english

Please. Stop.

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I’ve written before about the “fun” of local “Letters to the Editor” in my local paper. It was fun for several months, but then…eh..it’s been awhile.

The problem is lack of growth, lack of progress. Read any comment section and you see this scene play out: Original, breathless statement filled with adverbs, adjectives, and snarkiness. Followed by breathless comments filled with adverbs, adjectives and snarkiness. Followed by more…snarkiness. (my grammar editor is “flagging” snarkiness as not spelled correctly. He/She/Them/It is wrong. Google it, yourself, and I’ve amended the grammar police’s dictionary. Oddballs.)

Maybe it is too much to expect immediate change in the tone and structure of public discourse, but is it that hard for people to see what I see? If you were asked for the sum of 2 plus 3 and answered 6, how many times would you do that before you wondered why people were correcting you, and gave a different, perhaps correct answer. (Hopefully, there is no undiscovered ethnic group/tribe where 2 pls 3 does equal 6.) Math is easy to see, isn’t it?

Past columns have talked about “Critical Thinking” (CT) and “Reading the Rome” (RR) and those expressed thoughts were not the work of a genius, or once-in-a-generation mind. (Unless you’d care to think of me that way. Your call.) They are the thoughts of an old man who paid attention. So, if all the writers and commentators are young, high school students, does the illogical repetitiveness of the stereotypical “Statement and Comments ad nauseum” (SCAN), indict our current educational systems? Yes. And the past systems. And the present systems. And commercial television. And contemporary music, And professional sports. And Capitalism. And the Free Market. Everything, Everywhere. All the time.

Huh. Finally. Nihilism explained. Maybe. Frederic Jacobi in the 18th century said Nihilism refuted the “belief in an unknowable true reality”. Uh-oh. No “true reality”? Sounds MAGAish but Nietzsche asked with God dead, where were we to find meaning in the world?

Okay, I’m off the google sidetrack, but it made clear the need for a True Reality. Trump and many others say January 6th was a kind of patriotic “celebration”. Others say it was an insurrection. All that is true, now, as the farther—in time—we get from 1/6/2021 the “less true” that day’s reality will be for both sides. Why?

As Americans we face constant MANIPULATION. Advertising. Politics. Societal norms. Rock stars have known thins for years and made a living singing about fighting it. “Another Brick in The Wall”, by Pink Floyd. “Monster” by Steppenwolf. “For What It’s Worth”, by Buffalo Springfield. In fact, find this song on YouTube from the late 60s. It clearly and precisely represents the entire point of this post. What does it say about us that a song from 1966 identifies our 2025 problems? I’m dropping the mic.

A nice thing about aging is the natural shedding of concerns for anything but our own medical and financial condition. It’s not up to the old people to save the world, we won’t be around long enough.

A bad thing about aging is the recognition nothing has changed. And sadly, may never change.

Music, again, and Jackson Browne in 1971:

“Oh, people, look around you the signs are everywhere. You’ve left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care.”

Another thing learned as an old man, the good we do and the things we learn in our youth fade with age, and there is no guarantee any following generation will feel the same. All empires decline and fall.

In reflection, this post reminds me of a recent medical test. The test is 90 per cent accurate reading negative results, but its positive results are only correct 50 per cent of the time.

Feels like symbolism for something, but it’s nap time, so…

Words, but different ones…

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When you view life as a certain state of being and allow its eccentricities to be the fabric of your existence, beginnings and endings fade away. The nature of eternity, endless space, and a higher power greater, even, than the sum of all in this known world, yields an understanding maybe not quite right but inherently capable of satisfying human inquisitiveness.

So it is when you enter the world of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, written by John Koening, and published in 2021. My internet friend, Wikipedia, says it is an “English word-construction project seeking to coin and define neologisms (new words) for emotions not yet described in language.” The author apparently started the project when he could not find the right words to use in his poetry. American ingenuity at its finest, yes?

You should do your own research, trust me, but here are some of my favorites, including “sonder”, the original word which tickled my fancy so much a rush to the bathroom was required to avoid dampening my boxers. I’ve paraphrased definitions to fit more in, but take a look at the book and website of the same name for more mental exercise and amusement.

SONDER: “noun, the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own–populated with their own ambitions, friends, worries and as much inherited craziness as your own.”

EISCE: noun, “the awareness of the infinitesimal role you play in shaping your own society.”

KENAWAY: noun, “the longing to see how other people live their lives when they’re not in public”.

Hm. These three words, alone, distill years and paragraphs of college dorm room discussions into three nouns. At least for a private, Liberal Arts school. It’s fun to imagine, too, how new words describe things new to humankind. Imagine a caveman feeling any of these words, and wondering “is it just me?”

As modern life exponentially grows in complexity, it makes sense we need new words to describe the mental, emotional, and physical realities humans encounter as they grow with it, but is it socially efficient to simply make up or own words? Fick, (sic) if I know.

I do know that if everyone sondered* more the world would be a better place. If everyone was aware of their eisce we’d be a humbler, intelligent society instead of one full of minor, local dictators trying to change reality. And if kenaway becomes a legal defense for peeping,…”Your honor, I was simply kenawaying*.”

The best part of the whole word discussion is…the discussion, the dialogue. New words, old words, it matters only if we understand them, use them, and share them in thoughtful, humane conversations, sog sam it.

The only true fear is for grammar and punctuation. A world with new words, misplaced commas, no periods, and an epidemic of dangling participles will be the end of us all.

*I’ve always hated turning a noun into a verb, but it’s so much fun…

The World Is Ending…again

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In the 1960s I spent a lot of time chasing girls and learned it was beneficial to volunteer for social causes. Fresh off the farm, finding girls was never the problem but getting them to notice, well, thank God for social causes. In those days Viet Nam was the key issue, but the climate, and Earth Day, were major issues as well. Race relations were at an all time low, too, and many inner cities burned out in protest of unequal opportunity and freedoms.

The adults in my circle of life, those days, were mostly epochal, and convinced American Institutions were falling and the world was near The End. My mates and comrades on the other hand, saw signs of new life, signs of repair, signs of rebirth in the possible, hopeful complete demise of The Military Industrial Complex (MIC), Big Business (BB), and Climate Polluters (CP). My father’s father was one of the former barons of commerce who felt the world was spinning out of control, young people did not respect, their elders, and Western Civilization is headed for doom.

While my general intent for partaking in raucous and often illegal demonstrations was unapologetically romantic I did learn to see the merit in Grandpa’s warning’s, back then.

Sixty years later most of the same issues are still out there, still threatening the future of Western Civilization. Except for Viet Nam. Nam is now our 15th largest trading partner, right after Ireland and Switzerland. The size and nature of that trading says a lot about US Government Policy over the last 60 years, a history confusing older American GIs and Viet Nam vets, both.

The Viet Nam story reveals, however, the larger truth of what our nation is about, really: Money. Wealth. And the power they have over legally elected governments and regulatory institutions.

The sad fact about The End of the World in this current generation is how really close it is, but not for the reason you might think. We now have a Supreme Court loaded with justices who care not for the common sense approach to judicial thought, but to the laissez-faire attitude of the French Physiocrats who reigned over France’s governmental policies from 1775 to 1786. I don’t really know a lot about them but it is important note the French populace revolted in 1789 and overthrew the existing French government. Completely. And executed some former government officials.

It is fair to say someone benefited from the trouble young people caused in the 60s and it wasn’t the young people. The MIC and BB and CP have worked tirelessly over the past 60 years to reaffirm their control over the day to day life of Americans and their money. Some people, even some politicians have been fighting them over those 60 years but you can see who’s winning in the simple fact climate and inequality are still issues today.

Now there is a Supreme Court made up of laissez-faire minded individuals, intent on eliminating as much regulation, oversight, and legal obstacles as they can.

It is not for an old, cranky man to say the world is coming to an end, but let’s see how the next 10 years play out as power gains power, and looks for more…without restraint. Or responsibility.