MoFo: Mind of Fike, Ostensibly

Heterosexuality and Political Conviction: Men Are Visual?

2012-01-30T15:16:00.000-08:00

It's interesting how handsome male candidates almost always fare better with female voters than they do with male voters. Since males not running for the presidency can hardly have ascribed to them their voting patterns because they don't want their women to "run after the candidate" (I'm speaking of heterosexual women and men), it's arguable that women, on the whole, are driven to some of their decision-making, on a large scale, on the basis of appearances when it comes to something as serious as political decision-making.

But what's odd about this, if it's right, is that men are popularly regarded as the part of the species that is, "very visual." In my experience, this has been far from uniformly true. Granted, it may be due to the fact that I'm drawn toward artistic women, yet the article below and my comments above seem to add evidence to the idea that women being drawn toward physically attractive men in situations that one would think do not turn on physical beauty, allow it to influence their decisions.

Similarly, I know many men who express their feelings and listen carefully to what their women have to say to them, and are willing to talk over issues that represent potential problems in their relationships. On the other hand, it doesn't take much observation to see that many women - at least, today - willingly reveal to male friends, things that they do not reveal to their lovers about their actual behaviors. (Not to mention the flamboyant demonstrations, conveyed by so-called "tramp-stamps" and other tokens, of their lack of concern with fidelity.) My observations are first-hand: I have not only been approached by married women repeatedly for sexual liaisons that had to be hidden from their husbands, but I've also been approached in confidence by others who were having affairs with men other than their primary lovers - whether married or not - and sworn to secrecy about what they told me.

So it is difficult not only to believe stereotypes about men as "highly visual" and women as being more "nurturing and caring," but also to believe that men have more of a tendency to lie about their sexual practices and to be the principal problem when it comes to maintaining fidelity in the mating game portion of life.

Breaking News from Newsmax.com

InsiderAdvantage Poll: Gingrich Surging, Race 'Tighter Than Expected'

A new InsiderAdvantage poll conducted Sunday night of likely Republican voters in the state of Florida shows a significant surge for Newt Gingrich.

The poll has Romney leading with 36 percent of voters, followed by Gingrich at 31 percent.

The Sunday results of 646 likely GOP voters are as follows:

• Romney 36 percent
• Gingrich 31 percent
• Santorum 12 percent
• Paul 12 percent
• Other/Undecided 9 percent

"The race will be tighter than expected," Matt Towery, chief pollster of InsiderAdvantage told Newsmax.

Towery noted that his poll showed a surge for Romney on Wednesday, with him leading Gingrich by 8 points. The InsiderAdvantage poll was among the first to show Romney's resurgence after his dismal showing in the S. Carolina primary.

The InsiderAdvantage poll was also the first to show Gingrich's rise in S. Carolina and accurately forecast his win there.

"The trend is favoring Gingrich," Towery said, noting that while Romney's lead was still outside the margin of error of 3.8 percent, "It's not by much."

Towery said Gingrich is doing "substantially better" with men than Romney, 38 to 28, but the former House Speaker still faces a "gender gap," as women are still favoring Romney.

"Men are moving in droves to Gingrich and away from Romney," Towery said.

As for Florida's important Latino vote, InsiderAdvantage has Gingrich beating Romney by a large margin, leading 42 percent to 29 percent.

"The poor ye will have with you always, but you will not always have me." - Jesus Christ, Matthew 26:11

2011-09-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Ten minutes ago, I was pulling into the parking lot of a grocery store in my affluent community of Temecula, California. People are bronzed and fit, well-heeled and rolling in nice wheels.

I get out of the car and see a woman of seventy, dignified, well-assembled. She's driving a modest, but late-model sedan, about to load about ten bags of groceries into her car.

She is crying. She has a handkerchief up to her nose.

I try to look away in good suburban fashion, but she waves at me, so I approach her. "I'm so sorry to do this to you," she begins, and I assume I'm going to be called upon to assist her with the groceries, or maybe she needs a jump. Clearly something is troubling her.

"We have so much in this country, and I just cannot stand it."

Now I think she's unhinged. Alzheimers, perhaps. "What's wrong?" I ask her, and she just points. We see a woman of about eighty-five, shabbily dressed, head covered with a throw to protect her from the heat, hobbling along, pushing a shopping cart filled with survival tools.

My new friend's hand shakes as she points, and the tears are really streaming now. Soon, so are my own. She continues to diatribe, understandably, and I feel awkward, but I give her a hug.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she says.

I'm not. It's a good thing to know that fellow-feeling is alive and well, that people are heartbroken by the conditions we find all around us as a nation.

I gross $565 a month, and only live where I do by good fortune. Today I was supposed to attend a seminar, but had to cancel because I lacked the gas money requisite to get to where I was supposed to be; where I wanted to be.

My paycheck didn't arrive on time; hasn't arrived yet, and it's five days late. I'm one of the little people whose job is peripheral to anything of real importance in a society still mad with "success," defined largely in economic terms and achieve by exhibiting the kinds of social grace than put you in positions where you can increase your worth in precisely that sense. Adolescent behavior, in other words.

I can't help but think - this is a Kantian point - I can't help but think that I didn't have gas money precisely so that I would arrive at that store at precisely the moment when the woman in tears would beckon to me, a stranger, so that I could witness afresh, for myself, up close and personal, the anguish that elderly people are sometimes feeling over what is not going on in this country. She had no obvious way of knowing that I'm a writer and a philosopher, and yet I was the one who was there in her moment of need, seemingly only by chance.

But now the world can know.

Words are the shopping cart I push in my own poverty.

Larry Fike
Larry Fike is the author of "Piker," a book about overcoming child abuse by familial reconciliation.

Waxen (Poem)

2011-09-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

People

(us)

Like flaxen textiles

move like jets,

Mentally,

until Earth unsettles

Our fingers.

Whereupon

we create units, additional units

To protect us

Whether they be carry ons, wagon trains, laptops or automobiles---

As long as they are

Well-designed,

Utterly impractical.

It's the twenty-first century.

A hell of a lot that does mean.

Clap.

Larry Fike

WCW (Poem)

2011-07-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

never believed I'd one day become an old fart who seriously cared about things like

Weather

and

Poetry.

But:

Here 'tis.

I wish I had met William Carlos Williams in Paterson, New Jersey,

Because that's a different kind of hell, where he was a physician,

And now is famous for eating plums his wife had put in the refrigerator

The night before he had come in late, after house calls.

And somewhere in his mind there was a little Larry Fike,

Similar but different from the Little Larry Fike in my own,

Who toddles and turns corners and looks for, "Daddy."

Boney-nosed, he saw placements on pages

As the essence of poetry and,

Being a physician,

Carved. Healed.

Placement is everything.

Wouldn't it be, if you were a medical doctor, one

Who handled peoples' organs, pulses in your fingertips as you cut

tried to make things better.

How could you not care about where things actually go.

Lawrence Udell Fike, Jr., Temecula, California, July 31, 2011, 7:02 a.m.

Wrist Sizes

2011-07-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

Mine's seven-point-seven-five inches. My brother's is much larger. What does that tell you about relative p--s sizes, and does it matter.

Does it really matter.

How are your relatives? Your friends?

My girlfriend has very tiny, tiny, tiny wrists. I hold them at night, sometimes.

What does that tell you about her?

I learned from God (The Internet) that I am Below Average.

Her? Probably way below.

We could take other measurements.

And know nothing . . . new.

Unless you measure success by what G-d gave you!

Do you?

That's the sad part. The happy part? Hands. Hand in hand, friends.

Larry Fike

Congratulations, Samuel Beckett, You Have A Disciple

2011-07-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

"What time is it?"

"It's twelve-fifty."

"What time is it?"

"It's ten-to-one."

"I thought you said it was twelve-fifty."

"I lied. It's ten-to-one."

"Now I'm confused. Is it twelve-fifty, or is it ten-to-one?"

"Ten to one, it's twelve-fifty."

"That's six."

"No, that's a clock, not math."

"Why can't you answer me simply?"

"Okay. Let me try. Ten-to-one, it's now twelve-fifty."

"I thought you said it was ten-to-one."

"I lied."

"So what time is it?"

"What's it to you?"

"Well, ten-to-one, whatever I ask you, you're going to say it's some time other than the time it actually is."

"It's no time. But ten to one, that's what time it was when you originally asked me."

"You're confusing."

"You're confused."

"Stop it and tell me what time it is."

"No time."

"Why do you speak in riddles?"

"Ten to one, I don't."

"But now you do."

"There is no now."

"You just made my point."

"I give up."

"How can you give up now?"

"Now? When you've just said that ten-to-one there is no time?"

"Well that's what time it was when you asked."

"But now it's later than it was then."

"I don't have time for this."

"Why? Because there is no time? What time is it."

"One-oh-two."

"One-oh-two what?"

"One or two moments ago you asked me what time it was."

"What time was it?"

"Ten-to-one."

"But now it's not."

"No, now it's not. Now's no time."

"How can it be 'No Time'?"

"That can't be."

"Then I guess that it isn't."

"You're right. It isn't."

"So how can you talk about what isn't, if it isn't?"

"I can't."

"So where are we now?"

"Nowhere."

"Let's go somewhere."

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"We don't have the time."

"Sure we do. We have lots of time."

"Where did you find it?"

"Nowhere."

"So now you're telling me that there's nowhere to find the time."

"I certainly am."

"But here it is."

"No. It's not."

"You're so confusing."

"No. I'm not."

"You're not?"

"No. I amn't."

"That's not grammatical."

"No, it isn't."

"Are you serious?"

"I can't be. There's nobody here."

"You don't have a body?"

"No body can answer that question."

"What about your soul?"

"There's no me with a soul to speak to you."

"Then why are you speaking?"

"It isn't me speaking. It's you."

"Oh, so you're a solipsist."

"Shh."

"Huh? What's that sound I hear?"

"Nothing. I have to go."

"Why?"

"No reason."

"So there's no reason, either? Is that what you are saying?"

"Not as far as I can see."

"How can you see if you aren't?"

"I can't. There is no me."

"So who am I talking to?"

"Yourself."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"I'm not."

"Then who is?"

"Apparently you are."

"There is no me."

"Now nothing is beginning to understand nothing. Let's toast to that realization."

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't exist."

"Congratulations."

Lawrence Udell Fike, Jr.http://www.larryfike.com/PIKER-by-Larry-Fike.html

Up Rivers

2011-07-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

He walks in and sits his leathery black feet upon Big Buddha Pad,
Which he had manufactured in a Small Village where the children would otherwise perish,
And his shoulders evince the fact that he has swung from tree to tree
To improve not his masculine physique, but only his unrivaled physique
That swayed, gently, as need called,
From branch to branch,

While his piercing eye gave no attention to the other parts of his anatomy
Which hung, just so as to indicate the significance of their presence,
And eyes pierced calmly over a scene he could not have examined witnessing.

But there it was; there he was.
He swam across branches, watched dreams rush up rivers,

and, interims,

Blinked, walked men become small nuts.

I forgot. It does not really matter, I suppose. But I might still mention it again:

"But there it was; there he was.
He swsam across branches, watched dreams rushes up rivers.

Once Upon the Glasses

2011-06-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

I see a little pony girl.

She's laughing.

Ha Ha!

But i'm serious now, and she's humping me,

Like a big whale!

(Oh, c'mon, that's funny.)

She settles down (life is life)

It's okay.

And then dis baby-doll of mine,

She begins to speak!

It's not here. It's not there. It's nuthin.

A meatloaf! Maybe.

I got better things...

Larry Fike

Smart Girls

2011-06-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

I love them.

I love the way they walk.

Talk. (And other pleasures that life affords us, if only we can see. -As men.)

There's a long history of Philosophers, most of them male.

But I learn most from women. I do.

Larry Fike

Charles E. Shumer

2011-06-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

If you wonder why I deeply admire the work of Charles E. Shumer, United States Senator for New York, and yet lament portions of his rhetoric, it's easy enough to do so.

Something in the United States (not, "American") psyche propels politicians to unfailingly continue to write in terms of, "our latest fight." Or, "the next fight that we must confront."

Frankly, it strikes my ear, after decades of speaking and reading and writing about political philosophy, as an adolescent way of invoking language to make your point. (This could be applied to virtually all US politicans; not all, but virtually all: so although I'm "exploiting" Shumer for his recent example of this phenomenon, it's a general issue.)

People want to, get things done in this country, and they think that (anxiety-laden as emerging adults are), that means clearing out this and getting onto that.

Thing is, "that" is approximating a deeply Aristotelian point, which cannot be brought about by fighting. Although it is wearisome to me to pronounce it for the two-thousandth-something-time, the only way to understand this phase in our maturation as a nation - where we get beyond the "fighting metaphor" - is to sit, calmly, and understand that the primary business of governance is to lead by calm, peaceful example. Plato wrote about it; Aristotle did; Confucius did as well (and the list goes on).

The overwhelming temptation of contemporary United States politicians (even the best of them, like our president) is to eschew philosophy as soon as it invades upon social norms. Unfortunately, the social norms in this country include a discounting of serious, careful reading of philosophical treatises, even though it is those that form the foundation of our country's heritage.

I hope that, eventually, a few people put down their CNN (just for a few days), and their New York Times and Washington Post (just for a few days, mind you) and re-learn what it could be like not to live in an oligarchy. I mean: really not so live, and instead come to live in a democracy.

Then, business. Still, certainly (I'm a realist) as usual.

But with a waft of non-violent rhetoric waving gently over congressional represenatives' faces, so that they could once again, if but for a moment, recall the books they studied that enabled them to occupy the amazing, wonderful, important, civil positions that they do.

Larry Fike

Poem: I Can Be The Fat Man

2011-06-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

I can be the fat man, for once,
Without a hang-up:
The guy lying out at the pool,
White, a big belly, and even,
If I had one, a big fat cigar--

Twist of the neck...

Oh, shhh, there it is.
But no lighter.

So I blaze on in the sun,
Nothing much happening,
Glistening, not enjoying a moment of this,

And then, shower.
Wait.

I am bronzed.

And she will look into all of this,
Faithfully,

With a glow.

Larry Fike

Texting

2011-06-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

I'm noticing increasingly that even people who complain about texting, text. And, also increasingly, they do it instead of talking to the person sitting next to them. And it no longer matters how old you are: eight, twenty-eight, fifty-eight. All pretty much the same for an increasing number of people. We call this kind of behavior, now, meme-ing, thanks to Richard Dawkins circa 1976.

Soon, as I'm sure you've heard, we're going to have all this stuff implanted within our brains (potentially - but just watch: our children's children will experience this with the nonchalant attitude that this generation experiencing the giving of head, or the getting of a tattoo: neither matter, much -- they're just, "interesting things to do").

What does matter? I'm not sure anybody has much to say about that any longer. "Just be nice," "Just be tolerant," "Just love everybody." Just, just, just -- as though these are not themselves, imperatives, which reveal a set of moral values. The difference is that no understanding of them has been developed, and the tendency toward "read-bites" is infecting our interest (negatively) in thinking critically (in the clinical, not cynical, sense).

Beware. This has happened before, thousands of years before Apple, Microsoft, and even IBM. We have available to us little traces of why this uber-obsession with technology is not necessarily a good thing. Who would have thought that Ramses II of Egypt's ambitions, for example, would ever relegate one of the greatest civilizations in the history of our short-lived and short-attention-span species, to relative oblivion aside from a few remnants now propped up to keep them from swimming into the Nile, and a few art displays circling around the world?

Of course, today we have the theoretical capability of keeping everything we say, everything we have done, recorded for all posterity. "Had yogurt and coffee for breakfast. Weighed in at 132 lbs., down from 133 yesterday! TCFS."

Important stuff. Ancient conceptions of immortality transmogrified so that it all fits in our heads.

Which brings us full-circle. Since I don't text, I had to blog that little insight. NNTR.

Larry Fike

Grandma Scott

2011-06-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

My great-grandmother Scott (Edna Ida Scott) on my dad's side used to chain-smoke as long as she could remain awake. Her fingernails were all yellowed, and so were her fingers themselves. She wore her long gray hair in a bun, and once a day unraveled it for a comb. It went down to her ankles. She had emphysema from decades of smoking, and alternated green and red cough medicines twice an hour, in teaspoons, which I now suspect was laced with something else. Or perhaps it already contained codeine - after all, it was prescribed. She had the lips of my lover, and she wore reading glasses. And I loved her madly.

Why?

Because she was all out there. There were no secrets. She shared everything with me.

I am still attempting to learn from her noble, unacknowledged, example.

Larry Fike

People of Letters

2011-06-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

I almost always now discount the old terminology, which goes, "Man of Letters." (They used to give fancy degrees for that: L.LD's? - Somehow, amazingly, "decorated with a doctorate" for writing clever shit down. Or maybe it was a D.Litt. You can google it.)

I think I'm an L.LD., but really I'm just a "hack." As "critics" (what are their credentials?) will rightly point out.

I have an M.Phil. A friend laughs that that's a non-degree. But what is a Ph.D.? A doctor of philosophy. She's the person I promoted for decades. She's the best. Yes: you are all inferior to her.

Letters. People of letters. "Men" of letters. I used to worship them, from kindergarten, onward. As were best. Hell, I still announce on my webpage that, "Excellence is Normal." Not, "exceptional," mind you: normal.

Why? You want to be:

(a) the best
(b) that you
(c) can be.

(a)-(b)-(c): and do we really need the parentheses?

Slow the f-word down.

You're reading. You're writing (if only e-mails and FBs).

You have earned your degree.

Thank yourself very much.

Write on.

Larry Fike

Philosophy

2011-06-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of people who are philosophers who've never taught a philosophy course. I even know quite a number of philosophers who have never taken a philosophy course. I know one philosopher who took a philosophy course and was given a letter grade of D. And I know, sigh, a number of people who have Ph.D.s in philosophy, and teach philosophy courses, but who are not philosophers in the least. They're not even much, "philosophically inclined," so much as they are historians of philosophy: they can get jobs doing that, even in philosophy departments, but appointments and degrees do not a philosopher make or unmake.

Philosophy is an activity-type. It's like wood shop, if you will. You know when you're doing it (well, you can be brought to know when you are doing it), and as Colin McGinn so rightly put it to me in private correspondence, it's a "sui generis" state. That means that you can't reduce it to other states of your mind or consciousness. For example, if I'm hungry and see a peach, then grab it and eat it, my psychological states are all over the map: I have desires, I have beliefs ("Gee, peaches are good for my health, so why not?"), etc. But when you're in a philosophical state of mind, it's a state in which you abstract from all your beliefs and desires, and . . . just . . . if I may . . . contemplate. For example, you can know that Jesus is described as "God" in John 1:1 in the Bible. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the activity of behaving philosophically. I don't mean to invoke a controversial topic just to be controversial, but it's an acute example of the difference between doing philosophy and talking about theological dicta. (And if you're tempted to think that you cannot do both, or do both well, consider the examples of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, not to mention Martin Luther - to draw only from the Christian tradition.)

To think about "God" (I put the word in quotes to emphasize how insubstantial words are, and therefore intend to exemplify respect, rather than skepticism, for Deity) philosophically, is to think about God in the way in which Descartes did in his Meditations, or the way in which Parmenides speaks of "Being." To get that, you have to not only read the texts; rather, you have to become one with them. What does that mean?

It means reading slowly (in part, I think, at least in most cases) so that you feel the concepts that the words are intended to denote, seeping into consciousness deeply enough so that you feel genuine identification with what is being described. (If need be, you also resort to other resources, like a dictionary or the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy.) Personally, as a man of meditative habits, I don't see this kind of reading as being significantly different from certain sorts of Eastern meditation practices. When I read Parmenides, for example - usually in Greek: it's "richer" (I'll leave it at that for now) - I am transported into a clear space: a space unobstructed by the delusions we all understand to be a function of limiting our understanding of "how things are" (the Big R) to perception. (Millions of examples available, of course, but the simplest is that your red vase suddenly appears gray, or black, or purple, once you flick off the light - and who's to say that standard bright light is how we arrive at the truth?)

So . . . obviously I advocate taking seriously the philosophical activity that you undoubtedly feel rising up within you from time to time. If you pay attention to the "weird" questions ("Is there a God?" "How do I know that what I believe, is really true?" "Am I really free?" "Is there life after death?" "What's all this talk about 'morals,' anyway?"), you can make it a habit of mind to amuse yourself, possibly with the help of experienced practitioners (teachers?), while you're standing in a line at a grocery store, emptying the garbage, or filling your tank with gasoline (or corn oil, or whatever).

Cheer up! You're lucky not only to be alive, but to be alive not only even as a human being, but one with understanding. If you read this and it means anything to you, congrats. You're in for the big journey, Baby. The journey of your lifetime, even though you did not choose it. Use it. Beats the alternative.

Larry Fike

Reconvene (Poem)

2011-06-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

These are they, still here,

Now beside me near tents, veranda, cacti:

The girls with whom I attended high school,

Watching them giggle,

Run off into groups of small coverings

Where they laughed at boys

They would one day marry,

Divorce, and sometimes marry again

To prove they had within them, life.

Now, our children up to our heads,

We can only cry and cackle and stare

At each other, still not ultimately knowing,

Yet. There's one over there:

He's proud. And another:

She has the brain of Einstein.

And then we all stare, at each other,

Joyful, wondering what is next.

And what is?

We say: "Only time will tell,"

And then we debate about how to explain

Time. But time happens,

Although we do not understand

What it is, where we are going,

And how we all got

Caught up in it.

Temecula, CA 2:03 p.m., June 7, 2011

Sentence, Part IX

2011-05-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

It's a sentence. That's all it is.
_______________________________
. . . and so now all the silly things I did and thought, and the people I followed, the musicians and politicians and poets, seem like these words hollow and non-nutritious, and I have to say I do always wonder why I come back to words like, "non-nutritious" and "flat," while eschewing words like "unhealthy," although the former two are clearly a subset of the latter concept, so why not just say "'unhealthy' and be done with it," I sometimes wonder, but as soon as I do, I realize that the answer is over-use and a lack of onomatopoeic devotion (another gruesome word, "devotion," don't you think?), even though just as I type that word (onomatopoeic) I hear in me the dandy, the one who prefers crunchy to some abstract phrase that gets at the same idea from a more "scientific" point of view, as though such a way of looking at phenomena were either practicable in everyday terms, or desirable in general terms, although it doesn't ultimately matter since it's not as though most people sit around worrying about modes of description as a vehicle to pay for bread and butter and electricity, surely, or at least I've never thought they thought that way, and yet when I start thinking in this mode, I have to say I do wonder if I don't fall into some kind of a British cadence because of something far more fundamental than just having been educated in part by a lot of Brits, like maybe there are past lives, and that explains in part this infinity, in which case, I suppose it would be arguable to count it not as an affectation (insofar as any mode of speech can decry that sour-puss accolade) but as a deep sinewy indication that maybe my mind, or spirit, or soul, or psyche, or whatever you want to call it, was present at a fifteenth-century battle like that at Agincourt or Megiddo, which seems like the sort of stuff a future Brit would know but one in a million Americans (U.S. citizens, that is ) would, since they're not "keen" on the following of such trivial matters as how nations were shaped, and why would they be what with their contemporary celebrities that feed the well-oiled system in which they are deeply instructed in the art of self-loathing (Christianity) which they (we) seek to successfully imitate since that's the definition of Self that you're left to if you want to imitate, and if you do not, it's no longer so far-fetched to say that you'll be be in the way of the ass who needs the space on the sidewalk that you are inhabiting, my friend, since the ass can haul or be hauled, but you my tired individual can huddle and be told that no longer do you have a place anywhere, not really, unless you make one for yourself, because you're a mature man or woman and you had your chance and you blew it -- you fucking blew it! -- and so don't go asking for a nutty hand-out, and if you apply to social "security" for security, just remember that it's a complex nominal phrase that doesn't actually mean anything any longer, other than a bureaucratic organization who tries to keep itself afloat by proving that you are capable of further feeding its systematic demands upon you, that you are it, that you gave and gave and gave your labor so that it could thrive, so that it could tell you, No, find a way to give me more, and only once you are on death's bed will we be forced to give anything that you have given for over thirty years, back to you, and you may feel a tinge of regret, but don't, because it's not as though anybody really owes anybody anything anyway, since it's a system and we're all a part of the system and it's best if we all smile and talk about winners and losers and point at the celebrities and sip champagne or wine or vodka or whatever floats your proverbial boat so that you can smile wide-eyed and be happy whether your stars were happy or sad stars in the material sense, since after all you're spiritual and you realize that material things don't really matter, and social prestige doesn't really matter, and you can be the good gal who isn't honored but is honorable, just as you can be the bad woman who is honored but fucked her husband over a thousand times, and so it goes, and so we laugh, and so we dance and smile and make arrangements for places to sleep, and wake up, and make coffee, and try to do clever things with words because it puts a smile on our faces and reminds us that we don't live in the "actual" world here, anyway; it isn't like you're actually doing anything when you help to build a trail, any more than it's the case that you're not actually doing anything when you count the letters that constitute a word, but not everybody sees the equivalence and might even argue that they are not equivalent because they aren't particularly fond of that little ditty that declares how life is but a dream, but then again, maybe they don't have the sorts of dreams that you and I do that make you want to screw that little ditty around so that now we sing, "Your boat is being rowed, and rowed, and rowed, and rowed, gently / And it's in your dream world, not in living life, that you will see your Bentley," but then you and I - decent folks that we are - I wish I had a pipe to light up right about now - we see that we're still speaking in materialistic terms, and so then we have to think up a cleverer song, because then, maybe then, somebody will listen, huh, and then maybe they'll say, well I dunno what that means the guys over there are nuts but here give 'em this so they'll shut up only now it's said in terms that infomanagerials and their minions can clearly parse, so that it at least appears as though poetic expression has some real currency in the world of things, but heh they live in the real world and we live in the shadows because their dreams are so blinding that when we wake up the harsh sunlight renders everything, at least for a moment, absolutely black . . . (to be continued) . . .

DE (Poem)

2011-05-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

You can google Dao De Jing.
Try it
To linger finally in the empty action of space.

You can read Don DeLillo.
Or, if'n say you're, me,
You can live with a de Lancey.

You can scrutinize the shorts stories of Guy de Maupaussant,
Who was dead before the age at which I began to live.

Or, of course, you can deliberately
Behave deleteriously,
And babble "de" until you understand all that it does not mean.

Lawrence Udell Fike, Jr.

Love and Wisdom

2011-05-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Socrates: "A teacher has to possess knowledge of that which is significant. The only thing I know is that I know nothing of significance. Yet the Oracle at Delphi says that I am the wisest of men. This is a paradox, so I will try both to respect her, and refute her if I can -- because I have this burning desire for wisdom, which I know I do not possess. I cannot possess it, because wisdom requires knowledge of something of significance, which I've already declared I lack." (My paraphrase.)

Sound familiar from "Eastern" modes of thought? (And by "Eastern," I'm not referring to the Ivy League.)

You fall in love with a goddess who loves you, but you know yourself to be unworthy of the adoration, and so it makes you work: work to find what it is you know that she already sees in you; and work to see what it is that you do not know so that you can become worthy of her insight.

And it becomes a way of living, a life. The one to which I am fatally attracted.

It ain't like learning how to tie your shoe laces. And what is it to learn, anyway?

Larry Fike

Top 10 Father's Day Gifts For Intellectual Dads

2011-05-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

10. A Kindle, or a Nook. A very fine act on your part for the bibliophile. Be sure to check out the differences between the black-and-white versus color edition of the Nook: each have distinct advantages and shortcomings, but all three should be on your short-list for the intelligent papa in your life.

9. This newly released title: intelligent and fun: Philosophy on Tap. (See left.) For the meditative genius you never had the choice to endure. Poor you; pour him another. Matt Lawrence's crystal-clear writing style is more transparent than a Pilsner.

8. A subscription to The New Yorker. Great minds read alike (and they enjoy letting each other know it).

7. The Oxford English Dictionary, unabridged, digital version. A feast for the pedantic. Will Ladislaw may eschew the pretension, but there is a little bit of Casaubon in each of those among us who are intellectual fathers. How nice to have it ready-to-hand, sans microscope.

6. The Theory of Everything, by Stephen W. Hawking. Humility, presumably, is not.

5. Whole Life Times: Journal for Personal and Planetary Health, December 1988. This ought to bring the grand-stander back down to Earth. Yeah, right. But you just might see the father in your life gradually turn his attention toward alchemy. Or is that what he's long been up to already?

4. Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization, and The Construction of Social Reality (see left), both by highly esteemed (and rightly so) professor of philosophy and social activist, John Searle. (See comment on 6. above regarding humility.)

3. Wittgenstein's Poker: the Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. Because every intellectual father knows that it requires 352 pages to make clear what it took two philosophers to get out in the open with each other in ten minutes. And some still believe that intellectuals lack passion. Stay away from fireplaces (or the dad in your life) as he peruses this little fire-cracker.

2. A trip to Athens, Greece. Where it did not all begin, but where it did start to impact the Western World like a mighty wind.

1. A Safe Place that you can take him to, so that nobody will witness what is required to beat sense into his thick, pretentious skull.

Make him feel special. After all, he took two minutes of his precious time to help create somebody whom you obviously love.

Larry Fike, participating member of That Other Sex

How Do I Describe It?

2011-05-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

Probably just like you, somewhere in my head I'm thinking about the consequences that will come about as a result of the assassination of Osama bin Laden. This makes for a good time of global reflection.

But I'm not addressing here the moral positions that might be taken with respect to the United States' action, nor even of the world's response. To do so, now, as a philosopher, would be premature: it's a time for prudent, cautious, meticulous observation, because so much is at stake regarding the stability of innumerable governments and institutions.

There's a rather pedestrian distinction that is often made between descriptive and prescriptive judgments: the former just "tell it like it is" (on average, for example, ten percent of the human population is homosexual), while prescriptive judgments tend to focus on how things should be - and that has always raised eyebrows (and swords, and guns, and bombs, and national pride, and national debts - the list continues).

Aristotle - to over-simplify - was a biologist at heart. A scientist, if you will. He looked around, saw that acorns do well in certain environments but not others, octopi do well in certain environments and not others, and so on. We, too, are biological organisms. So if you can figure out why octopi do well here but not there, and why acorns turn into mighty oak trees in a forest with certain requirements having already been established there (but not so well in the Mojave Desert), then, rhetorically, why don't we think the same way when it comes to asking ourselves what is required in order for human beings to flourish, or "reach their potential"?

To this philosopher, that's the hardest question that we as a species have to answer, and all of the constant whorl of vocal and intellectual activity that continuously surrounds it, is my evidence.

On the upside, we all obviously care, and we all obviously feel very passionate about our proposals with respect to what actually ought to be done to turn this world into a better, more habitable, environment for all concerned (all living organisms, minimally, I presume). On the other hand, we often disagree with such vehemency that decades can pass during the course of which some of us come to believe that, "things are just getting worse and worse as time passes."

I don't think that's uncritically so. Many things have improved, are improving: tolerance, genuine listening, compassion, a recognition of finitude (at least within these mortal frames we now occupy), a recognition of environmental concerns, and so on, are certainly objects of consciousness for vast numbers of people now. On the other hand, this is not a time to wax Pollyanna-ish: grave threats to the survival of our species persist.

What's the solution?

First, there is no, "the" solution. Like ants, we have to learn how to cooperate. This is key. To say that we need to find our place in the eco-system is rather banal, because, again, there is no "template." We have no particular place in the eco-system. Enjoy it or not (and I hope the reader does), we create our place in the eco-system (broadly defined, incidentally: broadly enough to include decisions about whether or not to engage in warfare).

We are the big shots, and we know it. Some of us don't like having to live with this knowledge, but we rule the planet. That's that. What's not that, is a plan for how we will make out as we do so. And that's what we should continue to work on and, one way or another, inevitably will.

Modern psychology is of a piece with Aristotelian thinking about human beings: the idea is not to judge, but to understand, so that the human psyche of the individual patient/client can find its own way and become an effectively contributing member in a complex world. Doesn't matter if you're an entertainer, a politician, an intellectual, an accountant, or a graphic designer. What does matter is coordination.

Unlike acorns and octopi, our potentially safe environment - the one in which we may flourish - is Earth itself. (Big brains, yada yada - but it's true.) The critical and careful utilization of our ability to dialog, to honestly and openly articulate (ah, there's the rub) what it is that we envision, while simultaneously listening to our fellow species-members - all of us - is absolutely critical. There is no way of getting around this if we want to see come about genuine world peace.

This takes time, and prudence, and sometimes prescience. Cynicism has no place for such a discussion to be authentic in nature. Each must say what he or she truly feels/believes, ideally also explaining, at least to some extent, from whence these feelings have arisen.

It's not easy being human, but it can be glorious. I personally vote for reflection, honesty, transparency, and a continuation of the ancient dialog that is our most effective tool (technology is a mere by-product thereof, although it reinforces the point) in bringing about human peace.

Sincerely,
Larry Fike

Space and Time - and Beer

2011-04-26T02:42:00.000-07:00

Kant thought that space and time were, "categories of the human understanding," rather than (although it's complicated), "things 'out there' in the world."

Time's easy enough: how can time be "somewhere"? (Likewise, how can space be "here now," but not, "then"?)

It's not that space doesn't exist, quite, any more than time does not. But they are both ways of organizing our experience, rather than things that (necessarily) exist outside of us.

So: "It's about time [time] that guy got off his butt [space] and did something [the pragmatic twist]!"

Those of you around fifty: have you noticed this? We speak increasingly of, "how things [in space] used to be [time] . . ."

And then if you have a free moment, you might have had this odd thought, which recurs to me [in "space"] chronically [in "time"]: "Is it me [in space] growing older [time], or are things [in space] getting worse [over time]?"

You've surely noted that older folk (assuming you're younger [spatial] now [time]) grow cranky and re-organize our mental lives, to the seeming bewilderment of those who are younger. I felt that way until a few years ago myself. (When I speak of "my self," I grant myself the liberty of using no markers - an interesting topic in-and-of-itself: Why do I make of myself an exception?)

Then I had an, "epiphany," to wax cliche. Most likely, both space and time, are species-specific characteristic ways in which we organize our ("our") world, and are fairly consistent. (There's cause for hope and tolerance and optimism there, and obviously an obvious bow to anthropology. Good job!)

So all those bloody dreams (nightmares) make sense: Genghis Khan, and Gandhi, were likewise awakened in their dreams, thinking sometimes that their respective aims were doomed (which is romantic, in the foolish sense of romanticism). And, of course, in a sense, they certainly were (are) doomed. "As doomed as doomed as doomed can be," as Ed Grimley put it.

But that's temporal language. The "deeper" realization they both had - like, say, Hegel - is that they were living life large on a stage. (As the Stoics announced it. Hegel "merely" materialized what they theoretically embodied.) What made it large was self-awareness. They knew that they were spatially and temporally situated, and that those categories of their understanding would persist. Not that they always will, but, so far, so good. (Recent developments in technology may alter our understanding of our relationship to both categories profoundly. It's less that research will show this to be so, or not, so much as that human experience by means of the use of profoundly significant tools will reveal this, simply, and trivially, at some point, I'm guessing, to be so.)

Although as I mature I think it's more a commentary on the nature of our selves, given the realities of being human, there is a therapeutic value here: the pragmatic (practical) value we attach to these categories may fade in significance: it's a heady thought. (At least to me.) One day we might not think in terms of this being, "one day." (It's complicated.) It won't be, "And now..." And it won't be, "And you..." Temporal and spatial categories could (could) disappear from the landscape.

Frankly? That'd be okay by me. I'm part-way there (see? "In the future..." [temporal] "I..." [spatial].)

Some practices are out there already (I'm discouraged from saying which) ("out"? "there"? "already"?) that enable us to think differently, technological developments to one side (or both sides).

This is very tricky business. Language is metaphoric, through-and-through [metaphor].

No wonder a Western philosopher, David Hume, said that "Philosophers are only friends to philosophers," and after all the philosophizing has been done [temporal], the best thing for a philosopher to do is to go out and have a beer in a pub [spatial]."

Maybe try thinking of yourself as atemporal and aspatial.

Soon [temporal] you'll be normal [normative], and go have yourself [spatial] a beer [sublime, and hence normative].

Be normal. Good luck with that.

Larry Fike

FAME (A Brief Reflection)

2011-04-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

I do think about fame. Not much, but I do. (The question has recently been raised.)

It doesn't matter to me. I suspect that's how most famous people think about the subject. And I went to a conference on fame and sat in front of Norman Mailer and Yvonna Trump trying their best to explain their own relationship to "it."

I bet Elton John would feel similarly.

Really successful people are too busy living their lives to care about, "that." (Bertrand Russell: "No, I haven't read any of my books. I was too busy writing them.")

The joy I experience results from *activity*. Chalmers exemplified that during my current journey. The dude just does shit. He gets it done. He doesn't complain; he doesn't kvetch; and he's enjoying his life, clearly.

Although in the case of an academic way of life, it's "odd" compared to what most people do, it's still a life of intense activity. Even if it's largely devoted to the mental. So what. It's a choice.

So then if accolades come, they come. If they don't, you've been true to yourself, and that far outstrips awards, prizes, and so forth.

Jean-Paul Sartre, a kind of hero of mine, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. People have mentioned that I may win a Pulitzer. (Why? Dunno. Don't care. I really do not care.)

If I were awarded a Nobel, the only reason I would accept - if I did accept it - would be for the sake of the money, and what I could do with it to enhance the lives of those I love. Of course such things, such prizes, are to be respected, but respecting them and accepting them are different matters.

Larry Fike

Moat (Poem)

2011-04-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

You want to feel desert inside of your skinless wonder
And don't know how it's done

So, despite your best intentions, it's you who've won

There's a rattlesnake in your sleeping bag
And you shsh not long blame it on me
Let it bite, be done

There's something sexy in a rattlesnake girl
There's something moving in a writer who curls
His fingers along a keyboard, as though each is petted,
Wet-ed, before the next fantasy that trickles

Nowhere.

And Charlie Sheen shushes you and tells you about a wild life and

Who gives a damn.

Stop it.

Just.

Stop.

Larry Fike

Even Though I Was Not Conscious Of It, I Think I Did The Bhakti Fest

2011-04-21T05:43:00.000-07:00

You wonder sometimes if a poem is too young, or too old. (And you live with the understanding that most people do not even believe that what you say is, "real," or, as is said, "significant." Which is fine, in its own manner - and shew! the fly, and mind your own.)

I think that when people sometimes feel this way, you begin writing down some of the reflections.

It's not a matter of aging, nor of slowing down. It's a matter, in part, of saving time for our next-of-kin (or: our next generation).

There is a currency that most of my life I've been a part of, that eschews the attempt at a carefully crafted word. I believe that this short-falling on my part was called youth.

What I mean is, when you write, you want everything to have a particular sort of cadence, but you understand that the cadence you might hope for, won't necessarily match the rhythms occurring in the mind of some particular reader. So you get choosy - so to speak. (And, yes, you hate being a loser.)

Here is a bit of John Lennon speaking through my mouth, Truth (you have to understand that a lot of Bhakti current is traveling here):

I am the center of the world, and you are orbiting around me.
But you misunderstand, because you want to take literally what is ephemeral.
I am John Lennon, and I am the Center of the Universe.
I am about to be SHOT, but carry on. (British prose.)

I am here to entertain you.
I am here to ensure that you don't care.
I am here to make you more vain than you are
I am your loving hand-made cure.

It's not a form of consciousness
It's never do or die to me
You can be the ice-cream king and look at her
It doesn't matter much to me.

________________

POETRY

(She'll get this, pre-poem, but I just want it on record, because it gives me a laugh.)

So sometimes you get choosy too about "the gal" ("or dude").

_______________________________

I just . . . Dude, I assume you've felt this, but I don't know, and so . . . best shot.

I'm sitting here listening to music, working, and then I think that in the other room is a woman with whom I had these complicated relations last night, and she's

longing

for my presence (sorta)

and I'm like

What?

You really want me,

huh?

Hmph. Do I need to show you?

And I am not the kid. Well kinda I am.

I'm the candy-bar who can't love itself.

So stupid. (Smart being stupid is like inventing a nut factory.)

And then comes a large red carpet, and two emerald eyes, glistening,

A trailing black scent everywhere,

Smoking.

I had no appreciation for the word, σοφία,

I muse, aloud,

And she says,

"Shh!"

under covers...

while childhood and my maturity come and go,

and everything then left is me on ship, cast over,

glistening.

Lawrence Udell Fike, Jr.