Tag Archives: philosophy

Streaming through Soundbites

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I’ve been thinking lately about my daily consumption of the news. Anticipating, as I do, the discomfiting nature of what I’m likely to hear I rely on the feeds I get through my phone each morning. I’m realizing my perspective on things is being tainted by the sensational nature of these media soundbites.

As troubling as I find this realization, I will continue my sound bite consumption because I know I will find a more intensive investigation of current events to be more painful than worthwhile.

Morbid Thoughts

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Something about autumn, nature’s impending hibernation, that has me thinking about ‘the long sleep’, contemplating my ultimate demise. I heard recently about a man who, before his recent death, directed his family to have his cremated remains scattered about a favorite hiking location while a song of personal significance was piped into the woodlands.

It seems to me a nice idea. It has me thinking about what musical work I might choose for such an occasion. I do have in mind a perfect location for such an event.

All fun to think about but I’m not in the planning stages yet.

Harpies

Dystopia

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I’ve been thinking about the idea of a post-apocalyptic dark age: the economy has collapsed, goods of any sort are scarce, hostile elements, equally desperate, seek to exploit the Other, survival depends on courage and wits.

It’s the time of year, I guess, that seems to elicit premonitions of immanent disaster. What else can explain Halloween and the Day of the Dead? Add to these events the anxieties of the upcoming election and one can’t help but anticipate ominous times ahead.

Psychically numbing as the times maybe we rationalize it will end, equilibrium will reappear. The anxieties, though, will not go quietly.

Truth

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The richness of recognized beauty defies simplistic explanation. No ‘eye of the beholder’ or theory of color and form is sufficient to address beauty’s underlying truth.

What other subjective truths are there? Are our intuitive beliefs a reaction to fear of the Other? What can harm us if we stay in touch with the Truth the natural world provides?

Essence

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I’m wondering if species, creatures with life spans much shorter than ours, tiny beings with brains the size of pin heads, realize, given their brief existence, a rich and meaningful life.

Does a Wooly Bear caterpillar, struggling in moving water, feel angst, realize the probability of imminent demise while memories of hatching, eating and growing, the promise of evolution to flight slowly fades, the hope it’s brothers will survive to replenish the species and sensing these complexities while living a life that is only an instant of the life cycle we manage to waste away in insignificant concerns.

Such thoughts make me think I should pay more attention.

The Hum of the Universe

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With the enhanced auditory abilities I’ve recently acquired (as a result of the acquisition of hearing aids) I notice what I can only describe as an otherworldly hum (not to be confused with tinnitus, which I also experience) which, if I might be metaphorical, I must interpret as the universe breathing, a wondrous sound Pythagoras might have been referring to (if he hadn’t been being metaphorical) as the music of the spheres.

I can imagine this auditory phenomenon as being primordial, originating with the Big Bang. How wonderful that modern technology has put me in touch, allowed me to realize, my connection to the universe.

Living and Dying in Anonymity

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I’ve been thinking lately about legacy, how one might expect to be remembered by those who knew him. It would seem most of us would like to be remembered, preferably positively, as a contributing member of his community even as he may have recoiled from participation, leadership rolls, maybe, in civic and religious organizations, being content maintaining a small coterie of friends as social norms require.

Having lived, as I have, in near obscurity, social anonymity for a long time I might expect little remembrance when I pass on, I suppose. But there’s still time. I do have a class reunion coming up. I wonder if my mates will remember me. To paraphrase Woody Allen: all one needs to do to be remembered is to show up.

Change

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I find myself experiencing a fresh perspective, an awareness lately brought on by changes to my senses. As my capacity to hear and see decrease in function my general awareness is heightened. It’s as if the world of my existence is significantly changing one day to the next, as if I can sense the location of the earth changing as it moves through the rarified space it has never before occupied.

A new world one day to the next. How refreshing to realize the insignificance of the issues that had previously occupied so much of my attention. This new awareness has my looking forward to tomorrow morning with wonder. What will happen next?

Reunion

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I just attended my high school class reunion. I must say I was a bit uneasy about going thinking as I did about certain uncomfortable relationships that I experienced during those high school days.

But I was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming everyone was, genuinely happy to see each other, no sense of the teenage cliques I remembered. And, the bullies had mellowed, were really quite pleasant to visit with.

How many years of maturing should it take, I wondered, for a group of diverse individuals to reach common empathy? In this case it was sixty.

A Fresh Perspective

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The new reality I’m experiencing as a result of my altered vision and hearing (due to a recently acquired ‘floater’ in my right eye and the installation of electronic hearing assistance) has, without requiring too much imagination on my part, delivered me into a fresh realm of existence. Not exactly the astral plane, I guess, since I remain physically present and still craving goo pizza, but there is experiential difference in a good way. Required, as I am, to look harder results in my seeing more and hearing more clearly adds to the richness of my general experiencing.

I think lately of the blind character Geordi in the Star Trek series whose ‘visor’ not only restored his vision but provided him with superhuman ability to see.

Nothing superhuman about my sensory alterations but I am enjoying my new perspectives.