Plucking the Stone

The deep mind underlies the superficial mind. Much as the stones on the bottom of a clear, swiftly flowing stream are blurred by the rushing water above, the deep mind can be detected, but not directly experienced except by tactile sensation. It forms the substrate over which the everyday mind blithely and blindly courses. When the irregularities of younger, less polished rocks–perhaps recently kicked into the stream by a startled deer or careless hiker–produce increased friction with the water, creating a minute disturbance of flow almost too small to detect and perhaps bloodying the plantar surface of your wading feet, you take more notice, but the visual input is no more clear than before. Mind you, the water is extremely clean, but the current obscures detail.

Imagine now that you could halt the downstream flow, just for a second or two. What would you see? That’s the deep mind. You can find it by carefully moderating your relentless speed-surfing of neural circuits. Slow, or even stop the current, and pluck one smooth stone from the bottom.

•  •  •

Note: None of this applies to Petaluma. 

© Pseudocognitive

The Undiscovered Country

The Undiscovered Country is not a Shakespearean death metaphor, and it’s not a future where humans and Klingons get along. The Undiscovered Country is a place inside your head, a tenuously-held position that is periodically shelled by the forces of doubt, worry, and amorphous anxiety. It’s not a comfortable place, but it’s better than retreating or blundering forward in a clumsy stumble toward doom. Fortify, plan, act, and bring that zone of creative tension along as you make a coordinated advance. Avoid the extremes of complacency and fear to the point of inaction. Don’t get caught doing nothing, but don’t do any old thing just for the sake of doing it. Make it count.

© Pseudocognitive

Donut holes and space

This picture is unrelated to the subject matter below.

Defining "nothing" without contextualizing it with something or anything at all might just be impossible.  Today I considered the problem as it relates to fried doughy snacks. They don't sell donut holes. Those greasy little sugary lumps are donut •balls.• A donut HOLE is the empty space in the middle of a donut. It is made by punching out the donut ball with a steely implement. The hole is left behind, wholly defined by the donut around it. The hole does not exist in the absence of the donut. This is either disturbing or comforting.

Next: A tall, horizontally displaced donut as an analogy for the alimentary canal's location outside the body.

© Pseudocognitive

The Banality of Futility

This is us. Scurry around!


© Pseudocognitive

Tunnel through banality

Nothing new to report here, nothing to see—yet. Keep moving.
If necessary, go faster. 

Bypass consideration of the inherent banality of tunnels. Fool yourself; embrace the standard symbolism. Your passage out of comfortable amniotic insulation into the ultimate big air. Transition from one role or station into another. Attach some meaning, or you will suffer despair. Ride into the light. No, not the hypoxic endorphic light touted by anti-agnostics. The actual light. It's time for lunch.

© Pseudocognitive

Not nailing down reality on Morgan Territory Road. And a vulture.

Morgan Territory Road snakes its way over dry ridge lines and through a brief respite of shady oak woodlands and past old chaw-cheeked rednecks fixing you with menacing but impotent stares from astride their half-dead tick magnets. After a final stretch lined by homes of millionaires, Morgan Territory joins the terminus of Marsh Creek Road--a more interesting path in its upper regions--and dumps you unceremoniously into the town of Clayton. Nothing happens in Clayton worthy of examination; in that regard it is almost worse than Petaluma.

A full examination of this road would cover a lot of ground, but I favor prosciutto-thin slices of real-space, and if you require more I suggest that you get some travel brochures or go to a blog that people actually read. I don't try to understand or describe a road's true nature (if there even is such a thing). It would accomplish nothing to emphasize any particular aspect of what I think it is, or what it says to me about our place in an impersonal cosmos, or how it relates to the Way of Ants Crawling on Oak Bark.

This turkey vulture did not want to leave Morgan Territory Road just to provide me with an opportunity to record him as he took to the air. I don't have a GoPro or any other mountable camera. Riding while holding an iPhone in one hand is stupid. This is what we have, then--a stubborn carrion eater, a fixed wide angle lens on a cell phone, and a road. Infer nothing else. Sometimes, the search for meaning renders it moot.

© Pseudocognitive

ADD vs OCD

I do not ever see my typos until after I’ve hit the “publish” button. Read a post a day or two after it goes up and it should be a little less bad. I can’t see those typos or those clumsy sentences in real time, just as I didn’t notice this wrong-way driver until I looked at the iPhone picture I’d snapped. I am obsessed with errors, but I can’t pay close enough attention to see them in the moment. Hellhound on my trail.

© Pseudocognitive  
A respectful nod to the Immortal Robert Johnson.

A clumsy search for Zen

Apologies to Steinbeck

Big Oak Flat in Tuolumne County in California is not a poem or a habit or a dream. It does, however, emit a definite stink if you stand too close to the portable toilets in the gas station parking lot, and if you happen to be there at just the right time on a fine spring afternoon, the quality of light may indeed evoke a peculiar nostalgia for a time when you still believed  that making sense of life was something  in the ballpark named Possible. That’s about it, though; as far as deep philosophical pondering and the like, no matter what knothole you look through, I doubt you’ll come away with any insight into the human condition beyond what you already have. In fact, I am not at all certain that new insights have been possible since about 1945. So if you do look through that knothole, you’re just gonna see the same old wooded area behind the fillin’ station that’s always been there. Bring your own Zen in a sturdy steel vacuum flask tucked into your right saddlebag.

If you were to ask me how it was that I came to lose my mind, I might give you some obfuscatory answer like, “Don’t burden me with your extraneosities.”Or “Melvin eats blubber.” Or “Define mind.” Maybe I’d even try to answer truthfully, but the sad fact is that I simply do not know. So if you were to ask me that question—how did I lose my mind—I would simply say, “Yes.”

I came to terms with my loss of that which cannot be empirically proved and subsequently grew tired of my old gig—the one I’d been working at for a quarter century—so I quit and decided to become a private investigator. Not an officially licensed P.I. like Thomas Magnum, but one who looks into things without the strictures of state oversight or the constraints of having to answer to a client, or of even knowing what it actually is you’re investigating.
I decided to start this new line of work immediately, so on a brisk Saturday morning, I and my brother left Herd City and headed up into the hills. I will spare you any account of the places I have excessively described before, save for the mecca of western hemisphere truth-seekers, the wall at the Shell station in Jackson:

After searching in vain one last time for any small vestige of the old  Honda dealership where our dad bought our first dirt bikes back in '67, we left Jackson and headed south through some other wide spots. San Andreas was one of ‘em. We didn’t see much there except some tourists from Canada, and we were “aboot” to mock their vowels as needing to be voided, but I figured that would just be mean.

Southward, on to Sonora, and the mood there was edgy.
A kid in a straw Stetson flagged us down and said there was gonna be trouble in the center of town any minute, so we headed there directly. It turned out there was no trouble, really, just a few folks who took their talk radio a little too seriously and had trouble tracking reality (we were not yet familiar with their puppet masters, the Koch brothers, nor did we know the full extent of the vitriol and outright treasonous elements their movement would support in the near future). On this day they were just a small crowd jumping around trying to get vehicles to honk if they supported their bizarre cause.

It took us about ten minutes in heavy traffic to pass through town. I heard two people sound their horns, but one of them was just impatient at a couple of gawkers slowing down the line.  Most passers-by either ignored the protesters or gave them what is apparently the foothill version of the Bronx cheer. We put this case in the easy-solve column and concluded that although there are a few eccentrics (like anywhere else), most folks in Sonora are pretty level-headed. Little did we know then that nationwide, the numbers of the Koch brothers’ minions would continue to swell.

We got to Big Oak Flat later that afternoon, after stopping off in the Old West town of Chinese Camp to look at some deserted buildings. After filling up the bikes, we rode to the back of the lot to make use of the facilities. Ever since the big biker riot of ’06, the proprietors of the Big Oak Flat gas station have made customers use the outhouses.
I can tell you with near 100% certainty that these particular outhouses are the filthiest, most disgusting portable toilets on the west coast.

An old guy from the Goldwing riding club decides against opening that door.

The proprietors of this establishment will never get one more dime from me. If Tuolumne County could afford a health department, I’d call ‘em in on this. Sincerely. The one redeeming quality of that particular destination is the fence in the back. There you may find several different and conflicting views of the woods behind the lot. A comparison between these may yield higher truth. Or not.  Probably not, because I don’t think any of us can ever really know precisely where we stand on any continuum at any given moment, and the context we seek is, by necessity, embedded within contexts perceived and modified by countless others.  Still, pondering such things is what keeps me alive.

Post and photos © Pseudocognitive, with profuse apologies to John Steinbeck (and apologies of a medium nature to Robert M. Pirsig)

Dogs and autism: My son’s bond with a very special Labrador

There’s something about dogs and autism, or at least there’s something about dogs and the specific autism of my oldest son, Steve.  Today marks the approximate anniversary of the birth of a very special, unique dog, our faithful Labrador mix, Angel.  What Angel brought to our family, especially to our son, cannot be adequately described.

We never knew exactly when Angel was born; SPCA personnel estimated that it was in the last few days of December 1998 or early in the first week of January ’99, so this seems like as good a day as any other to commemorate her birth.

Lab puppies like to eat redwood trees.  The bark is their favorite part. Redwood trees can survive being stripped of their bark.  My wife didn’t really need those shoes.  Labs like to leap into the air and snatch mockingbirds and scrub jays in flight.  Labs are supposed to retrieve dead birds and carry them with gentle jaw pressure to people.  Angel’s method was a bit more robust; no birds survived, but the ones who were lucky enough to observe these antics from above quickly learned that our yard was a no-fly zone from ground level up to an altitude of about 7 or 8 feet.  Similarly, a salesman who ignored the sign on the gate to our enclosed front entry and foolishly trespassed by scaling the fence learned that standing very still with a heart rate up around 140 while a ninety-pound dog stares at you from a distance of a few feet, ears perked, tail erect and slowly flagging (not wagging)  is no one’s idea of fun.

Over time, Steve and Angel established an unbreakable bond.  He spent hours in his favorite place–the backyard–with Angel as his constant companion.  Steve has been almost completely nonverbal since losing his expressive language at around the age of two, but he trained Angel in his own unique way to respond to gestures and behavioral cues.  Her ability to sense Steve’s moods far exceeded the already impressive social hierarchy-related perceptive skills characteristic of the species. Steve found in Angel someone who seemed to anticipate his responses to the sights, sounds and situations that produced in him irritability, fear, or anger, and then provided a calming influence.

We all loved that dog, but Steve’s connection with Angel was something that, if a pet owner is lucky, he or she will experience once in a lifetime.  At times they seemed to respond to each other before the eliciting stimulus even occurred.  My strongly ingrained skeptical agnosticism is tested whenever I contemplate the relationship between my son and his dog.  I could apply Occam’s steely blade to the issue and come up with several simple models, but to what end?  Sometimes, for me at least, accepting mystery is the simplest path, and if the simpler path is also comforting, I’ll permit myself that indulgence from time to time, especially when it involves my family.  Does that mean I invoke some kind of metaphysical woo-woo explanation?  No.  It simply means that I don’t chip away at the emotional importance of the phenomenon by dissecting and examining it in detail.  It’s enough to say, “I can’t completely explain it, and in this case, that’s okay.”

Angel died peacefully on the bright autumn morning of October 20, 2009.   It took Steve time to understand, and we still cannot know with anything even approaching certainty what his specific conception of death might be.  For weeks afterward he looked for his dog, and our attempts to comfort and explain may or may not have helped ease his path to acceptance. Several weeks after Angel died, as I drove Steve through our neighborhood on the way to the store, we passed a park where a man was throwing a tennis ball to his dog–a black lab that bore more than a passing resemblance to Angel.  This upset Steve greatly. I won’t describe his specific response, because his obvious anguish at the time still haunts me, but it seems clear that he thought that dog was Angel and that she now lived with someone else.

Steve is resilient.  We have two new labs (just over a year old now).  Steve likes them, but he hasn’t yet shown signs of establishing the kind of bond he had with Angel.  Perhaps he will, eventually, or maybe once is enough for him.  Meanwhile, we wait and hope.

Angel, 1998-2009

(Originally published on 1/1/10.)

Post and photo © Pseudocognitive All rights reserved, forever.

BLOGGING UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Jenny McCarthy's insanity. I said Jumanji!

I haven’t had distilled alcohol since 1986.  This Old No. 7 is good stuff.  One cup is enough.
(Slightly edited 9 February 2014.)
Lots of people, lots of blogs. Here’s where to get a good burrito.  There’s a place to avoid in the event of a tsunami.  I’ll show you how to promote your business and make money from domain names named after 14th Century philosophers and 70′s porn stars.  Grow your mustache and lead the invasion of Normandy as you wound your heart with a monotonous languor. Sell your house this way. Flip your house that way and join the ranks of the rich bastards. Drink these berries from the foothills of the Himalayas.  Feel like an activist by following me on Twitter while twirling with Mylar-festooned ears in the moonlit streets on a quiet night in Mill Valley.  Beware of cell phone antennae–they might fry your ‘nads in the event of seismic activity. I’m a guerrilla marketer, pay for my drink. Lock up vandals. Graffiti artists are not vandals. Yes they are. No they aren’t. Ban guns! Guns for tots! Liberty is just another word for nothin' left to lose. Ron Paul Rand Paul Ted Cruz! We're the Good Guys With Guns! We're the Good, Caring Humans With No Guns! Petaluma is a great place–visit my pro-Petaluma blog.  Petaluma is a festering sore on the ass end of a syphilitic chicken.  Petaluma Poultry sells only free range organic chickens and is exempt from all negative Petaluma characterizations.  Rocky the Range Chicken is a healthy source of animal protein.  Republicans are bad.  Democrats are bad.  Democrats are good.  Republicans–pass the beer nuts.  Watch the cops–videotape ‘em when they violate your 4th Amendment rights.  Support the cops and give them your cell phone cameras. Stop whining about law enforcement officers and just quit being an asshole! Take back our streets from the criminals and gang members.  Gangs only exist because children need love. Lock up the gangsters.  Free the children.  Learn martial arts by watching this DVD and reading my blog.  I reviewed a book.  I read a book.  I wrote a book.  Read my Star Trek fan fiction.  I want to be an extra on Sons of Anarchy.  I have a story-line idea for Sons of Anarchy.  Sons of Anarchy is a TV show–it’s not real.  It is too real; I saw them in Temecula.  Rio Vista!  This movie sucks.  This movie is the best movie of the year.  Don’t contaminate our drinking water with fluoridation.  Autism is caused by vaccines and Jenny McCarthy is a powerful creature capable of shooting flaming napalm from her nipples at the eyes of people who dare to speak up against what she knows to be true because after all, post hoc, ergo propter hoc.  Lock up aggressive panhandlers.  Lock up Jenny McCarthy.  Lock up scientifically illiterate parents who endanger their kids and everyone else's by refusing to vaccinate based on their own voluntary ignorance. The Book of Eli is propaganda of the religious right, and I for one am surprised that Denzel Washington agreed to star in it. The Book of Eli is a cautionary tale about the dangers of pseudo-digitizing complex analog phenomena and actually has very little to do with religion.  Aw, you’re both full o’ crap.  Protect the panhandling community from aggressive cops on steroids. Tase the violent, freeloading panhandlers into submission! War is not healthy for panhandlers and other living things! I'll hit you with this cast iron pan if you try to pry my mobile device from my cold, dead fingers! Get US outta the U.N.  Frank Burns eats worms.  One nation . . . way messed up.  The best nation on Earth.  One nation under God.  One nation NOT under god.  One nation founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  One nation founded on genocide and slavery.  Hot dogs will kill you. It’s possible to make a fertilizer bomb using sausage casings.  Just kidding. NSA, please disregard. The British Navy stopped issuing rum and I blame Jenny McCarthy. The British Navy will kill you. Don't let the British navy kill you. I got sixteen hits on one of my blog posts today.  Fourteen of ‘em were from bots.

Cold fish, midnight sky
Pulls the stars across his gills
The moon in his eye

Jumanji, you rifle wielding wanker!  I said JUMANJI !




Bleary-eyed morning-after edit: Just so we’re clear, Jenny McCarthy should be billed for the medical expenses of every child who contracts pertussis.  Since there’ve been some some fatalities that wouldn’t have occurred if not for her exploitation of the disturbingly widespread scientific illiteracy of the American public, she really ought to be incarcerated as well.  Since no legal means exist to further that end, I guess I’ll just have to hope that one day she becomes smarter than a 5th grader.
                                 

Post and photo © Pseudocognitive All rights reserved, forever.

Meatball Photography

Valuable self-awareness, or a boatload of philosophical crap: An examination of why I actually like a few of my pictures...

I like this picture. I selected it from thousands of others I have that range from very ordinary to downright bad (with the occasional exception). I used to shoot these pictures during brief stops on motorcycle rides within a 150 mile radius of home. The geographical limit was not imposed by an ankle monitor and  parole officer, although my 99 year old grandmother was a parole officer for the State of California until her retirement in about 1975. It was and is a self-regulatory boundary that makes no sense to most observers.

In "M*A*S*H" (the Robert Altman film, not the TV series, which was okay for the first few seasons but went downhill fast when Trapper John left, Henry was killed en-route back to the States, and Hawkeye devolved into a sanctimonious caricature of Phil Donahue phony liberalism), they referred to their brand of intervention as "meatball surgery," a term that's been stuck in my head for decades. They operated on soldiers with horrific injuries under primitive conditions and did the best they could and then sent the survivors to a rear area for better treatment. I have used this as a metaphor for all kinds of completely unrelated processes throughout my life, mainly because once something gets into my head I can never, ever get it out of there. I call my style of picture-taking "meatball photography" because I do it with very basic gear under extreme time constraints. Once in a while, this method produces something that seems to be enhanced, rather than compromised, by my peculiar procedure. The gritty, contrasty qualities of the above photo were influenced by this method. It's a state of mind, I think. I want to really go off the deep end and make some connection to Steinbeck's peepholes and the perspective they provide on "...whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," in other words, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men." I'll avoid that particular exercise in grandiosity right now, though, and simply say that once in a while my fractious mental processes work to my benefit. I count myself lucky if that happens for maybe one shot in every thousand. That's why I like this particular picture - its imperfections mirror my own.

© Pseudocognitive