Tag Archives: psychology

Hydrox: “So why can’t I hear Old Sol talking?”

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Hydrox: We pray him up every morning, pray him down evenings.  I hear one end of all these conversations you have with him, but I never hear Old Sol saying anything.

Me:  Once again, it’s your romantic mode of viewing reality.  You’re only sensing what’s immediately apparent, not seeing the underlying form.

Hydrox:  I have to see the underlying form to hear what Old Sol says?

Me:  Think of it this way.  You look across the meadow and see trees with birds in them.  And an inch in front of your eyes you see a grasshopper.  You have an a priori knowledge the movement of those birds and that grasshopper jumping are happening at the same time.  But they aren’t.  What your eyes tell you is now is a microsecond earlier for the birds than the grasshopper because of the speed of light reflecting off both, arriving at your eye simultaneously.

Hydrox:  You’ve lost me.

Me:  Your mind filters what it sees with a priori knowledge.  You can’t hear Old Sol talking because you have romantic, a priori knowledge Old Sol doesn’t speak.  You’re not able to sense the underlying form.  It’s the same reason the people who read this blog wouldn’t be able to hear you talk, can’t hear cats talk.

Hydrox:  Well I’ll be damned.

Me:  Think of it.  People in the Bible used to hear God talk.  Adam and Eve, Abraham, Job, Moses, they were hearing in the Classical mode of reality.  Underlying form.   They can’t hear God speak anymore because they’ve gone by necessity into the Romantic mode.  Their minds filter out what God says, because in the modern world if they allowed themselves to hear the kinds of things God said they’d get themselves into a pile of trouble.

Hydrox:  How do you mean that?  People hear God talking all the time.

Me:  Only when God says things they won’t get in trouble hearing and obeying.  God might be telling people all over the place they have to sacrifice their kids, the same way he told that to Abraham.  But you can’t go around hearing God telling you to kill your kids, nor anyone else the way God used to do.  Telling people to smite other people hip and thigh.  Stone them to death if they screw around, masturbate, don’t follow the rules.  People today who hear God telling them to do things of that nature are generally believed to be insane.  Especially if they go ahead and do it.

Hydrox:  So if I can rid myself of this stupid, romantic way of looking at reality I’ll be able to hear what Old Sol’s saying?”

Me:  Yeah, but you’ll need to keep it to yourself or people will think you’re crazy.

Old Jules

Scientists are going to have to do something about this

Hi readers.  I don’t know whether you’ve heard about this yet, or not, so I’ll fill you in.

The creatures on Zeta Trianguli Australis, HR3384, HR1925, Beta Trianguli Australis, 85 Pegasi, and Rho¹ Cancri are all really pissed off about how this Vietnam war just goes on and on.  They’re all around 40 light years away, so the news on earth is a bit slow reaching them, but that ain’t their problem.   That’s the problem created by earth scientists with their dumbass speed limits on radio and light waves.

Fact is, they’ve got creatures taking to the streets rioting about that war.  Religious types setting themselves afire in protest.  National Guardsmen on Pegasi who support the war even fired laser rifles at a bunch of college kids.

But that ain’t the worst of it.  On Zeta Trianguli they’re all stirred up about President Richard Nixon and all the stuff he’s doing to get re-elected.  Heck, they want the President of the US impeached!

What’s so terrible about it all is that creatures on some nearer locations are getting exercised about the Iran hostage crisis, thinking Jimmy Carter needs to do something about it.  And down the road a little way they’re celebrating Ronald Reagan getting elected.

A bit closer in, those monster-looking creatures aren’t anywhere nearly so happy though, as the ones still dancing in the streets about Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down de-regulation policies and his proposals to sell off all the National Forests and BLM lands to real estate developers.  Busting up the Air Traffic Controller Union.

No, those closer garden-slug-things with 16 eyes already went through that and it’s old news.  For them it’s Bill Clinton using the CIA to bring hard drugs into a Federal airstrip in Arkansas, getting into all manner of real estate fraud scandals, and messing up the clothing of some White House clerk-typist.

There are insectoids fairly put out by that second Bush.  And even though they’re fairly up-to-date, the intelligent grapevines on Alpha Centauri are fairly hacked about the wossname, BLM oil spill and this guy in the White House now.

I think you can see how this thing amounts to a crisis, and how the only people who can deal with it are the same people who created it.  Scientists.  Getting laws passed about how fast light and radio waves can travel.

That’s going to have to be changed.  Get everyone singing from the same songbook.

But while we’re at it we probably ought to end the Vietnam War and get Tricky Dixon out of the White House.

Old Jules

Old Sol’s Flipping Magnetic Field Crisis

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

The Sun’s Magnetic Field is about to Flip

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/05aug_fieldflip/

http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2013/08/06/splash3.jpg

So here we are again, human beings screwing things up from hell to breakfast in the solar system.  Back a few decades ago before anyone had ever noticed the polarity of the sun reverses itself every eleven years [it’s assumed, because we donealready saw it happen three times already] nobody realized how badly human beings were messing things up.

This polarity reversal seems to correspond to Jupiter being at a particular place in its orbit, similar to the sun spot cycle doing it roughly then, also.  Pure coincidence.

The reality is that human beings are creating too much various stuff in their lifestyles and some laws are going to have to be passed to keep this sort of thing from happening.  Won’t be anytime at all before the academians calling themselves scientists will be lining up for grants to study it all and make recommendations about what laws need passing.

Because those solar reversals are just another sign that man needs to mend his ways.

I consulted Old Sol about it while we were praying him up this morning, but He seemed to have a cold, runny nose or some such thing.  Kept sort of sneezing I reckons, making funny noises.

Guess he didn’t want to talk about it.  Probably something personal.

Old Jules

Zen etc, Persig – The Phaedrus Chatauqua – Classical and Romantic Reality

Persig’s decided to do his Chatauqua on Phaedrus.  Begins by explaining how Phaedrus saw the world in a classical reality form, explains the difference between those two ways of approaching reality.

Hydrox:  So what’s the Classical reality way of viewing cat food?  Are we cats viewing the Romantic way, or the Classical way?

Me:  Romantic.  No question about it, no compromise, even.  The Classical’s the underlying form.  The components that make up the food, the nutritional value.  The process that went into canning it.  You cats couldn’t care less about that.  Taste and odor are the immediately apparent form, the Romantic.  They’re all you care about.

Hydrox:   I like to eat the insides out of things I catch.  Leave the head and sometimes tail and legs.  I like the underlying form best.

Me:  Actually not.  If you were opening that mouse and looking at the way the digestive tract works, the circulatory system, the nerves, lungs, then you’d be getting into Classical form.  You aren’t looking at underlying function even though it’s inside.  You’re after taste, odor and texture.  There are no goods, no bads in the Classical form. No feelings.  Those are all Romantic form.

Hydrox Okay.  But you’re saying this Phaedrus guy was only interested in underlying form?  Classical form?  Is that why he was crazy?

Me:  Not really, but we’ll get into that.  Crazy doesn’t seem to confine itself to one form or another.    And the reasons Phaedrus had his insanity are a lot deeper than that.   More in the manner of the way he broke the world down to analyse it than in the form itself.

Niaid:  Off the subject, but wasn’t the kid here in the story killed in a driveby shooting a few years ago?  A long time after this story.

Me:  Yeah, he was.  Before you cats were even born.  Before Persig wrote Lila, too.

Tabby:  So are we supposed to keep that in mind while we’re doing this?  That this kid’s going to end up dead in a driveby shooting?

Me:  Not if you can keep from it, though it’s not easy to keep it separate.  What happened to that kid later on didn’t have anything to do with Phaedrus, and the way you’ll be thinking about him is Romantic.  Feelings.

Old Jules

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Hi Readers. Thanks for coming by.

Perzig’s first book jumped out at me a week-or-so ago out of a box I was packing.  Demanded I go through it yet another time this lifetime.  Which is never a job of work I take lightly.

Decided as I study on it I’d discuss it with the cats when I come to particularly studious parts.  If it seems appropriate I might share some of those discussions with you along the way.  For instance, last night he and his son, along with another couple have progressed to a camp site.  The son’s troubling him a fair amount, but Phaedrus, shadow figure of his past insanity is also peeking into the corners of his mind.

Hydrox:  What does he mean when he says, “Ghosts come back when a person hasn’t been properly buried?  Is he talking about, say, the ghost of all those chickens I keep seeing around here sometimes?”

Me:  Maybe he’s talking about that, partly.  Those chickens aren’t necessarily dead, so far as we know.  And I definitely think that’s a piece of what he’s talking about.  People lost to our lives, but without closure.  But there’s also Mehitabel.  She stayed on permanent mouse patrol all these years.  Never was properly buried.

Hydrox:  Mehitabel?  I’ve just about gotten so I don’t see her anymore.  Thanks goodness.

Niaid:  Wish you hadn’t brought her up.  Gives me the willies.

Me:  The longer we live the more ghosts we tend to accumulate, all those not-properly buried ones who passed through our lives.

Tabby:  Any chance we could bury Shiva?

Me:  You figure she’s gotten around to burying you?

Old Jules

Fixer Upper For Sale – Harper, Texas

Stand with Israel harper tx

And a big Texas ‘Howdy!”

Old Jules

Tranquility Island, Kerrville, Texas – “Eh, Grasshopper:”

Tranquility Island Kerrville Texas

“Yes, Sensei?”

Old Jules

Hermits, misers and short-term memory

Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Last night I found myself with my two wallets out, the one where I keep $100s and $50s, counting them carefully, and the one where I keep $20s, $10s, $5s and $1s, adding them all up.  [I keep them in two different wallets so’s I can’t accidentally hand a store clerk a large bill thinking it’s a small one, can’t lose the big bill wallet and hit rock bottom between two breaths].

After carefully counting it all out, got the map, the calculator, re-figured the gas mileage averages per gallon I’ve been getting on the RV, the distances between places I might drive to, and the cost in fuel if nothing else goes wrong.

After I’d figured and re-figured all that a few times I went in to the cabin and began unloading boxes of books I’d packed to carry into town to donate to thrift stores, opening each one and fanning the pages.  Just to make sure.  [A few weeks ago I’d found a $100 in one I must have stashed in there sometime when I had an extra and wanted to put it aside for a rainy day.]

Found a couple of books I want to read again before disposing of them, but not one $100 bill.  So I went around looking at things and other hidey holes where I might have stashed bills so’s I wouldn’t spend them, then forgot.  Checking the pockets of blue jeans, coats and jackets, taking the lids off button jars and pill bottles looking inside, moving the buttons pills etc, in case I’d shoved a bill down inside out of sight.

Got me thinking how damned sick this whole money thing is.  I remembered for the first time in 40-50 years a book, My Brother’s Keeper, I read as a youngster and was impressed enough to have it stamped on my memory.  About some old guy must have been a lot like me.  And remembering all the fictional misers stereotyped in books I’ve read over the decades.

Guys who died and people disposing of their belongings coming across pillows, mattresses, loose floor boards, with gobs of money.  While the guy half-starved.  Hell, maybe they forgot they had it.

Got me wondering if maybe I’ve got a stash around here full of $100s and ain’t remembering I’ve got it. 

Maybe it’s time I went out into the meadow and dug some holes, crawled down underneath the cabin to check out the floor joists, the piers and beams for money I hid.  I doubt I’d have done that, though.  After the packrats shredded all my retirement money I had hidden under a floor joist in the Y2K cabin, I like to think I learned a lesson.

So where the hell DID I put all the money I must have stashed around here over the past few years and forgot?

Sicksicksick. 

Old Jules

Afterthought: It’s no damned wonder so many people who are actually rich are so preoccupied with getting richer.  They’re probably forgotting they’re already rich.  Or can’t remember where their money is.

1965 Time Machine – The Cat-People Vote

Hydrox:  Don’t even think about this Edgewood, New Dawn crap. 

Me:  What?  You cat-people don’t like the mountains?

Hydrox:  We cat-people don’t like anachronisms.  We don’t trust them.  They let their dogs run loose.  They lie around smoking dope waiting for the uniforms to show up and confiscate everything, haul everyone off to the slammer.

Me:  We’re talking about the EAST mountains, Hydrox.  If they’re paying off the right people it doesn’t matter what they’re doing out there.  Besides, they’re looking for people willing to work.

Hydrox:  Yeah, but work doing what?  Breaking Ephedrin caps out of packages?  Stirring up the mix to dissolve it?  Watching the acetone mist boil over the sides?  Watching the crystal iodine vapor turn your whiskers purple?

Me:  No, Hydrox.  You’ve got it all wrong.  These people are into sweetness and light.  Harmonizing with nature.  Working to build a new world.  A community.

Hydrox:  I’m betting pit bulls checking the fenceline and a National Guard Armory in the barn.

Me:  I don’t know how you got so cynical. 

Hydrox:  I was living with you 2002, 2003, 2004.  So was Niaid.  Those East Mountainers made an impression old cats aren’t likely to forget.

Me:  You’re too suspicious.    Free place to park the RV, mountains, pinons and pines.  Idealistic young people.

Hydrox:  If your good sense about the rest didn’t raise your hackles enough to tell you it’s a snakepit, the idealistic young people ought to do the job.

Me:  Hmmmm.  Yeah, idealistic young people’s where you make your strongest point.  Actually they probably do have a meth lab out there.   Or will have.  How the hell could they not? 

Hydrox:  Pit bulls running around loose looking for a free lunch. 

Me:  So you’re thinking Gila?  Mimbres? 

Hydrox:  I’m thinking anywhere but the East Mountains.  Mosquero if it comes to it.  Albuquerque’s a nice place to visit.  Wouldn’t mind seeing Amy again, see how those two Chinese girls she adopted are growing up.  But you’re too old and we cats are too old to be getting involved with East Mountain people.

Me:  I hate to see you generalizing, stereotyping. 

Hydrox:  I hate to see you not using that big brain you’re stuck with.  Hell, if it weren’t for us cats you’d probably be living under a bridge.

Me:  [Sigh] I’ve got you, babe. 

Old Jules

Texas Gals Kick Ass

Tastefully tattooed on the inside of the thigh of the Goldilox behind me in line at Walmart.  She saw me trying to read it and lifted her leg to make it easier.  “Awsome?”

I’ve seen worse.”  I was a lot younger and mostly drunk, but a number worse ones still came to mind.

She frowned at meand I squinted my brain trying to figure out just what the hell “Texas Gals Kick Ass” could be intended to communicate to readers.  Luckily the cashier interrupted.  “You want the two-year return plan for $5 more?”

Me grabbing for straws welcoming any distraction, “Yeah.  Sure.”

A person gets a statement tattooed anywhere there’s bound to be meaning hiding in it.  Something intended to happen in the mind of the person who sees it.  From now until she’s my age.

Hell, maybe she’s into Kung Fu, or plays soccor.  Maybe she’s a wild-burro rider on the rodeo circuit.  I was surprised by the ‘gals’ part… wasn’t my impression young women today would sit still for being called gals. 

The ‘Texas’ part?  I count it a relief.

I honestly don’t like to think about gals outside Texas going around kicking ass, or saying they do.  Thinking they do.

Not bad in the thigh department, though.

Old Jules