A Place for "Nobody"

I ’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!	5
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

                                                -Emily Dickinson  (1830-1886)

We know that Emily Dickinson penned her poetry in obscurity with no intention to publish most of her works.  If she had lived in 2019, would we have found her on social media?  If so, wouldn’t her poem be ironic?

In 2019, how is a person’s identity defined?  By their profile on facebook?   Do any of us really know the character of a person without having a face to face  (in the flesh) encounter with them?  How artificial is a profile on facebook?

What is with this public recognition craze?  Are we inherently attention grabbing? Or are we merely attempting to be expressive?  Does anybody really care about what I write in this blog?  Am I sitting on my lily pad looking for an admiring bog? Or should I perhaps be dubbed as "Nobody #1"?

To study the Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

-Dogen (1200-1253)

Science tells us that from a neurological perspective, the "I" is a continuous series of patterns of information created by the brain, an illusion, with no fixed center.
"The self grows through identification, possession, pride, and separation from the world and life." (Rick Hanson, Buddha's Brain, pg.225).  One should strive for an open channel of observation of the world so that the "self" doesn't become a narrow pod of self importance.

When historians get around to writing the history of the second decade of the 21^st Century, they will no doubt posit about the social media explosion and will discuss how the Tweetie in Chief attempted to dictate policy from his cell phone. 

In conclusion, from a safe dry place called Merry Mount, I will observe the irony of “drain the swamp” from the presidential frog and his admiring bog.

Om mani padme hung.

CPW

A Place for Fodder

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines fodder as 1) something fed to domestic animals; but also 2) inferior or readily available material used to supply a heavy demand.  Further examples are given related to crafting language such as “cheap fodder for novelists”.

Seven times a year, I drive my trusty Tacoma approximately 20 miles down to a neighbor who operates a successful cattle farm to purchase 9 bails of quality alfalfa hay.  It is an enjoyable task.  

The drive itself is a beautiful one regardless of the season.  The farmer is a cherub-faced fellow whose smile is welcoming and we chat a wee bit about the weather and his daily operation.  I admire his jovial manner and his seemingly happy existence.

Upon my return to the our barn this past trip, I asked myself, “Why am I continuing to buy fodder for five goats whose only benefit to me is a twice daily chore of speaking to them and seeing their grateful eyes as they wait for their meals?”  

But then my thoughts spun out to a greater existential question, “Why do we choose to do anything that we do?”  Why do some folks run a cattle farm, while others practice law?  Why do some folks play golf, while others play banjo at the local bluegrass jamboree?  My answer for now is: to observe, to create, and to protect beings under my watch.

Take that for fodder for thought and this:

We live on an amazing planet where, according to scientists, there are approximately 8.7 million species.  Homo sapiens is one, and yet we have developed intellectually to be able to have command over all others and to discover that we inhabit a world that is only a speck in a universe that is expanding into infinity.

Now there is some fodder to chew on!

So for now, I take pleasure in a bit of labor providing fodder to goats and other creatures that may be reading.  I also leave you with words from Wendell Berry.

CPW

A Place in Time

Winter Solstice

Stop and Observe.

Discover the moments

between Winter and Summer.

Embrace the perpetual change.

The distance between

two points in time

is always

Now.

CPW

image found in Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Year!

We have transitioned from 2018 to 2019, but by whose clock?

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the basis for civil time today. This 24-hour time standard is kept using highly precise atomic clocks combined with the Earth's rotation.

UTC is the time standard commonly used across the world. The world's timing centers have agreed to keep their time scales closely synchronized - or coordinated - therefore the name Coordinated Universal Time.

https://www.timeanddate.com/time/aboututc.html

As I sit here at Merry Mount absorbing the NOW, I contemplate the passing of time.  For guidance, I refer to Stephen Hawking’s final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, published in 2018 (the year of his death), and am reminded of his first best seller, A Brief History of Time.

It is cliché to write, time seems to pass more quickly each year, but that is how I feel today.

On January 1, 1987, our son, Simon Robinson Woliver was born.  Words can’t express the many blessings we have received during these 32 years.

T.S. Eliot writes:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

Our existence is like a series of photographic snapshots. Technology allows us to freeze and capture time. For example, take a look at these four photographs:

Robbie holding Simon 

Simon with his daughters Joy (L) & Eva (R)

Merry Mount (circa 1950's)

Merry Mount (2018)

Time flies when one is having fun!

Now I am about to sound like a street barking, fire and brimstone fanatic, but seriously, in Hawking’s final book, he grapples with the following question: Will we survive on Earth?

Hawking makes reference to the Doomsday Clock (see https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/americas/doomsday-clock-nuclear-scientists.html).  He believes that unless humans make some vital changes, mankind is quickly heading toward self-annihilation.  He bases his opinion on the state of global warming, population explosion, and political and societal greed and ignorance. This supposition, from the world’s most recognized scientist, equates with one held by my Papaw Woliver, who only had an eighth grade education.  Once again, I hear his words echoing in my ears, “Progress is eating itself up!”

On this first day of 2019, as I give thanks for the great beauty around me, and for the many blessings at Merry Mount, I shout out, “We can no longer be complacent, the TIME has arrived for us to speak out and take action so that thirty, fifty, or a hundred years from now our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren can live on an earth that is environmentally and politically in a better place than the one on which we presently find ourselves.

Happy New Year!

CPW