Displacement

Some distant chronicler will note that along the way, I left sealed notes concerning people with odd appellations. Who, for example, is Wolfberry? Who on earth was Trivandrum?

The answer to these questions, and many more, is that in some sense they are all figments of my imagination. I should hate to think that people might think of them in a way wholly informed by my strange imaginings. But, on the subject of 'strange imaginings'... well, I was once accused of using 'smearing innuendo'. Well, read through the whole blog and see if you can find any. No longer constrained by gentlemanly civility, I will say outright that there is none here.

Rather, I suspect that some people are prone to projection, a phenomenon in which people tend to attribute to others the habits of mind and body that they themselves possess. Then again, it might also be displacement, a phenomenon in which people tend to pick on harmless victims so as to disperse their rage (and other negative affect) towards objects which are dangerous or untouchable.

=====

Notes:

1. I have given many of my associates odd little names like 'Wolfberry' or 'Trivandrum'. I do this because I am genuinely fond of them despite my shortcomings and theirs. Haha. On the other hand, should I have accidentally referred to any specific person as 'Grand Inquisitor', I would probably not have meant it kindly.

2. This is my 1200th post! Wow, it's been a long journey indeed.

Rainfall Feedings

This is going to be an odd post. I have to say that all these people are legally imaginary but mythopoetically real. You can ask them about it if you want to, and if you are genuine enough. All events really happened, but if you are like Trivandrum (see below) and cannot leave well enough alone, you know they might not have quite happened the way they are described.

=====

The average rainfall in Eden is zero. There is no rain at all, just a mist which rises in the night and waters the land, disappearing in the dawn. Perhaps Eden no longer exists, in damned Mesopotamia or ruined Ceylon, and I should speak in the past tense. But even after Eden, no rain – the separated waters were a vault, an astrological crystal dome, an hieromancer's crystal sphere. But now, in this fallen world, it rains.

I am remembering one particular day. It might have been today, it might be tomorrow – it resonates of all the rainy days I've had. Consciousness was a heavy burden and perception worse. My percipience was like a leaf-blade, sharp on both edges, thin as paper and without a hilt. I cut myself badly on that deadly lamina. Everything was so acute that I almost felt my nerves telling each other that they would kill me if I hit the caffeine again within six hours.

I had several meals. The first was with the General. Nobody calls him that, of course, and a barking snort of derisory laughter would probably greet any attempt. But he looks like a general of the old and diplomatic kind, with a warmonger's taste balanced with a warrior's honour. He speaks at least four languages and teaches one, a dead waste of talent if I ever saw such. But who cares about him? Not his boss, who routinely hazards his career with a carelessly shouted phrase or two.

A shadow's heartbeat later, as we stewed over noodles and traded historical fragments, the Stork dropped in. Not the progenitive or paragenitive Stork of legend, but the tall and elegant one given to much whimsy and the occasional sly jibe at the ill-considered silliness of the time. Stork was in fine form. The friends appointed for morning-meal had decided not to show at the moment assigned. Stork preferred the company at our table, and I didn't mind.

Time passed and my irascibility was dispersed and dispensed across my long-suffering acolytes for a while.

Then was time for payback. Gnomus was always busy rubbing his diet (metaphorically, of course) in my face. So I tried behaving like him for a while. Along the way, we picked up a little audience and some victims. The god-daughter suffered silently and fairly not-so-unhappily as we plucked the balls from little boys with no common sense and set them aside on a rainy day. We were aiming for five, but the quality of the soccer fraternity produced three excellent samples.

God-daughter had experienced tragedy in Twelfth Night, which is unusual but not unheard-of. The play is second only to The Merchant of Venice in being misapprehended with consequent misfortune for all associated. We advised that tragedy should be left to goats, and left it at that. Very often, I wish that the young and prone-to-misfortune could be shielded somewhat from the consequences of others' awkward ideas. But that kind does not come out except by fasting and prayer.

Off again to chastise the acolytes. Not an excellent chastisement this time, for the second group were a hard-working bunch of toilers, affording sophisticated amusement but lacking the vim and pepper of the first (well, mostly). I spent some time in the adjoining room pretending not to eyelid a bat, and generally being odd.

And then it was lunch with excellent little slices of roast pork in rich stock and angel-hair pasta (I wanted fettucine, but no dice). There were two sub-sections of this meal: the first was with a bunch of the charming young men (who reminded me of the gang in our time) and the second was with the charming young ladies and two of the lads with the nice eyelashes. [Oh dear, I suppose at this point I must assert my heterosexuality once and for all just in case my (have I really written such an odd paragraph?) writing stirs aspersions and indignities are visited upon me.]

God-daughter was there, and also the Lioness. Romana, Trivandrum, and Angster (arbitrary names just for this particular post) were also there. Plenty of entertainingly mindless fun was had by all – games of 'confuse the compass' and 'which lad is the lady most like' were played. Sweet milky tea was imbibed while others consumed chunky chips and watched the words sail overhead. Gnomus was his usual capricious intelligent self, making copious scatological (sociological) notes in a little book. We had fun.

The sad part, of course, is that this might well have been the last hurrah. It must end soon. Perhaps it already has. It is a very fin-de-siécle feeling.

After that I and the Disciple went off to thrash the younger gentlemen at cards. Won handily. Not our finest hour, but a good time was had by all. Of course, no money exchanged hands. No hands exchanged money either.

What a day. So few of such pass our way, with equal measure of pain and pleasure and sadness and joy all rolled into a wet blanket of the kind Noah would have appreciated. I am happy for now.

Newt

I'm an amphibian these days, halfway suspended between the old world that is passing and the new world that has arrived. I find it hard to shake the memories of voices and places, poises and faces, noises and spaces. I miss them all and yet I am learning to love their replacements. It is a terrible task, but I am working on it.

I feel like a newt, a neotenous salamander, that which should be fiery but which is now watery and squidgy. I am neither here nor there; I breathe air, and I might as well be tunnelling through the earth. It is horribly unfair to the memories of those who are gone and it is horribly unfair to the people who are really here now.

Today I was in a corridor when I bumped into one young lady of the present. I greeted her, "Madame." And I suddenly felt a twinge of pain, almost like angina. It is not her fault she now stands in the feet of power. But it is her position now, and I cannot begrudge her that place, despite the fact that it once belonged to someone whose memory still walks the corridors. I cannot quite bring myself to exorcise that ghost. It is all very silly, I suppose.

And then Trivandrum and Spam came visiting. That was even more painful. They too are now amphibian, not here or there, not even allowed the transforming power of the Green Mile.

We are all caught for now, caught like flies in amber, stuck in halflife between one state and another, somehow unable to move on. It isn't that we can't, I think. It is probably that we fear the pain of an ultimate parting, a confession of unprofessional weakness, a heretical impulse to actually disburse the wealth of our shrunken hearts and write off the loss forever.

In the meantime, a special alchemy must serve. I slowly denewtify. The degree of amphibiosity, of newtness, can be measured and is shrinking by the day, I hope. This quantity must, I suppose, be measured in its smallest quantum. I shall invent a unit of this new thing, this quantum of newtness. I will call it the newton.

Freedom's Call: The Year In Review

I think what sums up this year the most, in terms of life changes and processes, is that for the first time in a long while, I have been a free agent. In the past, like a good Party member, I had to toe the party line to some extent. Sanctions were available, as in the old Politburo, such as demotion, public denunciation, bonus reduction, having one's privileges withheld, and so on. I suffered all of these things, despite the fact that there was no objective reason for any of them.

Then in March, I was freed of all obligations to keep my mouth shut and my eyes closed.

The effect on me was almost intoxicating. For once, I could earn fair market value for my work and do untrammelled (well, less-trammelled) research on what made the education system really tick (or tock). From an approximate rate of a dollar per educational man-hour (a bit more than $30 to teach a class of almost 30 students for an hour), the valuation of my time rose to giddy heights. I was not aware I was worth so much on the open market!

Better than that, I was now free to eat wherever I wanted at any time I wanted. This is no small privilege; there are some companies that won't let their staff go out for lunch because they don't see why adults should be treated like adults. I used to have to sign out at the office if I wanted to take a walk across the road; I suddenly found myself able to walk like a free man.

I became a lot more productive in unexpected ways, and I learnt a lot more; I finally found the time to do things like write poetry and make things with my hands. I listened to more music, did more work, served as a writer and consultant, made information freely available to others, advised people who wanted advice. I read huge chunks of the Bible twice over, in two versions; I cleared a stack of long-abandoned reading. I started teaching Literature.

I began to make time for old friends and colleagues, to talk, to stay up late at night, to chat and have happy meals (no, not the mass-produced Golden Arches kind). I developed a finer sense for wine and cheese. I found a greater appreciation for my juniors and their lives; although I saw a lot less of my former students, I remembered a lot more. I realised that lurking in me was a deep spirit of gratitude for what I had learnt from each one of them.

The funny thing was that these people (bless their hearts!) made time for me too! I had lots of good moments, some of intense madness, some really sweet, and all memorable. I found that I missed people like Trivandrum and Wolfberry a lot more than I thought I would; I found myself missing the classes I taught for all of three months before I had to abandon them. I was consoled by the company of those who stayed around, and I watched in concern as they went through the trial of examinations.

Then I made contact with some of my students from the time I used to teach in a convent. Goodness! Some of these young ladies are now mothers (and in some cases, twice or three times over!) and yet they still seem not to have changed much. They are all as pleasant as ever, but with the edge that comes from time and the grind of working life.

In September, I got myself a driving license. Haha, a lot of you will laugh that this seemed to be such a major achievement to me. Well, let me just remind you that the counter clerk looked up from my application filing to say, "Sir, your last driving test was before I was born!" That's life, I guess.

I got a lot fitter. I started taking five-mile walks again. I remember dancing for 3 hours one night in Thailand. That was a really odd thing to do, since it was out in the open, on a warm tropical night. The sea-breeze helped a lot. I got a bit dehydrated, but the seaside massage the next day compensated a lot for it. Somehow, there are fewer things in life finer than desiccating by the beach with a mild sun and a cool breeze and air that doesn't smell of rotting fish.

This year has been one of renewal. Sometimes, when you come up for air, you realise that you have been running on the last bubbles of oxygen for too long in the sewer-pit of life. I have never had such a sense of rejuvenation. I thank God for it, and I can only hope that 2009 will be more of the same.

Day 366

This is the day, last year, on which the Highest decreed that I should come out of where I was. It was an unsettling time; the Israelites out of Egypt, Abraham out of Ur, Odysseus out of Ithaca or Aeneas out of Troy must have felt it worse. In each case, the idea of staying with what one knows and has known, the idea of settling down for good — these ideas of familiarity and routine tend to keep one in the same place.

But there I was, uprooted. Fortunately, the Potter repotted the plant, and I am thriving in a far larger environment.

Yet, the Potter, the Highest, the Lord of Hosts, has many to do His bidding. He has supplied all my needs abundantly, and any shortfall in anything has been my doing and not His. This short post is to thank a few people who kept me sane, and to mention an uncountable horde who kept me alive and happy.

Besides my family, the most supportive and powerful agents of my regeneration — yes, bro, credo ut intelligam indeed! — I have to thank a bunch of fellow professionals:

Argonaut, wingman, then first employer and bridgehead into the world of self-sustainable work;
Historian, wingman, then second victim and valiant comrade in trenches and under heavy shelling and poison gas;
The Secret Society, ex-colleagues who were particularly active in countering the activities of the wild yak;
Boss Lady, who was always a great help and reassurance in professional matters;
Flower Lady, who sold flowers (just kidding) and made time to introduce contacts and find new eating places;
Guru Lady, who was always good for an academic chat and marvellously steady even when flooded with her own work;
Stoneface and the Old Gang, who were professional throughout and went out of their way to keep in touch;
The New Guardsmen, assorted and unnameable, who saved the sum of things for something less than a worthy fee.

I also have to mention a bunch of students, many of who must still remain anonymous:

Trivandrum, whose sorting algorithms were amusing and yet intelligent, for being absolutely marvellous in keeping the dream alive;
The One and the Other One, whose rather obsessed combined brainpower produced much thought;
The Debators, who provided endless encouragement just through their own odd journeys (especially the one who doesn't have green eyes);
Wolfberry, whose dialogues with me taught me as much as anything else I could have learnt;
The Librarian, for meticulous arguments, inspiration and assistance;
The Dancers, who somehow provided a bunch of uplifting experiences I could never have found elsewhere (like nasi lemak and funny trips);
Various animals from Serendip and other mysterious and legendary places (and the ninja ferret!), for showing that hope remains in the darkest of times (like a proof-of-concept);
The others who were my students and came visiting, both the 'geeks' (beware them bearing gifts, haha) and the 'non-geeks' (self-declared, in most cases);
The wolfpack and the hounds, who were always free with information and informative indeed;
The Second, Third and Fourth for continuing the great traditions of the First;
The First, for being the pinnacle of my short career in secondary education.

I also bow to the five corners of the earth and pay tribute to those who have gone before me in the particular journey that begins in the College of Wyverns and never seems to end as long as the best is yet to be. God save our land, and heaven bless. The faith was never lost except in that one dark corner of the legend.

In all things, I give thanks. I will always rejoice. My ambition has ever been to lead a quiet life and not be an encumbrance to anybody. Maybe it hasn't been so quiet, but it's getting there. I hope. *grin*

'Inspiration' (Part II): Psychobabbleon (And On, And On...)

As Trivandrum pointed out, the bowels of that ancient city and one-time Babylon of the West have vomited forth a great edict concerning what they used to do and now swear never to do again... indulging in bureaucratese. The reason that this particular piece was so inspirational to so many is that this great city was once the headquarters of the largest corporate dominion ever created by humans.

Oh, do not blame the Americans; they are but a young and benighted nation compared to that great Lion of the Sea!

Unfortunately, I have yet to think of a version for the education sector that won't be immediately recognizable as proceeding from the mouth of... urgh. Let us not think about it, but pray. I shall leave this as a stub for now.

Green Eggs and Red Monoliths

I had a most curious dream last night. I dreamt that the First and a few of their departed mentors were building a huge monolith out of a strange mixture of red-bean ice cream and strawberry gelato. Everywhere there were banners saying things like, "Beware The Pinko Scum!" and "Better Red Than Dead!" and "Chill In, Chill Out!"

In the midst of the purposeful chaos were people like Trivandrum and Green Eggs. What was really interesting was that the latter was setting up chess boards, making cryptic comments about the Sicilian Defence throughout and playing multiple games with me. The former kept spraying water all over an ominously threatening cage made from bars of ice. The empty cage had a little hand-lettered wooden sign next to it, saying, "Wild Yak, Do Not Feed Gratuitously."

There was an accidental historian wandering by. He muttered randomly to people he met and to pillars (of which the area had an inordinate number), "My initials are YW and not WY! I have no X anywhere!" He had a few confederates with him, who were plotting the overthrow of the one-party state.

Lastly, there were two tall, thin subcontinentals. They had a placard saying, "From the Little Green Spot, not the Big Black Hole." One was dressed in spotless white uniform with medals all over it. The other one was dressed in spotless red uniform with trophies all over it. He was carrying a shield that said '1886' in huge golden numbers, but had a truly diabolical image in the centre. This one had "Gunning For You" in the middle.

It was the last image that made me wake up gasping. I've never seen my former CEO wielding a trident and brandishing a forked tail before.

Missing

I woke up this morning and realised I missed Trivandrum. The man was always one of the good guys, no matter how off-kilter he sometimes a) pretended to be, b) decided to be, c) alarmedly found himself to be, d) avoided being. I have not spoken to him for months.

This odd sense of missing someone you haven't had contact with for months hits you normally on waking if it doesn't hit you after morning coffee or during introspective meditation.

I think it's got something to do with either a) an oversupply of blood to the brain or b) the brain needing less and thus being relatively oversupplied even at normal levels.

In the last few months, I've had sudden 'missing persons' attacks involving people I've not seen or 20 years. It's getting worse. I'm starting to miss people I never met. I miss Isaac Asimov.

Why I Am Not An Atheist

As Trivandrum proposes, I should set forth Terms and Definitions, and Argument related thereto, and thus develop a Position on which I take my Stand. So here is that Stand, and may You who read enjoy It.

=====

Terms and Definitions

• A God is a Thing which exercises Powers which are beyond Human Analysis, practically, theoretically, or rationally, with respect to the Limits of those Powers in Terms of Origin, Manifestation, Aspect, Occasion, Quantity, Quality or Perceptibility, and with no Likelihood or Chance of Human Analysis.
  
• An Atheist, in simple Form, is One who does not believe in Gods, in any Kind, Quantity, or Equivalent.
  
• An Atheist, in active Form, is One who explicitly rejects the Belief that there are Gods, in any Kind, Quantity or Equivalent.
  

I am not an Atheist in either simple or active Sense. If the Reader wishes to take Issue with any other Term defined in this Section or other Sections in this Post, please do so Elsewhere.

=====

Argument

• Let Us assume that Humans are Moral Animals, which I am personally inclined to believe. If this is a Failing on My Part, so be It.
  
• This Morality has a Nature that is either relative or absolute. If the Nature is relative, It can only be seen to exist if measured by a Yardstick. If It is Absolute, then It has no Exceptions and hence partakes of the Quality of Natural Law.
  
• If the Nature of Morality is relative, the Yardstick (or at least the System of Measurement) must be Absolute if the Analysis of Morality is to have Meaning. Without Yardstick, or Benchmark, or Touchstone, the Idea of Morality is defunct as We cannot then say, "This is a Good Thing," or, "This is a Bad Thing."
  
• If the Nature of Morality is an Absolute, then We need no Yardstick, or Benchmark, or Touchstone, but merely Observation and Hypothesis Testing as is the Way of Natural Law. We need but create a Scale of Units such as proposed in the Philosophy of Utilitarianism.
  
• From Evidence of the Empirical Kind, that is, from History and hence the Observations of Humanity, We can see that the Nature of Morality is not yet to be claimed an Absolute, for It has heretofore not been resolved by any Human Agency into a System adherent to a Scale of Units.
  
• Hence Morality is likely relative and requires a Yardstick.
  
• The Yardstick cannot be Human, for this is an Empirical Finding that Humans disagree on Morality.
  
• The Yardstick cannot be a Natural Law or Anything that proceeds from Natural Law, as this is Our Observation as well.
  
• Hence the Yardstick must be beyond Human Analysis.
  
• Hence It is a God (at least one). (Alternatively, Humans are not Moral Animals.)
  
• In Fact, the Only Plausible Alternative to the Existence of Godhood is to apply This Reasoning to all such Qualities. Then the Universe must be purely quantitative and subject to Rational Laws alone.
  
• If the Universe is so, then It is a Deterministic Universe.
  
• Hence all Human Actions have no Attached Moral Responsibility or Choice or any Such.
  
• Hence it is a Meaningless Thing for Me to have done This Post. (Or for You to be reading It.)
  

And yet, to paraphrase Galileo Galilei, still I have posted.

=====

Conclusion

• This Post has Meaning, or It has not. (Unless Meaning has no Meaning.)
  
• If It has Meaning, then at least one God exists.
  
• If It has no Meaning, then We do not know from It whether God exists or not.
  
• But We do know that if It has no Meaning, and You have been reading It, then You have either been conned, or there is no God and the Act of Reading does not matter.
  
• Regardless then, it leads Us to conclude that reading Richard Dawkins (or any Explicitly Atheist Statement of Unbelief in Gods) is meaningless.
  

I would rather believe that this Post has Meaning. If You disagree, then for Your Disagreement to be meaningful, at least one God must also exist.

=====

I rest my Case. And drink my Coffee.

Requiem

There was a girl I met in college about 20 years ago. What I remember about her was that she had a (for want of a better word) snarky wit. Nowadays, most people agree that snarky should mean short-tempered and acidic; here, I want it to mean a combination of sneaky and sarcastic, snappish perhaps, and very entertaining. She also had a lovely smile.

About six years ago, I found a new bookstore – not a large one, but one which stocked a good quantity of the sort of stuff I read. It had sprouted in one of my favourite buildings. Intrigued, I walked in, and there she was. Same old person, maybe a bit older in the eyes, just as cheerful in the smile. What a wonderful surprise! So I added that little shop to the list of stores which I routinely visited. Over the years, I must have bought a fair number of books there.

Yesterday, she told me, "You're still on my database, and if I ever decide to start up again, I'll let you know. I guess I'll still bump into you once in a while here?"

It was pretty sad. The little shop was closing. It was half an hour before the hammer fell. Books were going at $1 per book, $10 for all you could take. I regretted not bringing the Golden Horde, but Trivandrum and Augury were around and walked off with something like 60 books between them. I took four. Four? Only four? Yes, only four. In the last days, I'd been picking off what I wanted.

The shop took a long time to die, it seemed. But yesterday, it felt like vultures over corpses. If it had been any other place, I would have cheerfully walked off with a ton of books. Here, I was just sad. The wiring and lighting were being stripped out. In a way, it was like participating at a wake for an old friend. My acolytes (no, I don't think they really want to be called that) were assisting in the funeral arrangements. I said my last goodbyes to her, remembering what it was like when we were young.

Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum sed favilla...

Rite Of Examination (Preparatory, Part 1)

It was said unto me by a son of the wyvern in the day just passed, as he looked upon the fallen arches of my foot and mourned the fracture of my distal phalange, that I had omitted the most basic rite of the examination cycle. (For they who have not seen, or who have not heard of the rites of examination, there are four parts of the rite – Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.)

And so, here and now do I present to you, my brothers and sisters in the College, the first part of the Preparatory Rite which all students should consider before the start of each examination day.

=====

Part I – The Awakening

Arise, O child of dust, and wake into the cool and grey penumbra of the passing of Night! It is the morning, but you know it not, and it is the beginning of Creation, but you feel it not.

Upon your bed of sorrow and of the toil of evening past, lift up your limbs singly and in slowness of mind, that you might receive assurance of your wholeness and the continuing existence of your material self.

Learn as if anew that you have arms, a left and a right, and each arm has distally a hand, cramped though they might be with the agony of the writer and the tension of the age. Upon each hand, find fingers, which for most of those who live are five in number, of which one is a thumb, stumpy but not to be despised.

Clench your fists, all fingers five and crowning the four others with your thumb. Thus you might defy the urgings of Dream and Sleep. Newly unsleeping, unclench and clench again, till your blood roars with vehement chastisements in the muscles of your arms.

If you have laid weights of metal or of stone beside your bed, lift one in each hand, while lying supine. Let these not exceed five masses of the French Revolutionary standard. Perform the ritual of lifting five times each, and five times five again.

Strangely, you will then discover your legs, sturdy appendages for the movement of the body, and their supporting feet. (One scruples at that most oxymoronic term, the 'metric foot', which young Trivandrum should emplace upon his web-log.) Raise your legs above your head, aiding the heart as it sends the sanguine ichor towards the seat of your mentality and away from the mentality of your seat.

Lower them, and with the momentum of this movement, plant your feet upon the ground beside your bed. In a while, you will be ready to stand up. But not yet, for otherwise, the sudden elevation of your head might cause a dizzying of the intellect, as has occurred with fatal result in many who are older and wiser.

Thus ends the first part.

Crypticism

Yes, the Avenging Angel of the Archdiocese, twice referred to as Trivandrum in this blog, was the subject of the last challenge.

Unfortunately, sometime during the thrashing handed out to Aston Villa by the Red Man last night, I fractured my right small toe into a couple of separate little pieces. Ouch. Grounded, moody and not very inclined to sit at a computer, reduce my circulation, and lose the toe altogether.

That toe seems like a metaphor for working life.