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slant wisdom meme

slant wisdom meme

Of woman born and formed to stride the waves
so rugged. Driven, chanced or fated, he
would find on naked shore his native babe.
What holy glue of youth’s passion in sweat
would bind two souls in clarifying Love?
What rights two hearts when wisdom they forget?
What laces him, dissolving push and shove,
in her — madcap gobbled, but now fully loved?
A worm he carried, house to newfound home.
When down it dug into her flesh it shoved
her underground. So he wept all alone
upon the virgin sands he’d made his own.

What crime is pacing this distant line of surf?
Kind joy melts meanness wherever it lurks,
but rash hands thoughtless leap past Love to love,
and men find always the violence they seek.
Look ye God, look please down from up above.
Please catch and burn that in us that’s cruel and weak
with the Love that chooses everyone
and works through ’til everything is done,
’til every mind heart and soul is won.

But never mind
Old alligator
Yellow eyes disappear
Again he slowly sinks
‘neath dark still waters,
too hungry to think
or feel. He will bother
us only so long as we believe he’s right —
that Love is less than love
and kindness a false and silly light

Hmmmmm

Is this any kind of a wisdom meme at all?
We have our doubts
and the ferryman shouts
come down to the dock
’tis but a short walk
to the other side
as now so low the tide
in no time I’ll take you home
where God with souls can roam
My body is a skeleton
but my heart beats true as ever
I’m sure you’ve felt me in
your bones when try you tell her
what you cannot say nor be
So come, sheathe your soul in me.

Author: Bartelby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andy Watson
Explanation: Little to none

home run

home run

Every weekend it is the same thing
Escape
Write the project that will spring you
from this pointless
chasing of your tail
around and around
exhausted
and
going nowhere

But the project isn’t just money
though there’s supposed to be
money
It is most of all supposed to be
fix yourself
help democracy think clearly and act wisely
set yourself and the world on the right track

A grand slam
A slam dunk
Wondrous salvation
Escape
from dukkha

What if instead of escaping suffering, discontent, loneliness, frustration, dissappointment, dissatisfaction, and other broken longings
you escaped attachment to your own longing?

The vague longing desires in all directions vaguely
You attach it to specific desires so you can pretend you can answer this vague never-ending ever-gnawing root desire
And on and on it drives you on

What if you accept that the vague longing is too vague to be resolved with any specific good?
Except you can’t help but note that an infinite longing could be adequately answered by an infinite satisfaction of the sort provided by infinite Love.
Or could it?
Infinite Love would overwhelm all longings, including the vague longing; It would make them seem like insignificant ripples in a deep abiding pool of calm kind cool-and-collected delight.

We have a problem
Every day we get up and say
oh please no
please not this
please
leave me alone
set me free
let me think
let me breath
let me be
Don’t hassle me
with pressures
that have nothing
to do with me
Don’ pester me
with catastrophes
that I never even
needed to know about

What does God think?
What should we do?

And the country seems to fall apart at the seams
And the Hurt scoops us out from the inside out as if with a dirty jagged ice cream scooper
And we feel
like failures
lost causes
jokes on the water
floaters in the toilet
troublesome flies that’d be swatted were it worth the effort, and will be, if we stumble into the potato salad, thus making our swatting worth the effort

Why are we here?
What should we do?

….

I have this great idea
Swallow this poison
And seal off all exits
Let the poison spread deep and wide
Let it grow with you
Until you can’t say
what is you
and what is the invading evil

Then all you need to do
is dig down
into your pit
face the poison
resolve the Hurt
untie the knots
release the broken soul
And let the Light do the rest

Don’t you see?
I’m helping you
I’m giving you a gateway
to great enlightenment
All you need to do
is not choke on the gift
How hard can that be?

….

What is the freedom poem?
What is the magic song
that lets us live and stops us dying
our every day away?

Where is the freedom poem
that rings from crest to crest
And echoes through the valleys rough
with scratches in the dirt wood and stone?

….

I can hit a home run
I can knock it out the park
I can fix everything
with one perfect touch

….

A wisdom meme
is an irresistible formulation
of Something Deeperism:
A continuous self-critiquing & -improving
organization of one’s feeling/thinking/acting around
and a
poetic (not literal, but still meaningful and essentially True) interpretation of
Pure Love —
Infinite kind delight / Joy in suffering-with while giving always more and more wondrously

The wisdom meme
will make both individual enlightenment and shared wisdom
impossible to dodge

So beautiful will that meme be!

A home run
is a wisdom meme
that lasts forever
but
I still want my baby
And our nice little life
by the seashore
safe and sound
And I want the Hurt
to leave me alone

Salvation does not guarantee
a happy home
or
the end of swallowed evils

Salvation guarantees not happiness, but joy
Salvation brings only itself
It will be
what is best for everyone
in the circumstances it finds

A home run
includes movie rights
and your soft hand on my taut belly, telling me I’m
safe, loved, appreciated, home
Salvation
includes only Love,
and its proper consumption, use, and realization

….

Where to now,
Jesus & The Saints
?
What’s the way forward,
Buddha & The Sangha
?
What’s a man to do,
baby girl and my reason for living?

These cords wrapped rough around your neck
they remind me of old twisted roots swerving out
like shoulder blades in the dusty summer earth

Long ago along the wharf walked wailers under oil
A barrel burdened on bent back, leaning to the toil.
What whale had hurt and spun in rage within a salted water
that men might stand in dignity before their wives and daughters?

Was I wrong to be what I was when young and supply strong?
Now a softly mounting self-collecting python fat and long
becomes a pillar in my innards, claiming all my space its own.
That’s what I was asking for. That you would take me home
Free me from these evil errors that never leave one alone.

….

When Master John impaled young Walter Jones
upon a flattened dusty basement shag
The boy fought but lost to the alter stone.
So hide you a while in yourself gagged.
When Walter Jones grew up a man at last
he laughed and drank and twirled with witty words,
forgetful the sacrificial past.
But all he’d ever known, felt, seen or heard
as mist spread through the space he called
himself. And wetter darker stormier
it grew writhed cut. From inside out it mauled.
Would shut him down as he’d feel more for her —
whoever he longed to be a man for.
Now how to let love in? To ope wide the door?
I see him clutching dagger cross-legged nights
stooped over the killing stone.
I hear him blather sacrificial rites
to no one, pretending he’s not alone.
It’s a sticky predicament. What God
would sully Godself on such sordid stuff?
The problem is old. The danger still odd.
Through wood and rock, the valley jostles rough.
He prays for his woman while preying on
a dream of her who’d sanctify his song
his song so creaky broken cruel and wrong
obscuring a heart that stays oddly the same as ever
Another tadpole sloshed by God and/or the weather.

….

Much we tried; all manner of art and trade plied
to be our magic selves.

Author: BW
Editor: AW
Copyright: AM Watson

What is Love #1

What is Love #1

What is love?
What kind of joy
I’m searching at
What kindness will
bring me there?

Who is around,
What is within,
The angels they
Cannot say.
A cold fogs in,
settles down
Mists on out.

Sunlight shouts
Through our haze,
beach burns clear
Water sparkles
impossibly,
lapping happy
Skipping free
from side to side.

I’m just a man,
I’m but a boy,
I’d be a friend
I ask your heart:
speak now with me,
Sing for us please
Tell us all please
Where we could stay.

We cry like gulls
Adrift on a draft
Held up aloft
Caught in the sky
Waiting to see
What is right
For you and me.

AMW/BW

A New, Improved Manhattan Project: Pt 1: Preliminary Worries

A New, Improved Manhattan Project: Pt 1: Preliminary Worries

[Anti-Weapon / New Manhattan Project]

I live in the world. I worry. Won’t it just have to go off the rails? Nuclear war still clearly a threat; nuclear terrorism now clearly a threat. Antibiotic resistant bugs still being carefully crafted by reckless agricultural practices. Strange rumors of cracking ice and swirling storms. Prison industries profiting while perfectly good people get thrown away. “Race” and other tired old delusions still keeping us from being ourselves and meeting one another for real. And so on.

And look how the United States lost its shit after 9-11. Plus the corrupting influence of money and advertising in the US election cycle coupled with gerrymandering moderates out of the House while everyone tucks into their private media sources for a dose of agreement and amplification in the echo chamber: the politicians become more and more beholden to a few while the many become more and more divided over the glory of their good-good wisdom and the horror of their neighbor’s evil-evil stupidity.

How worrisome!

And yet here on the ground floor of the US, we mostly go on our merry way. It is fun. We like the sunlight and enjoy chatting with friends, family, and acquaintances. We slip into comfy beds with our lovers; we stroller our kids around vibrant, bustling streets, full of life and fun. We have to go to work but not all the time and there’s opportunities to find more congenial, more rewarding work.

[Editor’s Note: This essay was written in the late Summer of 2017 in Brooklyn, NY, USA, Planet Earth, Nondescript Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.]

Meanwhile some groups tell us they very much plan on killing a bunch of us — hard to say how many: 30, 300, a few metro-areas’ worth, the more the better — and get the rest of us to discombobule and blow our hand. The freedom to speak your mind and a safe, orderly setting with a functioning government are wonderful and they are still ours to watch fade on out.

In a representative Democracy the citizens must serve as a final check on corruption and idiocy in the political class. We are not doing a very good job of fulfilling our basic duty, which is to together guard against political corruption, meanness, and other obvious idiocies. The rich feed television to the poor; and judgment’s a storm gathering a thousand miles — the relatively young Leonard Cohen might yet be wrong, but the route oute is difficult to discern.

When a major city is destroyed by a nuclear bomb or everyone at the President’s congressional address is killed(A Worrier’s Suggestion), or even when the citizenry notices that such darkdooms are not necessarily a priori impossibilities, the citizens need most of all to stay calm and resolute. They need to work together to make sure that they keep first things first: yes, immediate safety and order are extremely important, but the very most important thing is that we hold these truths to be self evident:

That all people are created equal and are endowed by the Light within with the right and duty to live well (clearly, honestly, fully, joyfully, creatively, beautifully, kindly) and justly (honestly and impartially, with respect and kindness towards all).

[Some Philosophizing moved to Outtakes!]

I am worried that we lack the shared clarity and purpose required to pull it together and put clear competent kindness first when faced by something awful — or maybe even when merely faced by something that particularly reminds us of awfulness.

I am concerned. But what can I do?, that’s what I’d like to know. Or rather: what should I do, and am I allowed to go take a walk?

Authors: Proposers

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And of that lot, A Readable Reader has a selection of the most readable ones.

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[Anti-Weapon / New Manhattan Project]

[NYC Journal – Politics Page]

[Something Deeperism Institute]

[NYC Journal]

From Before:

I live in the world. I worry. Won’t it just have to go off the rails? Nuclear war still clearly a threat; nuclear terrorism now clearly a threat. Antibiotic resistance bugs still being carefully crafted by reckless agricultural practices. Strange rumors of cracking ice and swirling storms. And so on.

And look how the United States lost its shit after 9-11. Plus the corrupting influence of money and advertising in the US election cycle coupled with everyone tucking into their private media sources for a dose of agreement and amplification in the echo chamber: the politicians become more and more beholden to a few while the many become more and more divided over the glory of their good-good wisdom and the horror of their neighbor’s evil-evil stupidity.

How worrisome!

And yet here on the ground floor of the US, we mostly go on our merry way. It is fun. We like the sunlight and enjoy meeting friends for a chat. We slip into comfy beds with our lovers; we stroller our kids around vibrant, bustling streets, full of life and fun. We have to go to work but not all the time and there’s opportunities to find more congenial, more rewarding work.

Meanwhile some groups tell us they very much plan on killing a bunch of us–hard to say how many: 30, 300, a city’s worth, the more the better–and get the rest of us to lose our shit and blow our hand. The freedom to speak your mind and a safe, an orderly setting with a functioning government are wonderful and they are still ours to watch fade on out.

In a representative Democracy the citizens must serve as a final check on corruption and idiocy in the political class. But we’re too busy playing policy expert with our chosen pundits and otherwise goofing off to focus on the task at hand; and we’ve been too completely lulled and badgered into writing the “other side” off as “hopeless” to work together as a nation: we are not doing a very good job of fulfilling our basic duty, which is to together guard against political corruption, meanness, and other obvious idiocies. The rich have their TVs in the bedrooms of the poor; and there’s a mighty judgement coming–the relatively young Leonard Cohen might yet be wrong, but the route oute is difficult to discern.

When a major city is destroyed by a nuclear bomb or everyone at the President’s congressional address is killed, the citizens need most of all to stay calm and resolute. They need to work together to make sure that they keep first things first: yes, immediate safety and order are important, but the very most important thing is that we hold these truths to be self evident:

That all people are created equal and are endowed by the Light within (deeper and wider than any concept or feeling, though some concepts point better towards it than others–here I picked “the Light within” because because and sometimes we mention “love” with a similar argument) with the right and duty to live well (fully, joyfully, creatively, beautifully, kindly) but also justly (justice = no shortchanging souls in order to achieve your goals; aka: your goals can’t forget that you and other people are full, complete humans; aka: beneath every goal must be the deeper goal: that the Light in our centers bursts evermore through the rags and we all move more and more for real).

We know that sense-of-things deeper and more fundamentally than any doubts we may conjure against it or any dogmas we might use to justify ignoring or co-opting and betraying it. It is a good idea; it is our idea. This idea informs us that we can and should work together to make this democracy of the people, for the people, by the people be just and kind to all the people in this land and the world.

I am worried that we lack the clarity and shared purpose required to pull it together and put joyful-justice/just-joyfulness first when faced by something awful–or maybe even when merely faced by something that particularly reminds us of awfulness.

I am concerned. But what can I do?, that’s what I’d like to know. Or rather: what should I do, and am I allowed to go take a walk?

Authors: BW, AMW

…..

What is this?
A three essay series called “A New, Improved Manhattan Project”
Part 1: Preliminary Worries
Pt. 2: The Proposal
Pt. 3: Some Tips for the Geniuses

Whatever happened to selling evolving ebooks on the world-wide web?
Well, nothing’s being posted, but the somewhat-begun books are still available:
Love at a Reasonable Price are listed and linked-to here:
Intro to Love at a Reasonable Price
Intro to Diary of an Adamant Lover for sale here:
Buy the Books

We also are still selling cat totes and epistemologically controversial baby onsies:
Buy Cat Totes!
&/or Objectively Cute Baby Onepieces! (advertised here: An ad for an “Objectively Cute” baby wrap

But what are we really up to?
I dunno, Bartleby and Andy are writing something once in a while and then sometimes going back and editing things. I think they’ll go back to the ebooks before too long. We’ll see.