Category: Philosophy

Seasons

seasons

Congratulations, folks! We’ve made it through the summer, and it’s autumn again.  Where does the time go?  Over the years, I’ve given summer a pretty bad rap, and even though it clearly deserved it, I should apologize.  Sorry, summer — you hot, sweaty mess!  Actually, I shouldn’t be so hard on summer.  It’s just one of the seasons and, as they say, “To every season/there is a reason.”  Vivaldi knew this and wrote some cool music to demonstrate it.  So, even though I’m no Vivaldi, here’s my take on the four seasons.

Winter is for the mind.

Winter is thick books and old libraries; dusty, hard-to-find bookstores cluttered with forgotten, twice-told stories.  It’s big socks, ankle-bunched and comfortable.  It’s long, dark hours and hot tea, quilted with spice.  It’s pages of adventure that sip like cups of soup, hand-warm and held close to your face.  It’s cozy against the lonely cold scratching at the windows and crowded with imagination.

Spring is for the spirit.

Spring is splashy rain and wide, warm mornings; flocks of shepherdless clouds, grazing the sky.  It’s busy-bird busy, darting on the breeze, beaks full of new-nest enthusiasm.  It’s turned dirt, moist with tender green promises … that there will be flowers.  It’s trees awake with tiny, inexperienced fingers, first fluttered in the singing afternoon.  It’s bare arms and short skirts and sly, secret smiles that catch your eye like jewelry.

Summer is for the body.

Summer is painted bright toenails and young girls, lithe as deer, dancing in the sand.  It’s sun-hot games, smooth with muscles.  It’s music, laugh -loud and twisting.  It’s fresh-cut grass and scented gardens and spray cool water.  It’s tickle and giggle and chasing with excitement.  It’s coloured drinks that drip, and honey-coated skies and jokes and teases and everyone talking at once.

Autumn is for the soul.

Autumn is scarves and gloves and hair, finger-combed and tangled.  It’s crisp crumbled leaves cremated on the wind and scattered.  It’s walking in the low, grey afternoon, coat buttoned and no place to go.  It’s a park bench, forgotten in the bony trees that whisper the words of a poem you can’t quite remember.  It’s a love song that no longer makes you cry.  It’s old friends and long ago’s and all the things we forfeit to time.  It’s a pause at the window while the world walks by.

Under Hate/Over Love!

over love

According to psychologists, psychiatrists and the Internet, the thing most people fear is – wait for it! – speaking in front of a group.  Yep, public speaking!  That terrible moment when you have to give the toast to the bride or rally the troops for the church bake sale.  Don’t get me wrong: I understand pathological fear (been there/done that) but I think we’re aiming a little low here.  Personally, when I think of fear, my mind kinda runs to homicidal maniacs with sharp objects or those dead-eyed, bearded guys with bulky vests.  Quite frankly, speaking to the assembled PTA doesn’t come up.

The problem is we live in the most benevolent society in history, and we really don’t know how to handle it.  Strong emotions are reserved for strong situations, and our world has, for the most part, done away with those.  In short, our emotions have no place to go.  So they hang around, cluttering up our lives and making things difficult.

For example, I’ve heard people say, “I hate Kanye West.”  Okay, fair enough!  However, in a world that has Kim Jung-un and Vlad Putin in it, hating Kanye West strikes me as a little undercooked.  If you’re going to hate somebody (which isn’t actually allowed, these days) you might want to do a little research.  Kanye West is a pompous ass who has bad taste in women; those other two guys can blow up the world.  Random hate diminishes the brand.

And talking about diminishing the brand, the things we do to love oughta be illegal.  People love to cook.  They love to ski.  They love hiking and painting and going to the mall.  Hell, they even love cyberjunk like Instagram.  Yet, when it comes to that one magical moment with that one magical person, we run and hide behind “the relationship” as if even thinking “love affair” would unleash an emotional bogeyman.  Go figure!

The thing is we’ve spent the better part of a generation trying to concoct a society without sharp edges – a place that doesn’t cry.  However, in our zeal to make a better world, we’ve inadvertently smoothed out all the other stuff, too.  Unfortunately, people aren’t made that way.  We don’t even like it.  We need and want to ache with love, burn with hate and shiver in fear.  It’s the way we’re made.  (That’s why people go to horror movies and rom/coms.)  Our primal emotions are an essential part of life’s equation, and when you take them away, people start looking around for replacement parts.  That’s why the 21st century is flooded with depression instead of sadness, anxiety instead of excitement and outrage instead of disappointment.  People need to feel, and they’re willing to tie themselves in imaginary knots to do it.

So go ahead and fear public speaking, hate mediocre musicians and love video games.  Just remember: it’s a big world out there, and there’s tons more and better stuff around to get worked up about.

Friday the 13th (2019)

full moon

Okay, folks!  We’re totally screwed! Today is Friday the 13th and tomorrow is the full moon.  And this means– to those who believe the vast, ineffable universe is directed directly at them — that bad stuff is coming down the road.  Personally, I don’t believe the vast, ineffable universe is directed directly at me.  However, I have a healthy respect for folk wisdom– even when it’s wrong.  My assumption is folk wisdom had to come from somewhere.  For example, my mother used to say, “Eat your fish.  It’s brain food!”  I have no idea how she arrived at that conclusion, but come to find out, recent medical science has proven she was absolutely right: eating fish diminishes the risk of dementia.  Obviously, Mom wasn’t privy to research that hadn’t even happened yet; she was just tapping into the folk tales of the time.  And even though I didn’t understand what was going on, this cowboy took it on faith and ate his fish.

Even the most hardcore existentialists among us have to admit our world is full of coincidence, events that are connected for no apparent reason — except they are.  Stop to look in a shop window and some idiot runs a red light through the crosswalk where you would have been standing if you hadn’t stopped to look in a shop window.  Sound familiar?  This stuff happens all the time.  The big question – that nobody’s ever been able to answer — is Why?  So, we make it up.  We assign arbitrary reasons for our actions and events, to satisfy our burning need to make sense of our existence.

Ever since Lucy (Australopithecus) and her girlfriends decided to go for a stroll in Ethiopia 3 million years ago, humans have been trying to get the inside edge on fate, destiny or whatever you want to call it.  We’ve observed the stars, consulted oracles, rolled old bones and cut open chickens.  We’ve danced, prayed, chanted and offered sacrifices to our gods.  We’ve looked for omens and carried lucky charms.  And although it sounds silly in the glaring light of 21st century science, one has to wonder where this stuff came from.  The laws of probability alone say it can’t all be the work of shysters and charlatans.  Some of it must be, (Dare I say it?) based on some long-lost “Eat your fish” facts.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet tells Horatio,

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

And I believe him.  We have not reached the pinnacle of human knowledge.  In fact, we’re not even close.  There’s tons of stuff we haven’t figured out yet.  Five hundred years ago, if you had suggested that diseases were caused by itty-bitty bugs that no one could see, you’d have been burned for a witch.  It’s not outrageous to imagine that, five hundred years from now, people might think we’re barbarians for not understanding the power of the #13 or the effect the moon has on human behaviour.

Here’s a thought.  It’s a scientific fact that the gravity of the moon controls the ebb and flow of the Earth’s oceans, and it’s a scientific fact that the human brain is 73% water.  Think about it!

I’m not saying yea or nay on this whole full moon/Friday the 13th thing, but sometimes it’s a good idea to just take a little bit on faith and metaphorically eat our fish.