Tag Archives: humor

Why?

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I was listening to my friends the other day discussing which of the big ‘W’s’ (you know, where, when, who, what, why) they thought was the most important.  The Barbies were clearly in the ‘who’ camp: who was the hottest celeb, who would the next bachelorette pick, who would ask them to spring prom.

IMac girl thought space and time to be most significant; when and where the next notable meteorological occurrences and/or ecological disasters would take place. Being of a social nature, she also was concerned with the where and when of the next Philosophical Society Social.

Tiny Tina could be forgiven for seeing the importance of the ‘what’ her parents and teachers would next demand of her.

Poor Pitiful Pearl (who is neither poor nor pitiful) suggested that all that really mattered was ‘why.’  With ‘why’, she offered, one can question the legitimacy of those social values that have led us to believe short-term popularity is important; with ‘why’ we can question the importance of our artificial time structures as well as the legitimacy of our subservience to those who render power over us; with ‘why’ Pearl said, we can eliminate superfluous concerns and find the path to our true natures.

Pearl’s argument pretty much fell on deaf ears.  The Barbies said they knew their true nature which was being the most popular girls in school; IMac girl said one’s true nature hardly mattered in relation to the immanent destruction of civilization as we know it and Tina said she might be able to overlook the demands of her father and teachers but her mother was simply not to be trifled with.

I felt like I had just witnessed a microcosm of the essential dilemma of doll-kind: It’s not simply that were not all reading the same page; some of us are making paper airplanes.

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Absolute Certainty

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I’ve been thinking lately how difficult it is to know something for certain.  How can I be sure that what I know to be true is indeed true?

I have a lot of doubts.  There are many things I’m quite uncertain about; too uncertain to make a judgment as to their truth or falsity.

And there are quite a few things I have opinions about; things I judge to be so with a pretty high degree of certainty but am not absolutely sure to be the case.

Then, there are things I’m sure are true because they behave or exist in a manner consistent with what my mind expects them to do or be.

But can I be sure these things I’m sure are true are absolutely true?  Are they true for everyone all the time for ever and ever?  And if these sure things aren’t true for everyone all the time for ever and ever how can I be sure of their truth?

Well, it’s a true enigma; how can I know that I know what I know, that’s what I’d like to know.

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The Dollsheviks

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I was thinking, the other day about Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks who overthrew the Tsarist monarchy and established the People’s Republic- a social organization in which all people participated and shared equally in the fruits of their labors. What a truly great idea!
Well, I guess that was the way it was supposed to work, but as truly as mankind has an inherent social conscience, a concern for it’s fellows, it also has an inherent selfishness, an inherent primacy of concern for number one.
So, as almost always happens among people of unequal abilities and more or less selfish inclinations the power and control and wealth gravitated into the hands of the few and the promised equality never materialized.
Despite the drawbacks I still think the idea has potential, at least for dollkind. Dolls, at least most of the one’s I know tend to be compliant and generally happy beings. Many maintain a constant smile on their faces. They’re able to keep their egos in check and very seldom complain when left out in the rain or are ignored to gather dust for weeks at a time. Most have no inclination to lord it over their fellows in any way. Establishing a Socialist Dolls’ Republic, it seems to me, would be just the thing to insure we’re all dusted off occasionally, have our minor damages repaired, you know, get fair and equal treatment.
I think I’ll offer the idea at the next meeting of the Dollsheviks; I think we could make it happen without the need for a revolution.
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The Tribulation

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Sister Chloe was telling me the other day that she thinks given the pain, suffering and general turmoil so evident world-wide; given the catastrophic storms, the genocidal tribal conflicts, the unrest precipitated by lust for power and material gain that the Tribulation is at hand.

The Tribulation, she explained to me, is that period of time before the Rapture (or during or after depending on one’s reading of the book of Revelations) of extreme discomfort, suffering, mass psychoses and neuroses and the poisoning of our earthly environment leading to, among other things, congenital mutations (and probably anything else one could imagine as being really, really bad).  She made it pretty clear it would not be a good time to be around, and provided the rapture did indeed occur before the Tribulation, better to be raptured than left behind.

The idea of being Raptured I found a bit hard to take seriously.  Although I did see on the news the other day, plans to offer space flights to the moon in the not too distant future.  Maybe the comforts of a modern space station and the freedom to bound about in the relatively light gravitation could seem a sort of Rapture.

Well, back to reality, I think about the beautiful places, good people and beneficent actions that do exist and are happening every day: the relief efforts, the enormous energy aimed at resolving sectarian differences and violence all driven by our inherent understanding that, in the final analysis we all need each other.

I do think, though, I might inquire into possible interest of a would-be space traveler in the companionship of a friendly doll.

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Medieval Vision

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Have you ever had a supernatural experience?

It could have been something you dreamed was going to occur that, later, seemed to really happen.  Or maybe you saw something that you were pretty sure couldn’t really exist in the world as we know it.  Or, as you sat contemplating things a message from beyond seemed to pop up out of nowhere, maybe from an incorporeal being.

Apparently this sort of thing happened to people living in medieval times pretty regularly; the difference for them was they had a more fluid idea of what constituted the real world then we do today.

I was reading the journal of three 12th century monks who set out to find the ‘terrestrial paradise.’  As they traveled to the east they encountered little people ‘no more than two feet high’ and went through a mountain region where there were basilisks, unicorns and dragons.  They passed through a region of constant darkness where ‘mournful shrieking came from sinners drowning in a sea of serpents’ and ‘a giant chained between two boulders’ was being tortured with fire…..  Well, the account goes on and on, one extraordinary event after another.

In my rationalistic way of thinking it all seems very imaginative.  They simply were encountering things they had never seen before and were interpreting them in terms of the magical world in which they lived.

I don’t know if I should be happy in my understanding of the natural world or sad in my inability to realize a truly magical kingdom.

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At the Marae

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Do you think that there’s any chance there may truly be a unifying essence or ground of being that is shared by all mankind?  You know, something buried deep within our psyches that we’ve somehow lost track of these days when divisiveness seems so prevalent.

I was thinking back recently to a time a few years ago when I was among the Maori people in Aotearoa (the long white cloud) which is the name the Maori have for the islands of New Zealand.  Before these folks were inundated with western materialism and capitalistic pursuits (not to mention Christianity) they basked in the natural beauty and mana (what they call spiritual power) around them.

The mana the people inherited from their revered ancestors extended to Tangaroa (the sea) and Tane (the forest) and all of nature in a beautiful Cosmic Unity.  As long as tapu was respected everything went along pretty well.

Tapu is spiritual power like mana that everyone has and some objects and places have but some people and places have more tapu then others.  Everyone understands that when strong tapu is encountered it is important to act with deference so as to keep you spiritually strong and not upset the delicate cosmic balance.

While in Aotearoa I was allowed to visit a Marae, which is a sacred meeting place were tapu is particularly strong.  Upon entering tribute was paid to the ancestral spirits in recognition of the origins of the mana or life force shared by everyone in the iwi (all the people).

So, after thinking about it, I’m just wondering, if we’ve lost track of the mana around and within all of us and the tapu of our neighbors and acquaintances, maybe we should be searching for a sacred place where we can all come together and find our common ground.

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Discord in the Playroom

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Not too long ago three new dolls joined our playroom family. Muscleman and Bobble-head St. Patrick were the first to settle in and it didn’t take long before Muscleman began imposing his will, bullying the other dolls.  He was constantly jostling Bobble-head St. Patrick and causing the rest of us grief.

But then Athena showed up.

Scale can be very disparate among dolls and Athena has a considerable size advantage over most all the rest of us.  That fact plus Athena Parthenos’ warrior mentality quickly changed the playroom dynamic.

Muscleman, as you can imagine, has a very large ego and he initially refused to recognize that his days of domination were over.  Athena had to whack him down a couple of times before he got the message.  Even then he continued to yell and boss dolls around but eventually things settled down and Athena no longer needed to wield her physical size and strength to maintain the peace.

The playroom has always been, up until Muscleman showed up, pretty egalitarian.  Most everyone tolerates others’ idiosyncrasies without too much complaint.  But, the turmoil did get me thinking about how tenuous group dynamics can be-how opinions can form and change and political pressures can develop-what can happen when a strong personality feels compelled to impose its will.

Bobble-head St. Patrick is really quite a pleasant doll but he does have the reputation of being quite strong willed.  What if he suddenly got the notion to evangelize and got some (maybe a lot) of the other dolls to embrace his religious beliefs?  Would we all then be expected to follow the tenets of their beliefs?

And then there’s Mini-Max, who’s quite materialistic.  He’s been accumulating toys of his own for some time.  He’s already been hinting that he could use more shelf space.  What if he began bribing dolls-offering them favorite treats in order to acquire more room for his possessions?  Would the rest of us end up having to live in the closet?

Well, hopefully my imaginings are nothing more than just that.  But, it does make me think a just and fair judicial system is nothing to sneeze at.

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Dreams

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I had a dream the other night in which I became human; or rather I multiplied into five human children plus my normal plastic self.  We were all standing in front of Notre Dame Cathedral.  St. Francis was there.  The human DeiDeis seemed sort of mesmerized-focused intently on their surroundings as if they were anticipating an imminent occurrence or contemplating some sort of action.

When I awoke the next morning I couldn’t stop thinking about the incongruities in the dream.  I wondered what Dr. Freud would say but then I figured it would probably have something to do with sex and considering the presence of St. Francis and young naked girls I thought it best to just leave that alone.

Then I remembered reading about Carl Jung’s idea that deeply embedded within our psyches are primordial forms or archetypes common and meaningful to all self-conscious beings.  Certain situations like the Hero’s quest or the fall from grace, dichotomies like good vs. evil and light vs. darkness, and character types like the evil figure, the scapegoat and the outcast are just a few of these common archetypes Carl believed we all share; and he thought that sometimes these forms crop up during sleep when our unconscious is in charge.

I had to wonder if there could be archetypal meanings in my dream.

Being generally pretty upbeat about things my first thought was the dream must be about rebirth or renewal.  In this sense the saint might be the archetypal magician or Christ figure who transforms me: the many mes representing naked innocence seeking and discovering goodness and truth.

But then as I thought about it further the pragmatic me took hold; my ambivalence regarding structured religion suggested a darker aspect; maybe the dream was about evil overcoming good.  The saint becomes the archetypal devil casting a spell and creating six of me (six being the archetypal number of evil) to carry out the vile edicts of a corrupt church.

Well, the investigation was all very fascinating and I do think Carl’s got something with his notion of collective subliminal meanings, but  I’m going to be pretty careful who I talk to about my dreams and their meanings.

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Numinous and Ineffable

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Have you ever thought about or had the desire to escape the mundane and sometimes harsh realities of everyday existence?  I don’t mean simply taking a road trip to Disneyworld but to actually transcend existence, leave the physical world behind and enter the realm of the numinous and ineffable.

Of course one problem might be that even if one could figure out how to get there this extra-physical place might not be all that pleasant, it being numinous and ineffable and all, but I was thinking, if I could go there it certainly would help put things into perspective.  I could view problems that seem to be so important and urgent in the here and now in a detached manner that, it seems to me, might be beneficial to my well-being as well as to finding solutions to those problems.

I was reading that certain shamans can make such a journey; they enter into an ecstatic state and actually leave their bodies to journey with their spirit helpers to the land of the dead where they can find answers to important questions that only the dead can answer.

Apparently in order to get to this point a shaman has to undergo some fairly extreme procedures.  Among the Buryat people of Siberia the future shaman must die and have his flesh scraped from his bones and his organs removed and then be reconstructed and reanimated by the spirit forces in order to gain the power to make his passage to the numinous and ineffable land of the dead.

I’m just not sure, as much as I’d like to see what the numinous and ineffable looks like, that I’m prepared to accept such a sacrifice even though my bodily transformation would probably have more to do with melted plastic than bone scraping.

I guess, for me, the numinous and ineffable will have to remain numinous and ineffable.

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Beyond the Grave

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I see by the calendar Dia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is approaching.  Death isn’t something dolls, particularly plastic ones, think about very much but at this time of the year, with nature racing toward dormancy, the topic tends to come to mind.

In medieval times death was on everyone’s mind daily.  The Black Plague invited Death to be a regular visitor if not a live-in house guest.  She became so well-known she starred in a regularly performed play called the Danse Macabre.  In the play the Black Angel would appear and along with her spirit helpers the psychopomps  invite victims to accompany them beyond the grave; the beyond being, I guess, a promised land of paradise.

Throughout history (and even earlier than that I bet) people have sensed an existence beyond the grave:  The ancient Egyptians conceived of a Ka or immaterial double that would live on after the demise of the physical body so the deceased would be able to keep doing the same fun things they had always done when alive.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was inclined to believe that, upon death, an individual’s will or essence of being would be reunited with it’s Cosmic origins: a sort of collective world soul (Plato called it the anima mundi) from which all life originates and subsequently returns; it’s a pretty cool idea of togetherness even though one wouldn’t really be aware of it because one’s memory and ego would cease to exist.

The Hindu people understand the universe to be eternal and that rebirth will continue to happen until enlightenment of the soul propels a leap into the infinite, which, I guess must be a bit like Arthur’s cosmic origins only they call it the Atman.

Contemporary Trans-humanists anticipate a situation in which one’s brain activity is downloaded to a computer and since the brain is where one’s being resides one can expect to live on forever provided someone is around to keep the batteries charged.

I’m sure I’m like everyone else in hoping the Black Angel stays away for a while but when it does come time for me to leave the realm of the physical, wherever  I end up, I hope I will have left behind a reasonably positive image for my friends to remember me by.

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