Ottoman Period (after 1600) / Hatip Mehmed Efendi/ Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi
TGIF.
I am kinda wondering if I stayed too long. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t ready to bolt just yet, or for that matter, had a plan for bolting. But I am thinking that there is a better chance of things falling down now than there have been for the last thirty years which I have been saying the whole thing is going to hell.
But I suppose that is the way that things always go.
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) / Tang Yin/ 溪山漁隱 卷
A load of laundry in, I shoulda done two, but just didn’t feel like it.
Can’t really think of that much I want to put a rant on. I am kinda exploring the peripheries of the old adage “good artists borrow, great artists steal”. I finally got a way to help myself write and actually finish and maintain a plotline. I find a book I have read that I like, and I rewrite the chapters in a slightly different order, using different characters, different dialog, different plots, different worlds…..but borrow how the book is paced.
So I am kinda thinking that goes under the “borrow” category of the aforementioned aphorism. If all I am borrowing is the pacing of the book and not using the other four I figure I am safe from accusations of plagiarism.
Actually managing to write this way. Most of my previous attempts came up at a dead end when I lost track of what I was trying to say. Most books (especially fiction) aren’t that complex. If you make a decision about the basic plot and reduce it to a single paragraph (even better, a single sentence) all the book is is a means of expanding that into an extended form with details and dialog.
I think that what my act of quasi-plagiarism does is to give me an example from a book that I enjoy the way to pace the story and an idea of the mix needed to blend the descriptive and the dialog in a pleasing manner.
I suppose that Mrs Lake (High School English Teacher who I adored) would have told me that I could do the same thing with an outline, but she kinda ruined that for me fifty years ago.
Post-Impressionism / Edouard Vuillard/ Interior
Been pondering of late about this fall/winter that is bearing down on us. Can’t say for a minute that I am thrilled about the prospects. Now granted, things might work out just fine. I have been wrong before. But truthfully, it might just be my age talking louder than usual.
I think the reason that I feel more worried about the slide down is that there seems to be more to worry about coming down the pike. That in itself is not particularly worrisome, no more than 5/10. Lots of bad predicate conditions have happened before.
Nope, what worries me is the overall leadership in the country. I am not really talking about the series of idiots that have taken up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania during this benighted century (though that is getting worrisome in and of itself), but I am talking about the second and third levels down and their apparent ineptness. Congress, Governors, and the heads of the big companies (Known here as CG&H), as a rule do not seem to know what they are doing.
Now, this vague generality does not include the financial sector, they appear to know exactly what they are doing. They are successfully finding the greater fool.
But the remainder of the CG&H are flailing. They are expected to match the ROI that the financial sector manages. But the problem is that they really can’t when one considers the state of the world. The manufacturers really can’t keep manufacturing the way they did in the past. Just can’t happen. The energy and raw material requirements to even keep the manufacturing at current levels are vanishing. Now, discussion on how this came to pass is another discussion, the decisions made in the past forty years have simply made the condition we are in inevitable.
So here we are, with an economy of non-productive means trying to figure out how to provide for a populace who can’t imagine another lifestyle. To say that something has to give is an understatement. I am hoping for as far away in the future as possible.
Taishō period (1912–1926) / Kanae Yamamoto/ Fishermen
Looks to be like the hospital is going into freakout mode again. I am still totally ambivalent as to whether or not this is a useful kind of thing, but TPTB have deigned it necessary so I will soldier on. It won’t be the first or last time that I have received orders that left me scratching my head.
I am not looking forward to the next little while. I tell folks to remember the shape of the curve. Seriously, go out to the data and find historical information on the first run through with the Rona as our rider. Look at the end of last August and use that as a useful model. Look what happened last fall.
I don’t think that I have the answers. I tend to be an Eeyore much to the discomfort of those around me. But I am right frequently enough that discounting my suspicions is, while not a bad option, is not a great one either.
I am going to splurge a little this week and grab some pantry supplies. I am thinking that it is time to lay down a little protection.
Monday Early AM: Coffee is being drunk, consciousness is returning.
I have to work through the processes needful for accessorizing my descent into sloth (read here: retirement). I will need to start on the weekends as little mini-laboratories for the creation of the routines/things that need to be done in order to live within my means and have a good life.
The actual processes will be greatly simplified. Two hours a day will not be needful getting to work. But about an hour and a quarter of these two hours are spent walking to and from the train. So I have to keep the hour and a quarter going but plug the 45 minute hole.
The 8.5 hour hole that will chasm open when sloth-time occurs will need to be filled. I am thinking that if I can get used to spending a two or three hour period writing every day outside of this diary, I might be able to finish a bigger project, this particular bete noir is something I have attempted and failed at before. Maybe what I need is just time to figure out the technical details of a project such as this without the day to day world constantly sticking its two cents into the equation.
The hard part of the process will be to re-establish how to be a student. If I am going to write something, it will need to be well-researched. That kind of stuff is a habit that goes away once you leave the University. Even skilled “researchers' ' usually don’t bother with decent research, what is called “research” in today's world is merely stretching a procession of technologies as far as they can be stretched in exchange for a paycheck.
Nope, gotta get into the discipline of reading and taking notes and then digesting the notes into a clear form and then spending the time needed to make sense of the vagaries, deliberate omissions, and errors that constitute any serious piece of work of any type. Then you have to write this down and put it out there so that people can spend the time needed to point out the vagaries, deliberate omissions, and errors that your work entails.
I have been spending time doing this in a minor way with the data from Rona. I went into the CDC’s site and dredged out the mortality statistics and worked them over to get the numbers to display something useful to me. I was flattered that some folks actually took me up on my offer to share the info.
Now the big problem over the next 680-some-odd days I have remaining at the mill, is to figure out what it is I will be researching and the way I need to come up with a plan to get something done with the research. It kinda sounds trivial when you phrase it like that, but I have a feeling it will be a somewhat painful process that will require a significant amount of alcohol.
Will spend the next month or so figuring out the landing zone. I am thinking about getting out of Oregon and to a low tax state, but that will require a lot more research. Oregon is actually pretty good, but the rents just keep going up and the 9% that Oregon will be pulling out of my retirement will suck pretty bad.
Today’s Screed
Political passions, whether they arise on the left or the right, are symptoms of human stupidity, which it is the novelist’s job to unmask.
Gustave Flaubert
Restated: Political passion always flows from the mouth hole of a stupid mask. Self check: If one finds oneself starting to feel passionate about politics, one should work to counter the pull into stupidity.
Michael
Like original sin, politics will be with us always. Maybe politics itself is the ultimate manifestation of original sin.
Now, I know that here in woke America, we are supposed to believe à la Rousseau that man is a noble creature, brought low by the structure of a decadent society and repressed by faulty and nearly evil. I can see no evidence in history to support this claim. It appears to me that the old adage “Power Corrupts” applies across the human experience and people who claim innocence just haven’t had their turn at power.
I realize and respect my friends loathing of the human-shaped similacrum that resides at 1600. But truthfully, he is just one of the fallen, and the fallen appear to be running the show. 1600 is just the frontman for an evil and avaricious system that is running out of gas.
I think that some folks feel that the process of replacing yon douchebag will begin the “healing” that will bring us back our cargo-cult materiel and lead us back to the promised land of seeing the USA in our Chevrolet. Nothing will be further from the truth. If replaced, the figurehead will either
But the real issue is that the pie is beginning to shrink. The number of people who want a piece of the pay is not shrinking.
LeGuin
Using mystery
The expert in warfare says:
Rather than dare make the attack
I’d take the attack;
rather than dare advance an inch
I’d retreat a foot.
It’s called marching without marching,
rolling up your sleeves without flexing your muscles,
being armed without weapons,
giving the attacker no opponent.
Nothing’s worse than attacking what yields.
To attack what yields is to throw away the prize.
So, when matched armies meet,
the one who comes to grief
is the true victor.
Legge
A master of the art of war has said, 'I do not dare to commence the war; I prefer to to act on the defensive. I do not dare to advance an inch; I prefer to retire a foot.' This is called marshaling the ranks where there are no ranks; baring the arms where there are no arms to bare; grasping the weapon where there is no weapon to grasp; advancing against the enemy where there is no enemy.
There is no calamity greater than lightly engaging in war. To do that is near losing the gentleness which is so precious. Thus it is that when opposing weapons are crossed, he who deplores the situation conquers.
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