Like these at the Climate Camp in Edinburgh last weekend….
Real hearts and minds stuff
Well, this blog can think of a lot of names for them but anarchists they are not….
As Old Holborn helpfully pointed out to a Climate Camper yesterday….
Hat tip, Captain Ranty.
10 days in Búzios. Nice.
Ah well, back to reality.
Why capitalism and libertarian conservatism are better than socialism….
….called self improvement gurus?
They don’t improve themselves. They improve other people.
So they should actually be referred to as other people improvement gurus.
That is all.
Among the many acquaintances I have been unfortunate enough to accumulate during my half century on this goodly frame, perhaps one of the least attractive and most infuriating is Topflight. So named because, as students, we used to consume large quantities of barbiturates and amphetamine sulphate in his draughty top floor studio/garret in York, Topflight is a remarkable creation.
He has the hide of a rhinoceros, the intellect of a shrub and writing skills well below the sub-Dan Brown standard, which, down the years, he has managed to combine with an acquired pretentiousness into possibly one of the most repulsive personalities I have ever encountered.
He sent me a poem about three weeks ago….
Another one by myself … wouldn’t say its poetry really, but here goes ….
It
Like the smell of anticipated rain, the waiting for tomorrow, yes, even like the come and go of seasons, my mind sets sail every day, into the great unknown of some possible showdown with myself.
Sooner rather than later, myself forces us into existence and recognition. We become this unit of indestructability to which undue credit has been given way back when surrogate minds were still in fashion and craved for.
Whoever would want a surrogate mind, and for whatever reason?
Society has inflicted unto us the need to be defined, and the need not to, simultaneously.
An autocracy that developed and appeared, rather than replaced some stable democracy of solitude.
Amidst all these attempts of life to define us into some sort of compromise between yesterday and what we need to decide upon tomorrow, lie the moments with which we are confronted every moment. It is these moments, which, eventually and unmistakably, whether we like it or not, make us who and what we are.
Continuous perceptions that eventually breads opinion. Opinion emancipated to a lifestyle of some resemblance to thoughts once part of our global perception of what life should be or have been at some point in time. Faded memoirs of defining moments are referred to every now and then. The reference sometimes for literature value and sometimes historical value. Yet it has such a big influence on future reasoning and minimize the occurrence of defining moments. Have we learned, or are we scared of such moments? Are they definitive in their own sense now? Is purity misconstrued as innocence sometimes? The two are so different. One being a state of mind reached through the assistance of defining moments and the other a state of mind until terminated by a defining moment. The one has the ability to be reinstated, and the other is lost forever when terminated. In both, choice plays a defining role. While acquittal from impurity is possible, there exists no such luxury for the loss of innocence.
What? You “wouldn’t say it’s poetry really”? I’m not even convinced it’s English.
Why does he send me this stuff? Why, on the rare occasions that we meet, does he not take the hint from my clenched teeth, monsyllabic responses and lack of eye contact? Can he not see that a mere glimpse of that smug, simian grin makes me want to alter his features with a cudgel?
Robert Frost once described poetry as what gets lost in translation. Well try extracting the poetry out of that lot. But have a care; you will almost certainly be taking the first steps on a one way trip to the funny farm.
Topflight is one very good reason why I have never had, and have no intention of ever having friends.
recent lies and distortions