And Optimism is... what do I mean by that? Optimism and self-confidenc

We hold these Truths... Why is it so difficult to understand that events, let's call them, have more than one cause? That things are complex and one thing can be true and another thing can be true as well. Why am I so easily frustrated is the real question, I guess. Every time I get my hair done at some point in our catching-up conversation my hairdresser will softly say: "You are too hard on yourself." Standards aren't high enough! I think. But I just say: "Yeah, I know." Because both of those things are true! I find my mind now fits into what Adorno warned about in The Culture Industry: The warn grooves of association. We can only think the same things over and over. I'm content these days staying home and observing the world. Commenting on it from a distance. When I do engage, or take part in some event, it feels very energizing and at the same time also exhausting. Mentally u energizing, it' gives me new things to feed off of. Physically and emot

I have no understanding, neither conceptual nor practical, of why or how Daylight Saving Time works. (I do know that it is properly called Daylight *Saving* Time and not Daylight *Savings* Time. This gives me a small sense of comfort and superiority, which consoles me, somewhat, for my ignorance.) I appreciate the later sunny hours now that I am older. It feels like extra time. Yes, and it feels like extra daylight time gives more significance and poignance to the moment; more things can happen even if they don't. One must pay attention.Or, passively put, attention must be paid.  If you savor everything you will have lived more fully. You will not have allowed the one life you are conscious of now slip past you unnoticed, not let the world go by unremarked and unrecognized. There is a downside to the whole savor the moment or event or what have you. For me at least, the hyper-awareness leads to too much rumination. The poignancy veers into melancholia. Every moment savored and fe

Everybody's angry. Everybody's hurt. Everybody's mean. Everybody's a jerk. Some people are nasty. Some people are sick. Some people are rich. Some people eat meat. All people breathe air. All people smile. Everybody needs friends. Everybody needs sleep. Some people rise early. Some people rise late. All people are different. All people. The same.

Gold is not good in this place, instead we value love. Pie-in-the-sky. Asking for the impossible. I do like gold, tho. Not for money, for the softness and warmth of the metal. For its history, for its sad history. For its tie to ancient peoples. Gold set against skin. Your gold is not god here. Which just means you are welcome here. We will take care of you. We waive away your worries. You don't owe us anything. We've got you covered. Home, they say, means when you have to go there, they have to take you in. It's, like, the least they can do. But generosity is also a politics.  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart. Gold makes you sweaty and ugly. It causes men to dig and build things. To plot and scheme. You have to admit, Humphrey is a crazy good name. That whole film is about going insane because of gold. It's the only good, the gold. Men want gold for one reason, women for another. Gold shares. Sharing gold. Wearing gold. What is that french story ab

I'm having a hard time thinking about what to write today. It's Super Tuesday, March 2, 2020 and everyone is distracted and afraid. I'm distracted and afraid. So the tension between focusing on politics and "being political" in writing is not a good in-between place to be. At least not for the novice like me. I have tons of swirling thoughts jumbled together - memories of my parents and their political views, my own experiences, the theories and debates I've beeb paying attention to over the years, recent events, Facebook fights. It's a mess in here. And maybe what I find intriguing today is the way my own maelstrom of feelings/thoughts is a microcosm of the whole shifting world around me. maybe I'm just trying to take it all in and process it at once. And if that's true, I'm struggling to make that a linear line of writing. To string that out with words and sentences that logically or rationally follow one to another. The artifice of writing i

I'm trying to even think about going natural. Going grey, looking natural. Not fake. No makeup. the natural makeup look. Comfortable in and out. Not trying to look young, not giving up and looking old. This is what women think about, you know. Trying to think it is harder than you think. Trying to even imagine yourself *as* your self. When are you yourself? When have you been natural? Sure, as a child, but after that. When? How did it look when you were natural? When you were naturally yourself? Did you even notice it? If you noticed it, were you feeling, in that moment, natural, feeling like yourself, feeling good about yourself as you were noticing that?  How do you capture that feeling without breaking the spell? Is being yourself an art form? The artifice of natural feelings. The art of selving the self. The creative self is really just the self unmoored. The self, shelved.