Morning Facebook post

Thanks for a healthy discussion on the illuminating article I posted below about the viewpoint of Trump voters. The main thing I realized reading the article and your comments is there's a massive disconnect, a void, between different communities among the 320M+ citizens spread across the vastness of the USA.

Perspective taking is the key to understanding strangers different from oneself. In my daily life I interface very little with the world of Trump voters. I find it easy to care about, for example, black, Muslim, LGBT, and native American communities in the US with whom I don't interface much because I view them as underdogs striving against entrenched powers. I empathize with veterans, active duty military and law enforcement officers, people doing difficult jobs that someone has to do for modest pay and no influence over the policies they implement.

Perhaps I need to take the same compassionate view of Trump supporters, most of whom, ironically, are ethnically similar to me. It’s OK to be frustrated by their thinking but hating them doesn’t go anywhere good.

Now it’s on to another big day of packing plastic bins. Don't worry, though, I'll check in.

Thoughts of the day (See July 11, 2016)

A vehicle travels more safely and gets to its destination more efficiently when it has both braking and acceleration systems in balance. Conservatives are people who value the traditions and accomplishments of their culture, respect just authority, want limits on government so it will stay out of their business, believe people should live within their means, and want to preserve what’s good in their culture. Liberal/progressives are people who envision a better future for their culture, challenge unjust authority, believe the government has a role in helping people at the bottom of the pile stay healthy and have the opportunity to improve their lot, want limits on individuals and organizations who have accumulated vast amounts of money and power, believe those with more should help those with less, and want to see critically important changes in their culture sooner rather than later. Conservatives are the brakes; liberal/progressives are the accelerator. My personal vehicle has both systems on board.

Eleven days later

Several of my favorite people on Facebook, Tracy, Laura, Ellen C., the ones who come to mind are all women, suffer from insomnia. I've been taking trazadone at bedtime for many years and I seldom have significant episodes; but, tonight I awoke around 2:30AM EST and it's now approaching 5 and, here I am, obviously still awake since I'm typing this entry. It' s common for me to awaken between 2 and 4 but I'm usually able to fall asleep again if I get up for a little while, read the news or peruse Facebook, and eat a bowl of cereal with milk. I ran through that routine tonight. When I got back into bed, I used another reliable method, meditation by focusing on breathing and physical sensations without explicitly attempting to go to sleep. No luck this time. I observed the flow of thoughts touching on many specific people in my present and past, the world, God, the strengths and weaknesses of my invited open mike performance on Monday at the Office Lounge, the importance of surrendering to our limits of humanity (my copy of DeLillo''s novel (Zero K, I couldn't recall the correct title until I looked at it just now) is on the shaky night table by the bed in my parents' master bedroom where I sleep when in Athens), that idea for a short story I've been planning to write (about the man who gets a visit from the operator of a virtual reality simulation and learns the former is a creation of the latter). I refined the story idea and gave is a working title, Simulacrum.

I thought about why I'm having difficulty falling asleep again. Is it the fact I forgot to show up for coffee with old friend, Jan Carter, I'd been planning since running into her at a restaurant on my last visit? The awareness the clock is ticking on this visit and I need to gear up my efforts? My concerns about various girl and boy pals? Worries about whether the tendinitis in my left ring finger is ever going to be healed? The room being a little too warm and the mattress lopsided, making it hard to become fully comfortable?

I was productive yesterday, staying at home and going through executor expenses, exchanging emails with Scott Collins, sending him ledgers and annotation of the estate checking accounts at Bank of America and Athens First. I listened to the recording from Monday again and made notes on the start and stop times of each song. I watched a little of the Democratic convention, my first indulgence after having chosen not to watch any of the GOP shindig. Donna Brazile was inspirational and several minor speakers made me feel positively about Hillary and motivated to vote for her. I couldn't stomach listening to Bill, though. I read some news commentary about his speech on my phone when I first got up and was sitting in the otherwise dark bathroom patiently waiting for my bladder to activate.

The U-Box shipping container I ordered was scheduled for delivery to Mom's house yesterday (Tuesday) but they called and said it would come today (Wednesday). I've got my mental plan roughed out for how I'm going to get the packing done. I could just stay up, take some Adderall at 6AM, go for an exercise walk, get back to work. It's been so difficult for me to make myself do the work of executor. Being in Athens is like a retreat where I am free to do exactly as I wish, spending long periods of time alone at Mom's house and going out for a small number of meaningful outings with very special people.

It's now 5:30. In a short time, a few minutes, half an hour, I'll get sleepy enough to finally catch some extra Zs. When I awaken again, it will be midmorning.

Now's the day, and now's the hour (Robert Burns)

I need to start working on Mom's estate!

The truth revisited (or, Be like a Sufi)

I wrote "Badly enough" out of frustration with my life situation. Today, I look at things differently. If, in fact, in some ways I know more than most people because I wanted to know and it's possible for a determined individual to learn, I want to be compassionate and understanding toward people who don't see what I see. I would want people who see more than I do to be compassionate and understanding toward me. I believe such people would be. The one who understands the most deeply would also be the most compassionate. If the truth is generous, the one with the most truth would be the most generous of all.

Badly enough (original version posted 5 years ago on a Tumblr blog)

There’s a reason I need to be by myself.

The problem with me is
I see too much.

You don’t want to know what I see.

The problem with us is
when we start talking.
Then distortions and projections,
covers-up and deflections
come out of hiding,
encounter the truth,

and commence conflagrating,

like gasoline vapors encountering a match.

The problem with me is
I wanted to understand too much.

I asked too many questions,

and kept asking them

until I arrived at answers.

“Knock and the door will be opened.”

I bought into that.

I found out,

the truth is generous,

the truth gives itself

to anyone who wants to know it

badly enough.

The problem with most people is
they don’t want to know.

They want to know enough to know

they don’t need to know any more.

The problem is they don’t want to know

badly enough

to keep asking the questions.

The problem with me is
I kept knocking
until the door opened
and I got answers.

I didn’t get them because I’m better than they are.

I got them because the truth is generous

and I wanted to know

badly enough.

The problem with me is
I can’t help it any more,

I can’t unknow what I know,

I can't not see what I see.

So stay away.

Don’t talk to me.

Don’t ask questions.

The problem with me is
you don’t want to know what I see.

You don’t want to burst into flames.

Questions of the day

1. Conservatives respect tradition and authority and want to preserve what's been gained. Progressives question authority and want to improve on what they're presented with. Is one viewpoint wrong and the other right?

2. Should we be looking for answers at the point where the police show up or should we be looking at what kind of society we've created?

3. "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid" (Psalm 27:1) If you believe this, why do you need a gun?

Reflections over the Atlantic

London was a delight but while we were there, horrific events were taking place back home in the USA. First, and right in Baton Rouge, a black man named Alton Stirling was held down by two white policeman and shot to death by one of them outside a convenience store where Stirling was selling bootleg CDs. The next day, Philando Castille, another black man, was shot to death in his car by a white policeman who stopped him for a traffic violation in Minnesota. The aftermath was live streamed by his girlfriend who was in the car when it happened. Then, a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas was turned into a deadly ambush of police officers by a third black man, Micah Johnson, a young Army vet of the Afghanistan war who subscribed to black separatist ideology. Five policeman died before the police blew Johnson up with a robot delivered bomb. Sickened and appalled by the unending gun violence in the USA, I chose not to read the details in the news media until several days later.

I'm a white guy who loves to listen to and play the blues. Obviously, I've never been black but I understand the blues I dig emerged from the experience of hardship and oppression of African-Americans. I owe a debt of gratitude to all the blues musicians who took their struggles and transformed them into a thing of beauty. Ironically, there's a really fine white, male blues player going by the stage name of Elvin Killerbe who had the chutzpah to make a very rude, cynical and cocky comment on my Facebook page when my post decried the hate-based firearm violence plaguing the USA and most of all black people. Go figure. I wrote a sarcastic reply, then deleted his comment and my reply, then decided to just unfriend and be done with him.

My roots are in Alabama. My Scott ancestors were among the first white people to settle in Alabama. My Mom's people also came to Alabama in the 19th Century and many are still there. Although my ancestors were part of the plantation and slave culture of the south, I'm proud to say both my parents taught me to be free of prejudice and to support human rights for all people. I'm outraged by the unbridled gun violence in the USA and am working on ways I can take action contributing to disarmament and peace.

Idyllic Scotland

I'm writing aboard a Virgin East Coast train from Edinburgh to London, UK after spending the past 10 days in Scotland. Mary Lou and I are vacationing with old friends, Frank and Laura Gresham, who approached us about this trip last summer. I had mixed feelings about the trip but traveling to my ancestral homeland appealed to me. What made me hesitant was the overstimulating pace of travel, the responsibility for my mother's estate hanging over my head, and ambivalence about being yoked to Laura Gresham, who has a good heart but an anxiety driven loquacity. I must concede Scotland is a beautiful country, albeit with a violent and tragic history. So far I've attempted little other than riding around on trains and busses admiring the buildings and landscapes from Edinburgh to Inverness to the Isle of Skye and over to the west coast at Inverary as well as points in between, lochs and glens, mountains and rivers. It's all documented in photos that look like oil paintings

on my Facebook page. We spend the next three nights in London prior to flying home on Sunday.

Apophatic and cataphatic theology

What I believe is closer to the apophatic than the cataphatic tradition. I would deny that the transcendent creator X can be described effectively in human language because human language attempts to limit the limitless, to concretize the transcendent. This puts me in the company of Tertullian, St. Cyril and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

I believe in X

I believe the universe must be the work of a transcendent creator. Otherwise, nothing should ever have been. The existence of this world is not rational, meaning it could not have brought itself into being ex nihilo. The conventional English expression would be "I believe in God." I don't, however, find the conventional expression satisfying because of the connotations attached to "God with a capital g." Perhaps I will point toward the creator with the symbol X (pronounced "capital x") to convey both the power and the mystery of this... whatever it is.

No religion can be ultimately correct at the expense of all others

Adherence to a religion is measured by a sincere belief in the definitive statements of that religion. Thus, the purported truth of a religion is expressed in human language, be it Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Pali, or Arabic. All of this presupposes that the ultimate object of worship (traditionally rendered in English as God with a capital G) created the universe with human beings as the center of meaning, that the Object communicates in human language and that the key statements may be understood unambiguously by humans. Aside from the unlikelihood that the entire universe is primarily about the human race, or that God would codify the most essential truth in a human language and, of the multiple versions people follow, only one is the correct one, the assumption that the statements of any religion are unambiguous and not subject to sincere differences of interpretation is clearly false. Therefore, we might as well quit trying to figure out the correct interpretation of statements in human language considered to be divinely inspired, much less which religion is the correct one. Where does that leave us? One possibility is that all religions point toward a transcendent truth and that striving to understand key religious statements may lead us to wisdom and understanding.