Are we getting shallower?

Nicholas Carr in his new book, Shallows, argues that our brains are "plastic," that is they are modified by the tasks we undertake. "When we're constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking. We become mere signal-processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of information into and then out of short-term memory."

This is another facet of 21st Century living affecting who we are: how we live, how we write, how we do art? This is what this blog is about: how to get out of the shallows.

"MAN HAS NO NATURE"

"The stone is given its existence; it need not fight for being what it is -- a stone in the field. Man [sic] has to be himself in spite of unfavorable circumstance; that means he has to make his own existence at every single moment. He is given the abstract possibility of existing, but not the reality. This he has to conquer hour by hour. Man [sic] must earn his life,  not only economically but metaphysically.”  Jose Ortega y Gasset from History as a System.


To check out Ortega y Gasset's book, click here: History as a System and Other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History

Writing & Art as Resistance

I’m so frustrated about rampant injustice bubbling up all around us, I could chew the head off a nail. While we fight endless wars no more productive than the BP oil gusher, the rich get richer while the rest of us get poorer. 

It's a well known fact that the standard of living for working folks has fallen since reaching its high point almost 40 years ago while middle class income is stagnating; nevertheless, the safety net for those in need continues to be shredded.

And even more galling to me, here in New Hampshire, one of the richest states in the union, state government is balancing the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens during this great recession (depression?) when so many are unemployed and suffering in countless ways.

For instance, just last week nonprofit agencies that provide mental health services to our poorest adults and children found out they are facing yet another round of draconian budget cuts.

Why? How can this be?

I take some solace from reading, Thinking Class, by Joanna Kadi. In a chapter entitled "Writing as Resistance, Writing as Love," she says, "I can't forget I have a kitchen with food in it, writing utensils, clothes. These are privileges. They should be rights for everyone on the planet, but right now they're privileges and I must think about how I use them...”

“Do I espouse the oppressive lie about 'pulling myself up by my bootstraps...' Or do I understand my literacy and writing skill as one tool for resistance and liberation? Why do I write? For who, for what? Who benefits?”


Kadi's straight talk, provided me with a real wakeup call, a 2 by 4 to the side of the head. As a self-described working-class, lesbian of Arab ancestry, she viscerally understands her position in society, feeling discrimination to the very core of her being. As a white man, because oppression is not constantly in my face, I sometimes forget. (Although as a Vietnam veteran, I shouldn't).

The truth is: It's too late for talking heads and blue ribbon committees to fix this mess.  Instead we must join with one another in solidarity and resist!

Writing is a noble form of resistance. The Forum is a prime example of creating such solidarity. The New Hampshire Gazette, edited by Steve Fowle, is another. All art has that potential to resist by speaking truth to power.

The art I have included with this piece is a perfect example: An Iraqi woman, against all odds, lighting a candle to dispel the darkness.   I recently bought this watercolor painting at the Concord Arts Market. The artist is 15-year-old Iraqi young man who recently emigrated to New Hampshire with his family.

Long live art! Power to the people!

xxx

For an update on speaking truth to power by RESISTING, click here to see my blog entry for October 17, 2011 entitled Arial Dorfman, Mentor to the 99% of the rest of us.

Also listen to Ariel Dorfman's inspiring message to youth who want change by clicking here.

You can check out her book by clicking below:

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Mourning Dove Messenger

The following is an amazing photo from the internet. (Unfortunately, the photographer is unknown.) Following the photo is a poem I wrote yesterday.

As I state in the poem, I found my close encounter with a mourning dove in our garden to be a positive experience, a soothing balm, comforting and reassuring on the eve of my second cancer surgery.

A rose blushed ghost with a luminous glow,

Suddenly, as if by magic, there she is:

Gently cooing at my feet.

Serene, confident, trusting in something bigger than herself,

She looks up at me with a keen but soothing stare

That releases me like deep meditation.

According to legend, such an encounter signals a death.

But what I see is such gentle grace and divine beauty

That I am comforted and reassured, not afeared,

By my Mourning Dove messenger.

This Being Human is a Guest House

"This being human is a guest house. 

Every morning a new arrival. 

"A joy, a depression, a meanness, 

some momentary awareness comes 

as an unexpected visitor."   Rumi

To see the book containing the complete poem, The Guest House, click below:

The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition

The Goal

“Let go of body and mind, until you reach a state of great rest, like letting go over a cliff ten miles high, being like open space"— Huai-t'ang

What is REALLY real?

When working with my clients, I often tell them the old story of the three blind men and the elephant: Three blind men encounter an obstacle (an elephant) in their path. The first blind man reaches out and feels the trunk of the elephant and declares it is a hose; the second blind man feels the elephant’s tusk and thinks it is a sword; the third touches the elephant’s leg and insists the elephant is a tree. They end up in a hopeless argument, not being able to agree on whose reality is really real.


I use this story to point up a major tenet of postmodernism: Our sense of what is real depends upon our perspective. Indeed, we all have our human truths that are vital to us and our socially constructed reality—that’s fine and the way it should be. The point is, we should be extremely leery of declaring these human truths absolute Truth with a big "T." 


I recently ran across a wonderful quote by Robert M. Pirsig that illustrates this same human conceit of taking a partial sampling (the extent of our human reality) and declaring it everything. I combined the Pirsig quote with a photograph I took at Ogunquit Beach many years ago.

“We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”