Military Mind & What Matters

August 27, 2021August 27, 2021 ~ cafebedouin

Weird episode of the day. I walk most places. I walk to the grocery store. It’s just over 2 miles from where I live. Because it is a ways, I bring my military sea bag, so I can carry all the groceries back home.

I’m walking away from the grocery store, and someone behind me starts yelling, “I can’t take it anymore. Give me a gun. It’s so hot. I hate it. I’m going to shoot myself in the head.” I’m used to cities. So, i tend to ignore weird outbursts, even if I’m currently in a small town of less than 100,000. But, a couple of thoughts did occur to me.

I wonder if the military-style sea bag served as a visual trigger. He seemed to be suggesting that he’d enlist or something.
If it is the heat, it was only like 90F. If your worst problem is that it’s hot at that level, you’re probably doing alright. Besides, buck-up. You only have to wait a month or two and things will change.
It reminded me of one of the military trainings I went through where they were fond of saying, “Mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”
Was this some kind of performative effort? Are we so preoccupied with making a spectacle of ourselves that we declare that we are going to kill ourselves, over the heat, to get attention?

I don’t know what to make of it, on reflection. I discount that any of it is real, out of hand. Even if it were real, I’m not the person to help someone in that kind of crisis. But, I do worry that my whole environment is crying wolf all the time, and I’ve become desensitized to real cries of pain. However, I’m positive this one wasn’t one. But, what if the next one is and I no longer can even entertain the possibility it’s real?

The Primary Human Problem

June 16, 2020August 30, 2020 ~ cafebedouin

Note: This is why I published the Zuihitsu post yesterday. Trying to pack these ideas into a coherent essay is something I’m going to have to work on before it takes on a useful shape.

At the center of human problems are two facts:

Most people are good.
Most people are also self-centered, lazy and stubborn.

It’s difficult to think. It’s difficult to do the right thing, when it isn’t obvious. It’s difficult to be anything, when there is nothing to strive for.

What the world lacks in meaning, it makes up for in alienation. What cannot be understood is cursed with incomprehension. The incomprehensible is invisible, nonexistent. Our thoughts are abbreviated versions of the totality of our being.

But, our thoughts both rarely change and are constantly changing. Cycling through the well-worn pathways, but the routes are static, unchanging. Societies break these chains, evolve only as a function of generational replacement. New ideas gain currency as they are embraced by new generations creating new pathways. But, the new isn’t necessarily worse than the old. It’s just that no one is worse than the people we were yesterday, or the generation before.

No one wants advice. They want corraboration. Advice is useless. The wise won’t need it, and fools won’t heed it. And, even for the wise, when under stress, everyone will regress. Easier to judge, since changing patterns of thinking is difficult, and in the wrong light anyone can look like a villian. And, in the wrong environment, anyone can be the villian.

Look at the miscalculation. Mistakes are often as revealing as the answers. They reveal the limits and heirarchies of our social environment and of our vision, of what was and what could of been. But, who’s to blame?

If you are looking for absolution, you are going to have to forgive yourself. No one can do it for you. Sometimes, it’s impossible. There are some arenas so corrupt that the only good act is to burn them to the ground. Some problems require surgery. People are gods of ruins and disfigurement.

Find nourishment where you can. Tell the truth, without shame, with heart. Focus on nourishment over poison. Live on the precipice. You can still love something and see its flaws. You cannot dichotomize things that are deeply connected, and often, the flawed part is what makes love possible. It provides the vulnerability that leads to intimacy.

We are all here for our own reasons. What’s important is that we came.

cafebedouin.org: 2019 Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2020

December 31, 2019December 17, 2019 ~ cafebedouin

In 2019, I posted 931 entries, all post views were up to +14,000 views by +9,000 visitors to cafebedouin.org, roughly three times the level of last year. Most of the views are concentrated either on the main page or the most popular posts:

My favorite posts of the year:

In 2019, I went for a twice a day posting schedule that expanded to three times a day mid-year as I incorporated a review of my photo archive. Frankly, this is a brutal posting schedule. I could probably do twice a day comfortably, but I think I’m going to focus a bit more on quality and only commit to doing a single post a day and maybe do something original once a week in the coming year.

I still would like to move to a format where half the posts are in a Foucault hupomnemata-style, i.e., “to capture the already-said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read, and for a purpose that is nothing less than the shaping of the self.” And I think some of the sources I have mentioned last year are still worth exploring:

I have been collecting rules and maxims for life over the last 1.5 years or so, and there are now over 400 of them. I could do a year just using these as writing prompts.
I still haven’t included very much material from the commonplace book I kept for years before starting cafebedouin.org. Adding in material from it with some reflection now that it has been several years might be interesting.
Open-ended stream-of-consciousness writing. However, it probably won’t be much fun to read. I beg your pardon.

Offline, I did Postcard Friday, on more of a monthly basis this year. And I think this was both good and something to do more of, perhaps with tie-in to the blog. Still thinking through how this might work, so maybe something for next year?

In short, expect some changes and fewer posts in the coming year.

cafebedouin.org: 2018 Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2019

December 31, 2018December 31, 2018 ~ cafebedouin

“In 2018, I would also like to get back to more original content. I’m thinking it would be good to post something original once a week, but spread it across different forms: poetry, essays, drawing, photography and so forth. Maybe also do more brief commentary of 250 words or less, sketches of story ideas or fragments, aphorisms, book reviews and the like. The goal still being to post something everyday, something that seems weird or interesting, just with some more originals.”

–cafebedouin.org: 2017 Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2018

I posted something every day in 2018. The top five posts were:

As of a few hours ago, cafebedouin.org had 3,314 views, 2,097 visitors, 522 likes and 36 comments in 2018. It seems like a lot for a little idiosyncratic personal blog that I never imagined anyone reading.

My favorite posts of the year were:

Mutantis Mutandis: probably my weirdest poem yet
Happy Father’s Day
Anonymous Sessions on 3:AM Magazine: found the whole series fascinating
Zenosyne: The Sense That Time Keeps Going Faster

I think I did more original content in 2018 over 2017. Still, I’d like to do more.

So, I’m going to go with a twice a day posting schedule for 2019. In the mornings, it’ll continue as before with links to articles and websites with quotes and maybe some commentary. I often schedule these posts a week or more in advance. I’ll also keep Sunday reserved for music (or visual media) I’ve been listening to recently or find interesting for one reason or another.

In the evenings, the posts will be a Foucault-style hupomnemata, i.e., “to capture the already-said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read, and for a purpose that is nothing less than the shaping of the self.”

I once read of the process of the French essayist, Alain, who set out two pieces of paper, kept a quote or topic in mind, and then wrote until the pages were filled. He did not edit, and the results—such as his book, Alain on Happiness—explore ideas with immediacy and occasional brilliance. Of course, this approach can also be repetitive, but the repetition can help bring out different facets of an idea.

I’m no Alain. But, then again, Alain wasn’t Alain at first either. Maybe Foucault is right that the writing process itself can be transformative.

So, mornings are for exploration of the new. Evenings are for synthesis, bringing the unknown into the known. This is the initial idea, at any rate.

Possible fodder for evening posts:

I have been collecting rules and maxims for life over the last six months or so, and I was thinking of doing a once a week series with that focus.
I still haven’t included any material from the commonplace book I kept for years before starting cafebedouin.org. Adding in material from it with some reflection now that it has been several years might be interesting.
It might also be worth doing open-ended stream-of-consciousness writing. However, it probably won’t be much fun to read. I beg your pardon.

The main goal is to keep evening posts short, immediate, and to keep the editing filter in check and see what materializes.

Also, I’m also thinking of trying to do some watercolor in the coming year. It might work as part of the Postcard Friday I mentioned in my year in review as a possibility for 2019. Adding a photo of my attempts might also make it as an evening post.

In short, expect some changes and more posts in the coming year.