The Original Gold Second

"We speak of one thing being like some other thing when what we are really craving to do is to describe something that is like nothing on earth" (Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister)

Like. But isn't. Not exact, not the thing itself. Like.

How does one explain, give the meaning, not a mere semblance of the meaning? This is the ache and the yearning, the chain of being a human on earth. It's as if; like being a prisoner bolted to a cell with a heavy chain that allows one to get near the key, get near the door, nearly touch it....but not quite.

"Certain mind pictures have become so adulterated by the concept of 'time' that we have come to believe in the actual existence of a permanently moving bright fissure (the point of perception) between our retrospective eternity which we cannot recall and the prospective one which we cannot know. We are not really able to measure time because no gold second is kept in a case in Paris but, quite frankly, do you not imagine a length of several hours more exactly than a length of several miles?" (Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister)

There is no "gold second" to measure, although we do measure time with those adulterated "mind pictures." Somehow, we forget the meaning and imagery used to make meaning, which due to our forgetfulness look adulterated, unfamiliar. Because these pictures appear foreign to our present we say they are of another time. Why this is, I cannot tell.

When we read Shakespeare we must pull out our history and dictionary to understand what his meaning is....because the images, the likenesses have become adulterated. Would a gold second fade and disappear this way? Is it the gold second, the meanings that have faded, or is it us? Did someone drop the gold second and did the janitor sweep it under the display case? Are we reading backwards?

If time is moving forwards and our meaning, our images are only copies of other things; like something else that came before, then the future is only a copy of a copy of a copy, and so on. We are like wine that has been watered down, stretched out, and made clear.

Where is that original cask of wine, that golden first, and how good must it have been to have lasted all this while, after all of these adulterations?

Clippings and Letters

I have now been a week at salt water, & though I think I have got some good
by it yet I have some secret fears--that this business will be dangerous if not fatal.-- (Rabbie's letter to his father-in-law, James Armour, 10 July 1796)

"A newspaper clipping mentioned that the State Entomologist had retired to become Adviser on Shade Trees, and one wondered whether this was not some dainty oriental euphemism for death" (Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabokov)

And on the other side of these are moths and mothers.

"to pass from the comedy of thought to that of action"

In the summer I make hay while the sun shines, barely reading or writing, but always a tinge of guilt prods at me for leaving these muscles to atrophy.

In the fall, in the spring I read again, starting with Vladimir Nabokov. It has to be him because I am a thief, as he is, and before I can lift my own weight I must have another lift me for awhile. The proverbial Standing On The Shoulders of Giants.

I know that I am weak when I fall into the abyss of worldly waste, especially political props. Tyrants, despots, money managers, peddlers of fear and other unimaginative destroyers. Of course, these types fill the pages of history and literature, but it takes imagination to embellish them and make them into great literature, because, really, they are small and stunted.

And so, I have begun my autumn reading with a reread of Nabokov's Bend Sinister. I've barely made it across the bridge. I'm not sure I can make it to the end because it makes me cry and I despise the Toad. But I do so love Nabokov's generous embellishments of undeserving creatures, his gift.

And then, there is Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man, which all who love Nabokov should read. Especially, Chapter XIV "Worth the Consideration Of Those To Whom It May Prove Worth Considering."

The entirety of Chapter XIV is absolutely gorgeous and Nabokovian....but, how can this be? Nabokov was not even a glimmer in God's eye when Melville conceived this. Perhaps, Nabokov is Melvillian. Or perhaps, genius and creativity have a similar hue no matter the author.

Some quotes from Chapter XIV of The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville:

As the last chapter was begun with a reminder looking forwards, so the present must consist of one glancing backwards.

True, it must be urged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefully see to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully look for, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistency should be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonable enough, may upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does it couple with another requirement--equally insisted upon, perhaps--that, while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fiction based on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact, that, in real life, a consistent character is a rara avis?

If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of conception and those of life. As elsewhere, experience is the only guide here, but as no man can be coextensive with what is, it may be unwise in every case to rest upon it.

But let nature, to the perplexity of the naturalists, produce her duck-billed beavers as she may, lesser authors, some may hold, have no business to be perplexing readers with duck-billed characters.

But though there is a prejudice against inconsistent characters in books, yet the prejudice bears the other way, when what seemed at first their inconsistency, afterwards, by the skill of the writer, turns out to be their good keeping. The great masters excel in nothing so much as in this very particular. They challenge astonishment at the tangled web of some character, and then raise admiration still greater at their satisfactory unraveling of it; in this way throwing open, sometimes to the understanding of even school misses, the last complications of that spirit which is affirmed by its Creator to be fearfully and wonderfully made

Ah, I love it. Good literature always points the finger at me, poking and prodding, making me laugh and cry with pity. It makes me human again.

Monetized Man

Where shall I begin upon this muddled mess of tangled strings?

Back in 1951 the case of Willcock v. Muckle made it to the High Court of Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard [interesting name there, Lord Goddard] due to the fact that some time earlier Mr. Willcock had refused to show his national identification papers to Officer Muckle [also an interesting name].

By 1952 the National Registration Act, which had been passed in war time, was abolished, and the people of Britain were set free....for awhile.

"The National Registration Act was passed for security purposes, and not for the purposes for which, apparently, it is now sought to be used. To use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular purposes during war, in times when the war is past, except that technically as state of war exists, tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs" (Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard, emphasis added)

There are always those that say they don't mind intrusions of privacy, and added laws, and surveillance because they don't break the law or do anything wrong.

Obviously, these people aren't the brightest light bulbs, are a card short of a full deck, their elevator doesn't quite go to the top, and so on and so forth.

If a person is alive, breathes, and has warm blood running through their veins they are a criminal. Not one person exists upon this earth that is innocent of breaking the law. They are ignorant of the fact that they have broken a law and can claim innocence because they have not been caught by a person that does know the law.

I remember discussing this once while studying Uncle Tom's Cabin. The instructor thought it extremely important to point out the fact that the only reason escaped slave Eliza made it across the Ohio River was due to the help of an ignorant Kentuckian (evidently, Kentuckians weren't known for their knowledge of laws and were considered ignorant Americans).

If the Kentucky farmer (a slave owner, by the way) had been aware of the law and that it was illegal to help a slave escape he may not have helped Eliza. But he thought himself an innocent and law-abiding citizen, thus breaking the law and doing the right thing all at the same time. No one caught him breaking the law and he was able to return to being a lawful slave-owning Kentuckian.

Also, during the time of this discussion of laws, ignorance, and knowledge I studied one of the greatest books of all time (far superior and far smaller than that whale of a book, Moby Dick), The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville.

The Confidence-Man could have been written in a time like ours in which we classify people by their proof of identification. It brilliantly asks if a person is human, "authentic" without paper or others to vouch for them. Melville casts judgement upon those that trust paper over people. He also judges those that do or don't trust based upon stereotype, rather than taking risks and finding out for one's self the honesty or dishonesty of each person they meet along the river of life.

Yes, my route is a circuitous, but I'm getting nearer the top of the peak. It's a switchback and there are boulders falling in the way.... Onward!

At this time the world is in a post-Babel state. It is chaotic, confused, and dispersed. But the Corporations entangled with the Governments are fervently working on rectifying this situation, laying the foundation for restoring order, community, and one language. The giant Corporation-Government (Socialism) wants the nations enrolled in identification which will enable them to finish off that Tower project that was so rudely interrupted a few years ago.

Mankind must be numbered in order for this to take place. Already, we have been numbered. We are ranked with a credit score, each time we take a test at school, every time we have a birthday, each pay day, on our driver's license, and at census time. But these numbers are all fairly separate.

The Confidence Man has gotten our confidence, has us convinced that for our own safety and convenience a national identification and tracking card or chip which combines medical info, bank account, fraud prevention, proof of legal citizenship and whatever else is a good thing, a modern thing. All of this is grasping at bedpans(see last few pages of The Confidence-Man in which Melville elaborates upon the willingness of mankind to be conned by the sales pitch of false safety).

National Identification is the opposite of safe. And it will protect no one. It will create great disparity and inequality for mankind.

At this time, when one's account numbers and cards are stolen, it is possible to clear up the situation, although it can cause real devastation. But it is possible to disconnect from the problem.

When one's home is broken into and material possessions are stolen, again it is devastating, but the person can go on with their life because they are not the possession.

A National Identification card or chip will make a person equal the sum of their achievements and possessions, never able to free themselves from the burden of them.

According to earthly law the value of man is his health, good looks, education, achievements, all he owns, what he wears, and who he associates with. It's a point system. A National Identification card will number a man based upon these factors and many others, making each of us the commodity traded upon the stock market.

Rather than us spending and making cash, we will be the cash. We will be monetized. This is one reason we are moving towards a cashless society. We are merging with money, because as those witty writers of the 18th Century often told us, money is only as valuable as the person earning and spending it. Money has never been anything other than a physical tender of our own self (see Pamela, Anti-Pamela, Moll Flanders).

And so, tabulate the points and compare yourself with another person. Number their value and hold it against yours. Are they wealthier, do they own more property, are they healthier, are they more educated, are they younger, do they earn more? What is their number?

Will those with lower numbers ever be allowed to rise above the numbers assigned to them by mankind? Will those with a lower number be allowed to participate in society the same way as those with higher numbers? No.

If a human or a computer were to calculate the number of your name what would it be? Of course, it would be the number of a man.

We must not count the value of others. We must remember that our name is not a number and that we are not the sum of our closeness to perfection. We each are given a name.

Remember, as George Bailey noticed during the run on the bank in It's a Wonderful Life, "Potter's not selling! He's buying!"

The Governments and banks aren't crashing. They're cashing out the paper money and buying the only valuable thing on this planet -- mankind. What number brick will each of us be?

30 pieces of gold. The monetary value placed upon another. One became the first in a burial ground for those with no numbers to their name. One overcame the number and has an eternal name.

images: Louise Weiss Building, Seat of EU Parliament, Strasbourg; The Tower of Babel (1563), Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Older than the hills

"The child is the father of the man," a line from Wordsworth that has become a staple amongst Western literary quotations, and for good reason. It is so well said, so succinct, and so cyclical.

It is the spring board from which I will jump into some musing, observation, and opinion.

Wordsworth and his fellow poets of the Lake School were a band of Romantics, or as we would term them in more modern terms, "hippees." They wanted to get back to nature and enjoy free love away from industrial air. But the difference between them and our now aged hippees is that they really were creative, talented, and wise at times. They were quite industrious and have given generation to following generations, unlike the aged hippees who have often trampled upon the generations that followed them, or as Wordsworth put it:

Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
Like a false steward who hath much recieved
And renders nothing back (The Prelude)

How is it that the child is the father of the man? Obviously, because he came first, and without the child there would be no man. But perhaps, there is more to it, perhaps, we are looking at things with limited sight, through that dark glass.

The child really is the father of the man.

Why do we say, "when I was younger," when we refer to our self as we were many years before?

That "younger" self no longer exists except as a memory in the fabric of time, an image captured in our mind. That younger self is actually older than the present self.

Why is it that we as individual people were younger, but history as a whole is considered ancient and older? Was it not also younger, newer, more energetic and beautiful too?

Why when we look at pictures of us in our early days, do we say with surprise, "Look at how young and good-looking I was. Look, no gray, no wrinkles, no sagging, no added thickness! I had SO much energy back then. I had no worries. I had no money and barely ate (because I had no money)and everything I owned fit into a box. I was so happy!"?

But when we look at history (which resembles a younger person) we say, "They were unhappy, poor, uneducated barbarians. They didn't know any better. They had no manners, no baths, no hygiene, no electricity. They were slave owners, they were slaves. They thought the world was flat and that a god or gods had created them (imagine, not knowing it is monkeys that fathered us!), they sacrificed their babies to these gods thinking it would make life better. We are so much more advanced through science and now only kill babies to make their life better, because we're so caring...."

We sound like old people when we speak of the previous younger generations this way. Turn that music down!

Isn't this how people often speak of younger adults? When speaking of the younger people it is often said that they possess the same uncouth attributes as the earth's inhabitants when they were hundreds and thousands of years younger.

I have often thought in recent months that we have become very old and that it is no longer the next generation setting the standard by which we live. It is the aging generations, those in their 40's, and especially those in their 50's and 60's that dictate the rules, that grasp onto their belief that their way is the right way.

One of the hints showing our old age is color.

In times past it has been the unwrinkled ones that chose color palettes and decor tastes. Color, like music, can be considered too loud for aging individuals, causing them to feel nervous, tense, or offended.

Newer generations have always loved color and combining it in new ways that define their generation and outlook on the world. Color is a way of expressing one's self.

Now color is being repressed by the aged among us, as many other forms of expression and freedom are also being repressed.

I discovered this killing of color when looking into the world of the past. I was looking at vinyl composition tile (VCT) and could not find anyone using it outside of offices, hospitals, and grocery stores. VCT tile is now considered taboo for home flooring, not rich enough.

But when youthful people set the rules VCT tile was in nearly every home and in nearly every color. Younger people and families don't generally have a lot of money, but this did not prevent them from setting the standard of middle class living through the first half or so of the 20th century.

I looked at picture after picture of VCT tile advertising from the 1920's through the first part of the 1960's and found my heart racing with the discovery of wonderful color. It was as if an entire world was opened up to me. And then I felt a bit cheated out of this knowledge that has been suppressed in the limited time I live in.

I felt old, as if my entire world was ruled by the rules of the old.

Color is life, joy, freedom, creativity, and youth. Not sedate, aged, and offensive.

The advertising of the young in comparison with the real estate of the current time is stark. The current colors to emulate are dead browns, grays, whites, mute greens, and more browns. These are the colors of winter when no snow has fallen and the blue sky does not shine through the haze. Why is November's winter and fall overriding crisp, biting winter, spring, and summer?

Previous generations would have chosen rich browns over dull brown, and spiked it with brilliant royal red, bright greens, pink, or teal. Gray would have been paired with yellow, red, purple, and jewelled emerald. Pink paired with turquoise was not tacky.

Are we in the winter of our life?

Our global worries are the worries of the elderly. We worry that we are dying, and believe experts when they tell us we must take certain remedies in order to squeeze more life out of our crotchety old bones and planet. We are easily conned (which also means "steered"). Where are the "young" people to shake their heads at us, ignore us, and make fun of us?

When we were younger we never thought we would get old.

Now, we have gotten old and too blind to even see how old and gnarled we are. The dementia has set in and we convince ourselves that if we follow the doctor's advice we can keep forever healthy, fit, advanced, and alert.

No, we are not younger. The world is older and sits in a rocking chair, too old, too blind, too feeble to get up and help itself.

If only grandma hadn't gotten rid of her youth, then she'd have someone to help her around.

History is young. We are old.

In our youthful and romantic past there is a father to teach us, if we're not too old to remember, too stiff-necked to turn around.

The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again! (The Prelude, William Wordsworth)

What Real Wealth Is: An uncut diamond

"Don't participate in the economy unnecessarily. Buy as little as you can" (Dmitry Orlov)

This may sound like the advice of a miser, but more and more it becomes obvious (to this writer) that these are the words of wisdom.

When a person wants to buy a house or a car they usually make payments upon it, rather than paying in cash. But before the loan can be gotten one must first hand over a percentage of the cost of the item, which is called a "down payment."

The loan company gets cash, tens of thousands for a home loan, then the buyer feels happy that they have an instant roof over their head and get to pay off the loan, along with taxes, and repairs, and interest for up to 30 years of their life.

Hopefully, the person paying the loans and taxes is healthy as an immortal god, never gets struck in a car accident, and always has an income. If they show signs of being a mortal human the home/car will be taken back by the bank, or the government if they're unable to pay the taxes.

Meanwhile, the generous entity that gave you the loan has had fun with your quick cash/down payment, and interest without ever investing into maintaining the item. They don't repair its oil leaks, they don't mow the lawn, they don't paint.

Debt makes some people rich.

Earlier this year many people fell for the debt scheme called "Cash for Clunkers." The government "gave" the people and dealerships a small amount of money in return for their hard asset -- a hunk of valuable metal on wheels and years of payments with interest. It's not the person buying the new car that got a deal, but the government, those that gave the loans, and who ever got the old car.

Perhaps, it would have been a good deal to those few that took advantage of the incentive and paid cash for the car.

Then, there is the First-Time-Home Owner's incentive, which ends soon. This "gives" an new home owner several thousand dollars to buy a house. This $8000 benefits no one but those that have their hands out, and it's amazing how many there are when one is buying a home.

It's amazing how much greed is involved in the business of homes. If one wants to avoid a great deal of it they must behave and think more like a millionaire, which means having as much cash on hand as possible. Cash is power. A loan is slavery.

If more people would wake up from their pride they would see that they don't need a new car, a palace, or a perfect life for their children. It's okay to be mortal, imperfect, and have no debt. We don't need to prove to the world that we are successful with the shiny and sparkly new things.

We can't have it all, but we can have more freedom and joy by rebelling against the lie of perfection and entitlement. The world is not fair, and until we accept this we will never have true wealth.

"*To a society in denial, collapse invariably looks like personal failure, whether one survives it or not.

*Collapse without preparation is defeat.

*Collapse with preparation is an eccentricity.

*Collapse-avoidance is shame-avoidance"

And finally, my favorite part:

"Collapse-proof personalities: indifferent, determined, self-resilient, unreasonable" ("Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation," Dmitry Orlov, 11 June 2009)

image: Quilting Bee, Grandma Moses