Why Memory?

Sometimes I wonder why we have the faculty for remembering the events of our lives.  They take our minds back to times we've lived and lost.  Lost in the sense that they are of the past, and we can never have them back again.  As we live longer, grow older, those memories become more dense, and more precious - and also more poignantly painful that they can yet still...never be held...real-time...by us again.
Pain. Joy. Pain.

And yet Pammie, my Ahava, is such a joy to me.
Perhaps all we can do is to keep trying to jam more joyful present-day events into our memory.
Too sensitive, I suppose - I have to remind myself sometimes, that life is now, in the present.

Interesting.

Lifted from an article in the political-blog "The Political Omnivore" (Terminal Uniqueness: A Liberal Disease?)...

So What Really IS Going On?Here's the answer:

Capitalism. FOX News, Limbaugh, and Beck have discovered a positive feedback loop that makes them rich. Infuriating the base--playing to their feelings of victimhood--enabling a sense of having been cheated--and providing a battery of conspiracy theories to soothingly remove any sense of personal responsibility for their circumstances has proven a huge moneymaker.

Posted this in comment to a posting on the blog: The Political Omnivore.  The article was about a possible "civil war" within the GOP between the Tea-Party members and the more 'centrist' members.  I was questioning validity of the use of the moniker "Tea-Party".

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One thing I don't get is why there is still reference to a "Tea Party" when, as I understand it, it originally consisted of libertarian minded folks - that is, people who wanted fiscal and government restraint, while at the same time professed civil-liberties permissiveness.

That original movement was very early on hijacked by several GOP politicians in what was (to me at least) a transparent grab at the group's ground-swell of populist energy.  That hijacking resulted in a "Tea Party movement" within the GOP that immediately dropped the civil-liberties element, and ran with the fiscal/government restraint component.

Now, again as I understand it, the GOP is self-proclaimed to be the party of small government and fiscal restraint while also being the party of conservative social values.  So somebody please explain to me how that standard GOP body is any different than this current "Tea Party" group.  By my view, there is currently no such thing as a "Tea Party".  It's just GOP.  Right-extremist or centrist, the difference is in degree, not content.  The original Tea Party was an actual change in content - a change that does not now exist.  Neither therefore does the Tea Party.

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...Reply from The Political Omnivore. Interesting and valid point. Glad he agrees my reasoning is accurate, in spite of still needing a name for the "TheseGuysWhoReallyLikeTedCruz" group :)...

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politicalomnivoreNovember 12, 2013 at 1:48 PM

My response to this is worth its own post (so it'll take a little while)--but immediately: Whatever you want to call it there is the very-conservative group (the 'Tea Party') and the 'establishment group' (the "GOPe") and they are "fighting it out."

This is a very bad description of what's really going on--but nontheless there is a tension in the party and using these words to describe it gets us *somewhere* ahead of "theseguyswhoreallylikeTedCruz" or whatever. But, yeah: there's some truth to the above too. Like I said: more than just a note here.

Then There is Her

...and then I see her, and the pointlessness of it all somehow just doesn't matter anymore :).

Death

What is the point of death?
We spend all our lives living...loving...learning in so many ways.
We (hopefully) build this "self" with ever improving wisdom.
We build relationships. friendships. families. loves.
We try to impart to the world what we've learned, we try to learn from the world what we don't yet know.
We carry on this incessant quest for knowledge, comprehension, understanding.
We carefully, or haphazardly, or a bit of both, construct our mind. our self.

One week we balance our checkbook, and the next week, we die. Why?

It's all gone. Gone. Decades and decades of work, almost an entire century, evaporate in the few short hours required to leave this planet.
Leaving behind only legacy, the memory - for however briefly that might last.
Many are able to at least leave their lingering impression on children, grandchildren, a following world.
Those of us not favored in this way, we might as well not even have existed?  Is that it?

So no. I don't fucking understand.
Looks pretty damned pointless.

Re-Arranging my Mind for Her

Another way cool quote.  This one from a bit of street art that Pammie came across in Chattanooga, TN.

When I first met her, I knew in a moment I would have to spend the next few days re-arranging my mind so there'd be room for her to stay.

I believe it might be by Brian Andreas, an author, and author of something called Story People (not sure). This appears to be a gender variation (him to her).  Either way, it's really great. 

She Leans Into Me

From somebody on an Android-OS forum. This was their signature statement. They did not attribute it to anybody, perhaps they made it up, perhaps they didn't. Either way, I thought it rocked!

"She leans into me and I keep my arms around her. I don't fool myself that I hold her together -- She does that on her own -- But holding her keeps me from flying apart."

And now, in direct hypocrisy to the wise words of Ruiz that I posted here just last Feb, there is this
I didn't say it, so I guess that puts me still clear wrt Ruiz' advice?
Well anyway, this was too funny to not re-post...

Teabillies' worship of wealthy people is second only to their worship of imaginary sky beings.

--- by Whatever831.
Comment posting to an N&O article (‘Moral Monday’ protesters say they’re motivated to keep marching)

Well done, 'Whatever' :).

Good Ideas

Be impeccable with your words.
Speak with integrity.
Say only what you mean.
Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.
Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.


Don't take anything personally.
Nothing others do is because of you.
What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. 
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be a victim of needless suffering.

---Don Miguel Ruiz