A Birthday Gift

My birthday was Wednesday, July 29th, and my friends Jeff and Lizzie gave me this beautiful book of short "song offerings" by Rabindranath Tagore.

Tagore was a poet, novelist, playwright, musician and painter. He became Asia's first Nobel Laureate when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

Tagore was born in Calcutta on May 7, 1861, the son of the well-known philosopher and religious reformer Devendranath Tagore. He was sent to England to study law, but returned as he found it uninteresting. He began writing poetry early in life, and in 1890 he published Manasi, a collection that demonstrated his genius. It contains his first social and political poems. Most of his life was spent in his native Bengal, and much of his writing dealt with the land and its people.

Tagore produced a massive amount of literature in the Bengali language. His works include numerous novels, short stories, collection of songs, dance-drama, political and personal essays. Some prominent examples are Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World). He wrote of the poverty and backwardness of the people in a collection of stories, Galpaguchchha (1912). Other writings include Sonar Tari, Chitra, Kalpana and Naivedya - all poetry collections. His plays include Chitrangada and Malini.

Tagore strongly protested against the British Raj and gave his support to the Indian Independence Movement and Mahatma Gandhi. Tagore's life was tragic - he lost virtually his entire family and was devastated to witness Bengal's decline - but his life's work endured, in the form of his poetry and the institution he founded, Vishwa-Bharati University.

Tagore was knighted in 1915 but he returned the title in 1919 to protest the Jaliawala Bagh Massacre. He was an internationalist in spirit, stressing the need for a dialogue between the world's diverse cultures. Much of the last 25 years of his life was spent in lecture tours abroad. Yet in the same period he produced 21 collections of writings. He died in Calcutta on August 7, 1941.

Gitanjali is a masterpiece which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. These immensely touching verses were written in Bengali in 1910, after he lost his father, wife, second daughter and youngest son. Gitanjali's canvas encompasses life's experiences with an innocence and simplicity that one does not find elsewhere in literature.

He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in its name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.

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It's Awful The Way We Treat Blondes

A blonde decides to try horseback riding, even though she has had no lessons nor any prior experience. She mounts the horse unassisted, and the horse immediately springs into motion. It gallops along at a steady and rhythmic pace, but the blonde begins to slide from the saddle.

In terror, she grabs for the horse's mane, but cannot get a firm grip. She tries to throw her arms around the horse's neck, but she slides down the horse's side anyway. The horse gallops along, seemingly impervious to its slipping rider.

Finally, giving up her frail grip, the blonde attempts to leap away from the horse and throw herself to safety. Unfortunately, her foot has become entangled in the stirrup; she is now at the mercy of the horse's pounding hooves as her head is struck against the ground over and over.

As her head is battered against the ground, she is mere moments away from unconsciousness when to her great fortune.....Frank, the Wal-Mart greeter, sees her dilemma and unplugs the horse.

And you thought all they did was say Hello

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The Faces Of Spirit

From Ken Wilber's The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion - chapter entitled: The Great Holarchy in the Postmodern World:

ART is the Beauty of Spirit as it expresses itself on each and every level of its own manifestation. Art is in the eye of the beholder, in the I of the beholder: Art is the I of Spirit.

MORALS are the intersubjective form of Spirit, the Good of Spirit, as it expresses itself on each and every level of its own manifestation. Morals are the We of Spirit.

SCIENCE is the exterior of Spirit, the objective Truth of Spirit, the surface of Spirit, as it expresses itself on each and every level of its own manifestation. Science is the It of Spirit.

We have seen that each vertical level of the Great Holarchy has four horizontal dimensions or quadrants - intentional, behavioral, cultural and social - or simply the Big Three of art, morals and science; the Beautiful, the Good and the True; I, WE and IT.

The Good, the True and the Beautiful, then, are simply the faces of Spirit as it shines in this world. Spirit seen subjectively is Beauty, the I of Spirit. Spirit seen intersubjectively is the Good, the We of Spirit. And Spirit seen objectively is the True, the It of Spirit.

From the time before time, from the very beginning, the Good and the True and the Beautiful were Spirit whispering to us from the deepest sources of our own true being, calling to us from the essence of our own estate, a whispering voice that always said, love to infinity and find me there, love to eternity and I will be there, love to the boundless corners of the Kosmos and all will be shown to you.

And whenever we pause, and enter the quiet, and rest in the utter stillness, we can hear that whispering voice calling to us still: never forget the Good, and never forget the True, and never forget the Beautiful, for these are the faces of your own deepest Self, freely shown to you.

Be still, and know that I am God.

- Psalm 46:10
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Why MultiTasking Doesn't Work

A very interesting article from Lateral Action:

Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action.

"You wouldn’t drink and drive. But would you drink and write? Maybe a glass of wine could be just the thing to get you started on that poem to your sweetheart. How about a few beers before writing an important e-mail? Or a business proposal? Could you do with a shot of whisky before taking a phone call from a client? How about some Dutch courage before a big presentation?

"It sounds absurd when I put it like that. But did you know that there is strong research evidence that the popular working practice of multitasking can reduce your performance level to that of a drunk?"

Click Here for full article...

When you are walking, walk. When you are sitting, sit. ~ The Buddha
Always do one thing at a time, that of the present moment. ~ Gurdjieff
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Counter-Culture vs Transformative Culture

Epilogue from One City:
A Declaration of Interdependence

Ethan Nichtern: Sometimes I see my own (broadly defined) generation through two remarkably different lenses. When I feel a little cranky and depressed and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in a while, it seems like we're all just going through the motions, endlessly surfing and browsing only to find the same old page all over again, twiddling our thumbs, tracing random doodles on mental sketch-pads, dressing up and striking wasted poses that someone else has struck a thousand times before, just to somehow feel momentarily original within the hopeless unoriginality we've inherited. Sometimes it feels like we're subconsciously awaiting the arrival of an apocalypse that for some reason just won't get here and let us off the hook.

Then I take a nap, blink, breathe and look again, and I see nothing but incredibly talented and creative people who are each fumbling in their own brilliance for ways to think, speak and live from a deep and unyielding intention to exist meaningfully and compassionately for ourselves and others. We just aren't always on the same page about how to accomplish this.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, but like everything else that arises in the network of interdependence, it all depends on your perspective. Because I'm a reluctant optimist, and because my Buddhist teachers have hammered it into my head, I lean toward the latter way of looking as much as I can. If the world really is ultimately a co-production of the mind-states of all those individuals inhabiting it, then there is always hope for us, as long as each individual begins to feel the need to train his or her own mind. If we keep developing communities that organize around this principle (and if you can't find any, keep looking, they're there) - each individual taking the time to care for her own mind and then taking the time to care about the impact on others of her actions - things might start getting a lot brighter in a hurry.

We don't have the luxury of creating a counterculture anymore. The wish to erect a utopian counterculture that stands in opposition to a hated mainstream society falls apart on the ultimate level of interdependence; after all, these two cultures would depend on each other for their oppositional identities. Whatever language, symbolism, style of dress and multimedia we could use to define ourselves as authentically "alternative" would be branded and sold back to us at retail before we even got our act together. It's happened so many times already. There's no way to counter the mainstream. Even the word alternative means "mainstream" now. This only leaves us with one choiceless choice: instead of countering the culture, we have to transform it. We have to use existing cultural forms to peel back the layers of the blazing digital facades and reveal the beating heart underneath.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a facade. The only problem with a facade arises when there's nothing but self-deception lying underneath. If our cultural symbols point to the heart of the matter, then they can transform self-absorption into the substance of real compassion every day of the week. To steal a line from the poet Saul Williams, in an age where everyone is trying to be hardcore - hardcore progressive, hardcore conservative, hardcore bungee jumper, hardcore punk, hardcore rap, hardcore vegetarian, hardcore Zen - we can consistently train in being "heartcore". Learning the shapeless difference between self-deception and authentic presence is the real work of fearlessness. If we master that process, our lives will become blazing four-dimensional billboards for the truth of interdependence, the embodiment of heartcore.

The Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy said something in response to the slogan of many progressive movements, the oft-used "Another world is possible". She said, "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing." The universal truth of interdependence might add one more layer to this sentiment:

Another world is definitely possible; it looks just like this one."

something unstoppable set into motion
nothing is different, but everything's changed
- Paul Simon
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The Real Military-Industrial Complex

from One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, by Ethan Nichtern - chapter entitled NonViolence vs NonExistence:

"The danger of activism, in terms of interdependence, lies in the problem of anchoring our righteous cause in opposition to a set enemy, a fixed group of antagonists whose fixed image we can imprint in our brain and forever burn in effigy.

"The more we fix our identity around the evil of a given enemy, "them", the less chance there will be to ever meaningfully dissolve that dichotomy. In other words, if we don't tame our own anger, we will become addicted to framing everything in these terms, "us" and "them". When that happens, the needed fix for the addiction is in finding new enemies. This is how our inner military-industrial complex builds its own artillery. Once we need a new enemy, we can easily create the mental propaganda that explains why some new person or group or regime fits the bill. Finding the reason why our enemy is our enemy just takes a good Orwellian storyteller and decent production values.

"When we fall into this rut, we will have less and less reason for actual resolution to the conflict in question. For if the people I've defined as my enemies for so long stop being the "them" on which I've been fixating, then I will have to stop being part of the "us" to which I've grown so accustomed. Once you've been protesting for a while, it can be truly scary to have to face losing your identity as the "protestor". If fighting is what we're addicted to, there will always be someone to fight (isn't it funny how enemies just seem to keep on coming and coming, and coming?) It might be exes or bosses. It might be Republicans or Democrats. It might be Iranians or Chinese, or the world's most irresponsible corporations, but we'll always be in need of and be able to find an enemy, a "them". And when our anger turns to violence, we'll be blessed by more enemies than we could ever imagine."

but if you want money for people with minds that hate
all I can tell you is brother, you'll have to wait

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Don't Try: Charles Bukowski's Advice to Creators

Being a blogger has got to be the best thing ever - one of my favorite poets is featured on one of my favorite websites - and I get to share it with you, loyal followers...

"German-American poet, novelist and short story writer Charles Bukowski consciously absorbed the world around him as he inhabited the bars and rooming houses in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. It was here that the “Laureate of American Lowlife” gathered material for much of his writing career - telling the story of drunks, gamblers and down-and-outs, of which he was all three."

For Amy Harrison's full article on LateralAction, click here.

"After achieving fame, his advice to other writers seeking literary success was so simple and pithy that it rattles in the space on his headstone where it is engraved: DON'T TRY"

"Don’t Try" is not about embarking on a hedonistic lifestyle like Bukowski’s for the sake of it. It’s about taking time to let your creativity speak to you. It may arrive through activities and environments that make you elated, or angry, or through putting yourself in situations that are new, perhaps even uncomfortable. Or it may arrive from just sitting still and taking a break."

Charles Bukowski is mentioned in an earlier RoadKill post with some links and a poem. Here's another:

making it
ignore all possible concepts and possibilities--
ignore Beethoven, the spider, the damnation of Faust--
just make it, babe, make it:
a house - a car - a belly full of beans
pay your taxes
fuck
and if you can't fuck
copulate.
make money but don't work too
hard -- make somebody else pay to
make it -- and
don't smoke too much but drink enough to
relax, and
stay off the streets
wipe your ass real good
use a lot of toilet paper
it's bad manners to let people know you shit or
could smell like it
if you weren't
careful.

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Why Buy Expensive Toys?

if this doesn't make you smile, check your pulse ...

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Three Reasons To Quit Drinking

well, something to think about anyway....

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How To Generate Powerful Ideas By Thinking Laterally

an article by Paul Sloane for Innovation Tools.

The Innovation Tools website features articles that, while written for business people and entrepreneurs, present insightful advice for anyone. This one by Paul Sloane suggests ways to "deliberately turn every assumption and dominant idea on its head and see where that leads", and ultimately develop a flexible, creative mind.

"A great deal of humour is based on lateral thinking. The comedian ridicules existing beliefs; he comes at an issue from unusual directions; he makes unexpected connections to give the surprise that makes us laugh. The two best reasons to use lateral thinking in our everyday lives are because we will generate many fresh, better ideas and because it is great fun."

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

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bad banana blog

ideas, inspiration, ephemera

- put 'em in the freezer and bake some bread later

A sumptuous visual feast by Tim Siedell, creative director of Brand Communication Studio in Lincoln, Nebraska

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All Excellence Is Elitist

Tom Huston

This blog post by one of the editors of EnlightenNext magazine really struck a chord with me - it's an energized view from the other side of the "flatland" of postmodernism.

"In postmodern culture we simply love to pull people down, even if we’ve never attempted to rise up ourselves and become true cultural leaders, authorities, or exemplars in any field — whether it’s art, business, science, politics, or even spirituality. But why do we feel such a need to do it?"

"All excellence is elitist. And that includes spiritual excellence as well. But spiritual excellence is an elitism to which all are invited."

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
- Shana Alexander
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