Ecstagony

Caught eternally between
the love of my hating,
and the hate of my loving,
I sit unconcerned,
alone,
in my reflection of fear.
Hoping with the de-liberation
of hard-learned patience
for the ti-me to co-me
of my final deliverance
from the agony and ecstasy
of making believe
the images of my imagination
will set me free
from the ever clinging
fate of dualistic opposites.
Realization is always
one step beyond knowing
the unknown.

fmp 8/3/71


If I were to edit this poem from today's perspective, and I guess I have below. I would simply omit the lines... "from the ever clinging fate of dualistic opposites"

This phrasing seems youthfully didactic. It interrupts the flow of the original intent. To credit the scoundrel in me, I probably stuck it in there after the fact to impress some incidental person, for reasons that I no longer retain,

By removing those extraneous lines, the dimension is more authentically 'sound' to me, as if the right hocus pocus could actually deliver a sight yet undifferentiated, although dynamically and potentially "there" all along.

You gnow what I mean, the effect of the word on those who have ears to hear is similar to the reaction of neuron receptors when unlocked by the right chemical imprint. If the utterer's rituals proceed as planned and his mojo gets the correct combination of juices flowing, even the sky is not the limit. The carefully chosen abracadabra can open sesame any thick Wall of Jericho in existense, and when All Fall Down, as Herlihy might write, possess it's gratefully humbled inhabitants by the mystical appearance of the grail host shining forth in full regalia.

It's just a scam... Man! They've made at least a dozen movies about it! Some with spectacular special effects of truly bombastic appeal. But, even if it is the work of some fly-by-night broom straddler, it's just gotta be true! Is this not at least how it should be? Twinkle, twinkle, little star...

Ecstagony

Caught eternally between
the love of my hating,
and the hate of my loving,
I sit unconcerned,
alone,
in my reflection of fear.
Hoping with the de-liberation
of hard-learned patience
for the ti-me to co-me
of my final deliverance
from the agony and ecstasy
of making believe
the images of my imagination
will set me free.
Realization is always
one step beyond knowing
the unknown.

fmp 8/3/71

i have written a new mantrum. Now I gotta figure out how to repeated enough times to make it so. LOL

Yes, I agree with you completely. What you describe is entirely possible. Perhaps, when enough caring people rally to your cause, and do so in such a manner as to provide you with whatever you might need to make it so, your clarion call can rouse the will of the people and you will prevail despite all odds. Rest assured, dearest one, that you have my support. My best wishes to you in this endeavor!

I suppose things are going fairly well for me. It seems more and more difficult to contemplating how my life is going by comparing it with the run-of-the-mill daily grind sort of thing. It seems as if that has become rather impossible. I can only compare where I'm at NOW with where I was THEN, and so now and then I think I'm doing better or worse according to what part of my life comes up for reframing. I am constantly reframing the events of my life for the more detached audience I represent to my person presently.

Sure, some of the events of the past would not meet muster in the here and now. The words and actions that took place under extenuating circumstances then, seem ludicrous now, so my reframing makes the appropriate changes and is filtered for acceptable content. It's the rating system that appears to
go through the most change. After all, what is more appropriate for a 64 year old man pales in comparison with the dynamic in-your-face behavior of a much younger James Lee Hamilton. What a drama queen that boy was!

Reframing is basically a NLP term I use for what some call a recapitulation of my life. This recapitulation exists as a very slow process. Not every experience is available for review on demand, but seems more digital in nature. In other words, I find it difficult to conjure a particular time to review and then run it like a serial movie in my mind's eye from that point backward or forward to make sure I didn't miss any part of it. Rather, specific events pop up in my imaginator one after the other in quick succession, and I get what I can get when I can get it. Very haphazard way of doing things. Besides, if I run across an event that completely absorbs my attention, then more than likely I will attach to the emotions of that event to the degree that I lose all other reference points associated with that event.

I admit, however, that as I age, and as the more emotionally charged careactorizations of my past get rewired to a more sophisticated concatenation. More of those experiences seem more manageable. In this way, by the overall reduced static induced by my paltry efforts appears to allow me to reach deeper past those sensational moments that have taken up so much of my attention. If I live long enough, and am able to maintain at least some perseverance of my recapitulative efforts, my entire personality careactorizations will no long exist.

My life has grown amazingly uncomplicated. I just congratulated myself for remembering that I had already poured my second cup of coffee and turned the coffe pot off an hour ago. It's no wonder I still smack my lips and tongue to enjoy the aftertaste of seriously rich gourmet coffee. It's my only real indulgence other than cigarettes. Everything else is dealt with very severely. I have not left my house today. The weather is cold and rainy. Very raw and unforgiving. I have an inside place to be, why would I leave it.

Earlier, I wrote a bit on caring. Caring can kill you. When carried to extremes it will make you crazy. The act of caring should be banned. There is no good end to it. There appear to exist mandated acts of caring. Things people are naturally expected to care about. God, family, job, and a sense of patriotism for one's own way of life as handed down from the ancestors. These are those worrisome things we get led into thinking we "should" worry about them. As if it's out duty and responsibility to care about some things. Even if we have to fake it. Even if we have to pretend these things are sacred to us, whether they are or not, we should respect tradition. Oh... yeah?

The ultimate rebellion in life is when we decide not to invest in needless caring. In the Gospel of Thomas it is written that when Jesus's disciples asked him what was the secret of becoming Christ-like, he told them "Don't lie, and don't do anything you don't want to." He may have been directly addressing this issue of caring, or at least pretending to care, when you actually don't. I have been pretending to care about a bunch of petty formalities that have become too much of a burden to bear. For some time now I have devised insignificent little ways to see what kind of response I might get if I told the truth about how I really feel or don't feel about some of the sacred cows my community holds so dear. In most cases, they never blink an eye. "Another one bites the dust..."

I tried an experiment for the last couple of days. A friend of mine who gets too deep in the beer barrel told me that he had stopped drinking for the last few weeks, and attributed this remarkable lack of inebriation to a new pill his doctor had prescribed. He brought me a couple of pills to try so I could understand how it helped him. I took one of the pills two nights ago, and the other one yesterday morning. This resulted in my sleeping about ten hours night before last, and felt very relaxed and sleepy pretty much all day yesterday. My friend dropped by yesterday for a brief visit just after I was starting to feel the effect of the second pill. He stated that he had also gotten sleepy when he first started taking the pills, but after the first week he seemed to have gotten the opposite affect, he got a lot of energy from the pill. He bragged about how it had made him feel horny. I am happy he has been able to stop drinking, and that his libido has picked up, but I don't think I will take any more of these pills. They appear to take the edge off my need for displaying caution in my relationships with others. I seem perfectly aware of the need to do so.

My interest in the digital age seems to have taken a more specific direction. I've found a few news sites that specialize in nanotechnology that have articles on what's going on in that field. Almost every day a new discovery or invention comes out that surprises me. I didn't get into computers until I was near fifty years old. They weren't around as personal computers until the late Eighties, and yet because of my youngest brother I did get involved with them about then. As intriguing as the development of the digital age has been, I couldn't have imagined some of the extent miniturization would get to presently, much less what will eventually come to pass. I just read yesterday about IBM announcing they had put together the smallest motor ever constructed. The size of it is fairly incredible. The article I read about this motor suggested some possible ways it can be used, and that was even more startling. Prior to the Millenium, my reason for wanting to live a long life was just to experience what actually would happen in 2001. I expected something spectacular to come about because of all the hype beforehand, but was definitely not as impressed as I thought I might be. It was pretty ho-hum when compared to those eagerly awaited catastrophes that were predicted. But, in fact, something did happen during the turn of the millenium, and that was the progress made in nanotechnology. Now I would like to live in a coherent manner for another ten years just to see what they will come up with next.