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diff --git a/moss.txt b/moss.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 19ecf9e..0000000 --- a/moss.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,31 +0,0 @@ -Eleven years ago tonight I was sitting at an Iraqi restaurant in Paris, eating the second of what I would still rank as one of the top five meals of my life. The next morning I was due to get on a plain at Charles De Gaulle and disappear into the Indian subcontinent. I recorded nothing of the day in my journal, there is an entry on this site but I haven't reread it because I have realized, then years later, it doesn't matter. That was the beginning of the journey, that meal is where, for me anyway, a trajectory began that is still taking shape, there was something in that meal, something about eating such amazing food from a country that the country I came from was about to actively invade and attempt to destroy, eating that meal that night was not an awakening so much as a realization that it is possible to avoid the politic of the world, to side step the divisions created by the power brokers and connect at human beings do, as they always have, by eating together, by talking, by drinking, by walking together down the street, by being human, because life is joy and wonder and love and food and drink and walking. Everything else is just the static background noise of existence. - -All the beliefs, all that religions all the politics, all the attempts to divide are doomed to fail because they fly in the face of the fundamental truth that everyone knows, no matter how hard we sometimes seek to avoid it -- existence is incalculably immense, the universe goes on forever and we are so small in it as to hardly be of it and yet here we are. Able to look around, to appreciate the lap of the sea on the shore, the clatter of palm fonds, the whistle of wind in pines, the soft rain, the driving storm, the inhospitable mountains that welcome us home anyway. I don't know why we're here and neither do you, let's have a meal, maybe a drink if you like and we'll be friends. - - - - - - - - - - - - -If you zoom out far enough pretty much everything looks absurd. It's a handy way to reduce stress. - - -Suppose, however, that I don’t respect the source of the insult…under such circumstances, rather than feeling hurt by his insults, I should feel relieved: If HE disapproves of what I am doing, then what I am doing is doubtless the right thing to do…if I say anything at all in response to his insults, the most appropriate comment would be, ‘I’m relieved that you feel that way about me’.” - - - -Wabi-Sabi has a many different aspects to it, many of which are deeply entwined in Japanese culture in ways that an outsider like me is unlikely to ever fully appreciate, but the description I encountered, which has stuck with me is the idea that Wabi-Sabi means "nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."[^1] - -This can be extended to the appreciation of things not only when they are in their prime, but when they are at the other end of their journey, the decay, the withering, the dying, like flowers in the vase slowly moving from bright to brown. In other words enjoying the full length of the journey, not just the beginning. - - -[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi - -[^1]: from Richard R. Powell's book <cite>Wabi Sabi Simple</cite>. - @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +I have stood atop the bell curve and seen both sides. Or it feels like that sometimes. It feels like some kind of high water mark has passed, the tide reached as far up into the spectacular heights of civilization as it's going to and that now, suddenly, we're all noticing that it's running out behind us. I don't for a minute think that the election itself is any kind of marker, rather it's the thing that made us all look down at our feet for a moment to notice that, hey, that water is running away, back to sea and I'm sinking a bit, the sand sucking at our feet. + +I won't pretend to know what the actual high water mark was, it could have been in the last few years, it could have been around the time I was born, it doesn't really matter, what matters is that moment when we collectively noticed and had that "oh shit" moment. That realization that maybe this weird, highly flawed, deeply suspect world we've created was not on the rise and had not been for, well, at least long enough to suck our feet under the metaphorical sand. diff --git a/published/2016-11-19_nothing-finished-nothing-perfect.txt b/published/2016-11-19_nothing-finished-nothing-perfect.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a95888 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2016-11-19_nothing-finished-nothing-perfect.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +If you zoom out far enough pretty much everything looks absurd. It's a handy way to reduce stress. Worried about the future? Think about how you would explain your worries to an alien visitor. You'd have to start the very beginning, explain the entire structure of life on earth and how you fit into it. By the end I'd be willing to bet you'll feel a little better. That maybe it isn't a big of a deal as you think. + +Perspective can be the salve to thy sores, to paraphrase Milton. + +I've been thinking about perspective and about what the Japanese call Wabi-Sabi a lot lately. Wabi-Sabi has a many different aspects to it, many of which are deeply entwined in Japanese culture in ways that an outsider like me is unlikely to ever fully appreciate, but the description I encountered, which has stuck with me is the idea that Wabi-Sabi means "nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."[^1] + +<img src="images/2016/110531_May_31_paris_124.jpg" id="image-201" class="picwide" /> + +A dozen years ago this week I was at an Iraqi restaurant in Paris. It was a tiny place near the cross roads of two very forgettable avenues, an unassuming door, a small menu board of the kind you see dozens of on nearly every block. I have no recollection of what drew us in, maybe just hunger. There were only four tables, a low ceiling, rock walls and heavy wooden chair and tables. The only people in it were the owner and his wife. To this day I would call it as the best meal of my life. The next morning I was due to get on a plain at Charles De Gaulle and disappear into the Indian subcontinent. I recorded nothing of the day in my journal, nothing of the meal even, though I remember every detail. There is an entry on this site that mentions it, but I haven't reread it because I have realized it doesn't matter what I thought. + +Whatever I might have thought about that night at the time -- and I did have the sense that it was an important moment in my life even at the time -- I lacked the perspective to understand it then. + +That was the beginning of the journey, that meal is where, for me anyway, a trajectory began that is still taking shape, there was something in that meal, something about eating such amazing food from a country that the country I came from was about to invade and attempt to destroy, something about stumbling through my terrible French, my even worse Arabic and somehow still managing to convey that the food was amazing, that the wine was the best I've ever had. + +That meal that night was not an awakening so much as a realization that it is possible to duck the politics of the world, to side step the divisions created by the power brokers, the would-be malignant overlords and connect as human beings do, as they always have, by eating together, by talking, by drinking, by walking together down the street, by being human, because life is joy and wonder and love and food and drink and walking. Everything else is just the static background noise of existence. + +All the beliefs, all that religions, all the politics, all the attempts to divide are doomed to fail because they fly in the face of the fundamental truth that everyone knows, no matter how hard we sometimes seek to avoid it -- that the universe is incalculably immense, goes on forever and we are so small in it as to hardly be of it at all and yet here we are, able to look around, to appreciate the lap of the sea on the shore, the clatter of palm fronds, the whistle of wind in pines, the soft rain, the driving storm, the inhospitable mountains that welcome us home anyway. I don't know why we're here and neither do you, let's have a meal, maybe a drink if you like and we'll be friends. + +[^1]: from Richard R. Powell's book <cite>Wabi Sabi Simple</cite>. |