Apropos something completely unrelated, a couple of words popped up that accurately describe my attitude to the internet. Dabbler and dilettante.
As far as philosophy is concerned I’ve always thought Wittgenstein drew a rather neat line under the whole enterprise as we had come to understand it. Having seen it degenerate into little more than fruitless semantic language games he declared:
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Indeed. And with that pithy retort he left it all up to the poets.*
*Well, not exactly but it works for me.
Over the years (since around 1999) I’ve had countless blogs (ie. I’ve lost count). Using, in no particular order, Blogger, Moveable Type/ Typepad, Wordpress, Squarespace, Tumblr, Medium and Wordpress again (and again!). I’ve bought and let slide numerous domains and now find myself here on micro.blog sans domain.
Looking back there’s no sense of loss or regret over the demise of (probably) hundreds of thousands of words and pictures and I figure the same will be true of what’s here now.
I still have no idea why I started and continued to blog. Still don’t really. Maybe the answer is the same (and only) one I ever come up with for why I do anything – to see what happens.
What stories and narratives of self will you be holding onto as you’re dying? Which begs the rather more urgent question, what are you holding onto right now?
Wow, a Red Kite just swooped down onto the road in front of me to grab a scrap of roadkill. I slowed right down but it flew off, its large wings flapping so slowly, it seemed it was taking off in slow motion. So beautiful.
It’s a strange feeling being surrounded by people who seem to have a lot to say about everything when you have very little to say about anything.
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. Of course it is understandable that we seek happiness and avoid unlucky and disagreeable chances but the more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it. It is therefore far better to take things as they come along, with patience and equanimity.”
— Carl Jung
What an extraordinary morning. Seeing the actual sun for the first time in what feels like many weeks that the sky has been obscured by thick cloud. Wow.
The specific qualities of experience pale in comparison to the simple presence of everything, the fact that anything is happening at all.
I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.
— Evelyn Beatrice Hall via Scattershot
Never confuse your own character and personality with those of the society and culture in which you find yourself.
My favourite Prince anecdote comes from an interview when he was asked what Rolling Stones song he wished he’d written, to which answered ‘Miss You’. He was also asked which U2 song he wished he’d written to which he responded that he could have written all of them but wouldn’t want to write any of them! Ouch! 🤣
Been revisiting Prince for the first times in ages. For my money, throughout the six year period from ‘82 to ‘88 and the six albums – 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In a Day, Parade, Sign O’ The Times and Lovesexy – he was simply untouchable. Such a monumentally brilliant body of work that no one has come even close to. Surely the Miles Davis of pop.
Really savouring Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs. Great poet that she is, she manages to convey the human universal through the particularities of dogs.