Infinite Gratitude

Most all but the die-hard Nihilist recognize that a sense of gratitude is a worthy virtue.  Talk show hosts and their gurus promote gratitude—even suggest that one should start the day with a list of at least three things for which to be grateful.  The thank you card business seems to be doing well.  Walmart does what it can to promote your welcomes and thank yous.  Thanksgiving Day still happens once a year, every year.  And yet real gratitude is a much rarer experience in the lives of men. 

In order for gratitude to be experienced as a virtue, one must experience what it is to be grateful beyond the fleeting moment in a day. Gratitude, in the most meaningful sense, is an approach to life and an understanding of one’s position in relation to the forces that surround him.  The experience of gratitude is a humbling one for man and is preceded by the recognition of his insignificance within the universe.  When man is able to see his inconsiderable self among the billions of stars, alongside the massiveness of the planets, within the expanse of the galaxy, and across infinite time, then he is prepared to be thankful.  When fully bathed in the knowledge of his irrelevance, man may then notice that despite his utter lack of ability to stand against the infinite, he lives. 

The universe, definitively beyond man’s grasp, has recognized man and gifted him—gifted him with breath and thought and feeling.  And from breath and thought and feeling springs all that man may create.  The mere possession of these gifts does not dictate whether man will create that which is good or bad, productive or distracting.  These gifts are not a guarantee that man is a favored child.  The motion of forces that have granted man his breath and thought and feeling is just as likely to destroy all that a man has created.   But the first of these gifts (breath) is a guarantee that man exists, inexplicably and undeniably.  The remainder of these gifts (thought and feeling) grant for man’s existence that for which he might hope, aspire, dread, question and embrace.  Ultimately the power to wield these gifts in a boundless universe and to know that we wield no power at all in a consuming scape--of sea and air, gas and wind, gravity and anti-matter, propulsion and implosion--is the very reason to know complete and unreserved gratitude. 

Hyperbole and Stuff, Part II

…And Stuff

The flipside of using words with more meaning than content can bear is the common use of words that carry no meaning at all.  At one end of the spectrum of word choice there is hyperbole, at the other, there is understatement.  Sliding below the scale, there is rambling.  And in that collecting pool of wasted syllables lie words like, “thing,” and “stuff.”  The generous use of words that communicate absolutely nothing not only hinders our ability to communicate, but actually impedes our ability to organize our thoughts—or to think at all. 

An easy handful of words and phrases are regularly employed precisely because they seemingly fill the gaps of where the mind has yet to go.  For example, the word “thing,” may seem efficient when the speaker’s vocabulary-recall has failed. “Could you hand me the thing?” accompanied by the right amount of pointing and grunting, will probably achieve for the speaker the desired potholder before he burns his hand.   However, the word “thing,” is not resting behind a glass case waiting to be used only in case of an emergency.  Too often vague words are used in a manner that assumes a kind of mental telepathy on the part of the listener.  “So I tried to put the thing in the doohickey, but it wouldn’t work.”  

Increasingly we are granting a value to valueless words.  In quantitative terms, “cool” and “weird” have flooded the American language market.  The qualitative value however is nil.  These words, whatever their origins, now carry no imagery, depth of connotation, or provocation.  In the days of Jack Kerouac, the word “cool” conjured not only an attitude, but a philosophy, an approach to life, and imagery as resonant as the jazz notes that carried a generation’s ideals.  Today, “it was so cool,” means I enjoyed digitally firing at World War II soldiers, but I won’t be taking the time to provide details or to properly assess my response to the stimulus. 

The word “weird” once connoted a rather supernatural occurrence.  The word encouraged the listener to feel uneasy and to understand that the weird sound issuing from the attic could mean that your fiancé is keeping a potentially deadly secret.  Now the vague, unknown quality of the word is not used to bring attention to the most unusual nature of an occurrence, but to cover for the vague, unexamined nature of the speaker’s minimal observations: I don’t want to delve too deeply into understanding the awkward dynamics and potentially deeply psychological underpinnings of my conversation with my mother, but “that was weird.”  The level of speaking without thinking has reached rather absurd proportions without much notice.  While there are a limited number of words, the human mind possesses an extraordinary ability to continually rearrange those relatively few words for infinite expression.  And yet, “I don’t know, ya know?” is an astonishingly oft-used phrase.  Sadly, the phrase only expresses, “I can’t organize my thoughts; you figure it out.”

There are many arguments among linguists, wordsmiths, and intellectuals regarding the standards of language.  For some guardians of the English language, the modern tendency to run around willy-nilly ending sentences with prepositions is an affront not to be borne.  Others, recognizing that the correct use of the “ly” adverb is all but forgotten, still cannot help but cringe when encouraged to “drive safe.”  But the misuse of hyperbole and “stuff” is not merely a sign of a lack of standards.  Language is a living, growing result of our need to think and to communicate.  Language cannot and should not be stagnate or unchanging.  However, shifts in language should enhance our abilities to store and process information.  Words should elevate the speaker’s ability to convey, convince, enlist, challenge, clarify, suggest, demand, bargain, plead . . .  Language that allows the speaker to bypass his own cognitive abilities, or language that fails to communicate, elucidate or elicit the appropriate response is not language at all. 

Logos is from the Greek and at its basest definition, means word or speech.  But the term has rooted man’s attempt to define the principals of order and knowledge for thousands of years.  Greek, Jewish and Christian philosophers have been compelled to understand their creation, purpose, and ultimate destination as springs forth from the logos.  The logos is an endeavor to understand the awesome power of human thought and the boundless potential of language to create, organize and command into being that which has never before existed.  To squander the power of our words, to refuse the opportunity to be thoughtful, is to deny the source of human potential and “such stuff as dreams are made on.”

Hyperbole and Stuff Part I

Part I: Hyperbole or Moon Unit Zappa and the Decline of the English Language

Impressive soccer goals, entertaining concerts and the latest flavor of Cheetos are all awesome.  Acrobatic sports and video games are extreme.  Until recently, Keith Olbermann nightly reported on the “Worst Person in the World.”  Currently, the American trend toward hyperbole in the English language seems an extreme sport in itself.   Hyperbole, when well crafted, adds layers of meaning and effect.  For example, hyperbole in folk tales creates humor and friendly metaphor.  Hyperbole in poetry inspires passion and new perspective.   But overuse of hyperbole is not crafted, inspiring or meaningful. 

Linguists who study the origin and evolution of language (yes, there is a field for that) debate whether the impetus for language was the need to communicate or the need to organize thought.  For example, were the first spoken words the result of a desperate evolutionary need to express, “Would you please hand me that stick?”  Or was language developed in the mind because man’s ability to perceive information began to outweigh his brain’s ability to store pictures?  Stated differently, were the first words spoken, not in an effort to communicate, but because man needed to consider: “Where did this stick come from?  How can I make sure I always have plenty of sticks?”  Regardless of the origins of human language, today individuals and societies at large depend on words for the purposes of both the orderly processing of thought and for communicating with others.  Disturbingly though, developing patterns of speech in American culture are leading away from both clarity of communication and organization of thought. 

Common use of hyperbolic words and disproportionate metaphor obfuscate our understanding of history, and the present.  Ultimately constant exaggeration hinders our ability to address the future.  If any leader with an aggressive political will is described as Hitler, how do Americans understand the Holocaust with the true sense of horror that it deserves?  If every girl who leaves out a third-wheel friend is a bully, how do we recognize the vile impulses that ended the life of Matthew Shepard?  What words are left for the American to discover his humility and his gratitude for his tiny place in a magnificent, complicated and inexplicable world if even Sprinkles cupcakes are awesome?

Ears the Lion Cub, Part I

           Ears the Lion Cub was a ferocious young cub, always springing and pouncing, lurking and lunging and occasionally sneezing.  Oh, he was sly and he was dangerous. 

One delightfully sunny, but still dewy morning, in the middle of a fierce battle with a rubber tree plant, Ears heard with his very large and very sensitive ears, a subtle scuffling nearby.  Rolling upright onto all fours, he released the rubber tree plant from his terrible grasp.  He stood perfectly still, listening for clues.  Who was the intruder?  What creature dared to enter his kingdom?  YES, the intruder was definitely nearby. Ears distinctly heard the dirt and grasses of the earth being upset.  Instantly, he knew his enemy.  It must be a giant boa slithering, as giant boas do.  Hah!  Foolish boa thinking he could catch Ears by surprise.             

Ears prepared himself for the challenge.  He hunkered down low, stiffly swishing his tail. Then with his whole body tensed, he crept forward, silently and stealthily.  As the sounds grew louder, he watched carefully and saw movement in the high grasses near a large tree.  Now Ears raised his hindquarters and prepared to attack.  No boastful boa was a match for him.  One good grip with claws of steel and a quick nip delivered by his terrifying jaws and that boa would slither away into the desert.  He would be forever outcast from the jungle--cursed to spend his days warning all others to “Stay away or face Ears, the Great Lion King.” 

The sound of the scuffling and shuffling moved closer.  Ears watched the movement of the grass, to see the path of the unseen intruder.  The movement in the grasses only a few feet away, Ears knew the moment had arrived.  Preparing his front paws, he reared back and sprang forth mightily.  Ears landed squarely on his chin, just short of his target.  With a SCREECH that brought the whole jungle kingdom to the site, the intruding creature flew into the air.  Ears, trying to stand upright again, was knocked backwards by the monster’s flying tail.  Before Ears could shake the dancing stars from his head, he heard laughter bouncing from tree to tree and sliding up and down the vines. 

Ears looked around and saw himself surrounded by the animals of the jungle.  The great elephants were stuffing their trunks into their own mouths, trying to hold back their chuckling.  The giraffes arched their heads high into the air, letting their laughter bubble up and down their great necks.  Parrots fell off their perches, so tickled they lost their balance.   Even the chimps, no older than Ears, were rolling, and cackling and snickering and bouncing in fits of amusement.  Confused, Ears looked up to see his cruel enemy.  There in the tree sat a shivering, shaking and very annoyed flying squirrel.

“But… where was the boa?” Ears wondered.  His eyes darted quickly about searching for the beast.  As the chuckling, chortling, tittering and roaring increased in his sensitive ears, he began to realize that there was no giant boa, no terrible intruder, no enemy, no… “Aaaggggh!” only the silly, wobbly and irritated flying squirrel.  The whole jungle had seen Ears outdone by a silly squirrel! 

Ears’ throat felt dry and the tips of his ears turned hot.   He faced his audience and stared them down.  He flattened his ears and stiffened his tail and began to hiss and spit.  He would show them who was king of the jungle.  The effect was not what Ears had hoped.  The laughter rose to an unbearable volume.  He scanned the cruel crowd, hoping to see friend.  Searching, he did not find a single face that was not twisted with mockery.  Then Ears saw Solomon the Gorilla.  Solomon stood strong, serious and perfectly still.  The giant ape’s arms were crossed and his eyes looked angrily at Ears.  Solomon closed his eyes, lowered his head and slowly moved it from left to right.  As he did so, the jungle became silent and the entire crowd moved noiselessly back into the depths of the jungle.  Ears’ eyes welled with hot, angry tears, but he refused to let a single teardrop fall.  Heroically he matched Solomon’s gaze.   Solomon pursed his lips and then turned away, leaving Ears alone, humiliated and confused.

Then came the sound of something approaching from behind.  Ears’ left ear perked backwards, but he did not have the heart to turn and see who else had come to make fun of him.

“Hey Man! Hey Man!  That was wrong! Just wrong Man!  They wouldn’t have been laughing if that squirrel had been a jaguar."  Curly the Baboon was Ears’ best friend and wrestling partner.  “That squirrel could have been a jackal for all they knew.  Could have been a hyena, Man, or a crocodile, Man. Yeah, a big old croc.”

Ears stood on all fours again and shook the dirt from his chin.  “Yeah, could have been a big old croc.” 

The New Millennium

March 19, 2011

The 21st century has arrived, brash and violent, fearful and defeatist.  Or so it would seem.  In just over ten years, the character of the new century is being shaped by floods and oil spills, earthquakes and radiation leaks, wars and genocide, economic collapse, fear of government and government run amok.   Natural and man-made disasters, the pervasive trend toward polarized, uncompromising viewpoints, and the breakdown of the social machine have a cumulative affect on the world’s psyche as well as upon the individual at sea in the maelstrom.  Facing events of such magnitude and consequence can bring out the irrational in the most reasonable of beings.  Is God angry with us?  Is the planet turning on us?  Is this the end of our world as we know it?

Catastrophic events beyond imagination are piling up: tsunami in Indonesia, earthquakes in Chile and China, flooding in Australia, and the tragedy in Japan that continues to unfold in greater and greater waves of decimation. Hurricane Katrina devastated the people of New Orleans and their government failed to provide either succor or solace.  The earthquake in Haiti and the floundering response of the Haitian government thundered even louder the same message of death and disillusionment.   

The 21^st century is reminding us that though we have not mastered nature, our man-made powers of destruction are on par with that of the most destructive forces of nature.  Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico for three months, threatening an entire coastline and leaving hanging questions and fears of effect that project far into the future.  A nuclear weapons test in North Korea seems to indicate that the eccentric whims of a single man could bring the world order to its knees.  And the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant in Japan is capable of spewing radiation not only upon its own inundated people, but around the world.

As economies fall and governments are challenged, man’s systems for control, stability and prosperity are in question.  And the global scale of inter-dependence indicates that the success of one may inspire the success of another or peril for one may be peril for all. Riots in Greece, financial collapse in the U.S., Ireland on the brink of ruin, revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, Khadafi out of control in Libya-- all events that speak to the volatile and undecided state of being in the 21^st century.

And yet, despite evidence of interconnectedness, people are responding with vehement determination to take a side, even against their own.  Americans are Republicans or Democrats, Tea Partiers or Unionites, Christian or not.  Iraqis are Shiite or Sunni, the Sudanese are Arab or they are not.  Muslims want secular law or demand Sharia.  The distance between opposing opinions is not so striking as the vehemence with which each side insists that their view is the only tolerable view.

The birth of the new millennium was received with trepidation as the technological world and a way of life feared the possible annihilating effects of the Y2K bug.  The decade that has followed continues to rumble with dread, pulse with the terror of trials that cannot be averted, and spew the worst of men’s deeds.  Questions of the fate of society, of man, of the earth and even questions of the fate of the universe traverse the imagination as if issued by an ancient sibyl.  Has our hubris uprooted our fortunes?  Have we failed in our duty to the gods?  Is this the coming of the apocalypse?

And yet, this world has always been a difficult place in which to live.  All that lives upon the earth-- men and cockroaches, butterflies and finches, roses and switchgrass--all live according to what nature provides and according to what nature withholds.  The extraordinary diversity of life, its color, strengths, intelligence, and adaptability are all born of necessity.  Life pushes forward, extends, creates, evolves and supersedes in response to crisis and hardship; in response to the inhospitable and the seemingly devastating.   Western civilization survived Pompeii and mankind survived Krakatoa.  The multiplicity of nations survived the march of Genghis Khan and hope has survived the cruelty of men from Ashurbanipal to Stalin.  France and England disentangled from a hundred years war to march as allies.  Mahatma Gandhi proved that one man can make the world a better place.

So it may be that the 21^st century has arrived threatening and uncertain.  So it may be that the ensuing questions loom large.  There is one answer to serve as guide.  Constant even in a world wracked with tragedy, bandied about in chaos and subject to cruelty is the persistence of life.  And the persistence of life is hope.

Introducing BRAIN CHUNKS

This blog is dedicated to the thoughts, sometimes random, sometimes thoroughly processed, that need a landing spot somewhere outside my brain.  The title of this blog is borrowed from a friend long ago who used the term "brain chunks" to describe the heady and intellectual thoughts lobbed from the brain of a much admired college classmate.  In no way do I claim equal intellectual athleticism, nor do I possess the same verbal wit as my friend who coined the phrase.  However, the perfect imagery of the phrase has long stayed with me and on many occasions has been the best possible definition of the variable quality and focus of my thoughts desperate for expression.

I hope in the weeks to come you will consider journeying with me, wherever my thoughts might lead, from the important to the trivial, from the challenging to the humorous, from the convinced to the wondering.  And I hope that in the best spirit of blogging, you will share with me your own insights, opinions, questions and well . . . your own brain chunks.