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About The Nattering

St. Agnes, Tommy The Truth, and Anna Belle the Lesser all surrounded me for a discussion this morning. OK, not so much a discussion as a complaint session. I was the listener. Here’s the gist of it.

  1. The Truth has become irrelevant. Perhaps it has been so for years, maybe even forever. But it has become more evident.
  2. Facts have become negotiable.
  3. Religion has become political, if not quite as political as it was during the reign of the Borgias. It is the age of the politics of enlightenment.

Add to this a recent read wherein an ingrained belief system is actually written into a pathway of the brain. To “attack” a belief, even if it is the truth, is the same as an actual attack to the person. The person’s brain anyway.

This is why you can’t argue beliefs with truth or facts. Differing opinions look at the same things and do not see them the same. Hillary decided to attack Trump in the last blitz by running his own adds. Some said, “You see? Now how can you argue with that? It’s the truth.” You can argue if that’s what you want to hear. And that, my friends is exactly what the Trump base wanted to hear. Hillary ran the end game by working PR for The Donald.

Facts? What facts? Again, the base doesn’t give a rat’s arse if Trump said three different things at three different times and all of them contradictory. So what? If he’s going to go to bat for them they don’t care what he says about anything, much less the government.

Say it loud, say it clear. Say it over and over. The man mocks and people applaud.

Oh, and about the gathering here this morning—St. Agnes, et.al.—are the resident ducks who always have something to say. Usually complaints. Spiritual nabobs.

Religion & enlightenment? Later. After a trip to the liquor cabinet.

 

 

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This is how truth dies

“In order for someone to lie, they have to think they know what the truth is. For a bullshitter, it’s irrelevant.” – Psychologist Gordon Pennycook

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January 20, 2017

And here we are. This is, the way things are.

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Because I Can’t Forget

I’ve used memory
to prod something lose
to give a sharp instrument
for the forced breath
of the frauds and creeps
that swell into the night
from what we cannot see
with your eyes or mine
gouged bloody from a face
when laughter echoed
mirror’s diamond glass then
cut him free, away from me
the ravished boy
once golden in the sun
then laid unmoving on the floor

 

I’d look forward to death if I thought that there I’d find him in some heaven of myth or religion.

Some place of golden beauty and loves of time and gifts of animals that we have loved and that have loved unbidden.

But lacking heaven I’ll seek out death to end in peace where I’ll not have to think or remember or dream.

And it won’t matter that he’s not there.

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Rules for Writing

Everywhere we turn these days there are rules, lists, and _______ easy steps. Not to be outdone, here’s more: Nietzsche is a magnificent read in its entirety. For more advice on writing, see Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for writing with style, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Susan Sontag’s synthesized wisdom, Chinua Achebe on the writer’s responsibility and the collected advice of great writers.

BUT. While fun to read, not necessarily helpful. I have found that writers write and write about writing later, usually about what works for them, as with all philosophy. And I have found that my all time favorite is from Maugham. And that’s the truth.fullsizeoutput_777