Jim Putnam - Thinking Through My Fingers

Cryptoquote Philosophy

Marrianna does the Cryptoquote on the puzzle page of the Raleigh News & Observer every day.  Once in a while, it's especially interesting for some reason, and she tells me the solution.  I listen, but seldom think about it anymore, or again.  Today's was different.  I recorded it on my digital recorder, and have listened to it again, and now I'm writing about it.

Civilization will really start when the power of love replaces the love of power.  [Cryptoquote, Source unknown, N & O, Jan 31, 2009]

It's a nice thought, and certainly sounds deep and meaningful.  But, is it true?  I like its premise, and think it deserves thought.  First thought, does the source really mean that we do not have civilization now?  If not, what do we have?

If one reads the newspapers, listens to radio and television news, and follows several internet news sources, obviously we have changed our life styles an inconceivable amount from, let's just go back to the beginning of the last millennium.  Doesn't that indicate that we are a civilized species?  But, from any other, perhaps more sane viewpoint, the atrocities, wars, starving, diseased people, and destruction of the environment certainly do not indicate, at least to me, that we are civilized.

Then, if the entire world is not civilized, can't we at least say that some of us are civilized?  No, probably not, for we, all of us, allow and participate in that list of uncivilized behavior.

Next, can we agree that love of power is the block keeping us from becoming civilized?  It seems to me that it is absolutely true that the love of power corrupts, spreading its tentacles into every part of our cultures, choking relief as much as kudzu chokes fields and forest.  At the base of almost any ill that besets us lurks the love of power.  Name a crime, a war, an atrocity, and surely among its base will be found the love of power.

I do not mean to say that the love of power is the sole source of all these.  Clearly it isn't.  But, power, in all its forms, money, armies, armaments, crime, and even many social ills, prostitution and pornography come to mind, is surely entangled deeply into their roots.

If that is true, can we say the the power of love should replace it?  It's a real shame that I cannot say that it is.  For too many, the word love is synonym for some form of religion, and organized religion another form of separation, exclusion and misuse of power.

Previously, I defined love as: "... willing to do something to enable another person to grow in body, in mind, in his emotional self, and his spiritual self, I can be said to love that person."  I still believe that is a very good definition of love.

I feel certain that if I could coin another word for love, using that definition, much confusion would be cleared.  Love is used in so many forms today that it loses its strength and meaning.  I thought of using 'agape', but that doesn't carry an exact meaning; nor does eros, or philia.  I cannot, so I suppose i will simply use the cryptoquote, and wish that my definition of love will replace all other definitions in other's minds.

Civilization will really start when the power of enabling growth, replaces the love of power.

It doesn't fall off the tongue easily enough to ever be used as an anonymous source for a cryptograph.  But it means more to me, and that's enough.

Thinking

There have been one word titles three straight days now.  Those are the titles that I finally settle upon when I am unable to find a clear subject, catchall titles that may wander anywhere.  Expect a catchall post.

Yesterday I had a massage at the Duke Center For Living.  For me, a good massage is invaluable in relieving tensions between mind and body.  If I am having problems, not necessarily physical, a massage always helps me sort its elements, and though I may not discover a solution, I always feel more capable of dealing with it.  Yesterday was an excellent example.  I left with a composure I did not feel when I got there.

The masseuse and I talked a little about the connection of body and spirit, jumping around, from acupuncture to relieving blockages held in by muscles, to giving.  I am grateful to her for far more than a massage.  In the previous two posts, Stuff and More, I've written about anger, and my need to put it away.  I believe that between the massage and writing, I have.  What is left is disappointment and sadness.

Among the subjects we touched upon yesterday was discipline, such as sitting down at the same time every day prepared to write.  Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer winning poet, writes somewhere ( I am not able to remember where, thus no link) that the muse is waiting to see if you're serious about writing.  If you are regularly there, she will come, but if it's hit and miss, she stays away.  I have been hit or miss, and my writing reflects it.

At one time, I was reasonably good at working with groups of people in order to lead them through the process of defining their wants and needs for a computer system.  I enjoyed being in front of them, listening to all of them, and not allowing anyone to monopolize the discussion.  I was good at it, liked doing it, and actually miss it.  I was also a pretty good instructor way back in time.  I wonder whether there are any volunteer organizations that could use those skills.

I have four primary interests: quilting, writing the blog, reading, and time with family.  Volunteering doesn't match those, and never has been a part of my history.  But I am beginning to feel a need to do more, and I certainly can't do it in terms of contributions of money.  I believe that opportunities will present themselves if I remain open.

When I began this post, There was no hint that it would end like the previous two paragraphs.  But, it is written, and having written, I move on.

More

Although I am not at all sure what this is more of, but I've been writing this blog for a little over five years now, so logically it is more of something.  I hope whatever it becomes more of strikes a chord with you.

Beauty is everywhere, but isn't always recognized.  An ice storm seems crystal to a friend, but is likely something less magical to utility company workers.  Each is real, but also neither.  There is no completely good/right or bad/wrong.  I have difficulty getting that thought to remain in my mind.  As I wrote last evening, I have to deliberately push anger from my mind because I know if kept it has the power to destroy my ability to see good in the person who caused it.  I think I said it better last night.

I mentioned in that entry that the ladies of my quilting group support one another.  For me, it was OK to admit that I'd not worked on it since before Christmas.  Their support came when they understood that I had not.  It was OK, we all need a break sometimes.  Today, I pulled it out and worked a couple of hours on it.  There is a strong, positive correlation between their support of not working on it, and my restart today.  I know I'll be working on it a couple of hours most days again.

I walked the dog by myself tonight and was witness to a bit of magic.  It has been raining and is still overcast.  As we walked between two rows of dense trees alongside the driveway into our cluster of homes, the trees of the circle were barely visible.  Fog is rising.  It was almost as if we were walking toward a gray wall.  Then the trees focused, swathed in mist.  I felt like an intruder on a family gathering.

That is, I suppose a strange feeling.  Those trees are always there, and I've walked toward them day and night for over four years.  Tonight, it felt different.  The dog brought me back to reality, stopping to go alongside the road.  But, it was very good while it lasted.

Thanks for listening.  I hope you heard your chord.

Stuff

This isn't a good evening for writing.  There are too many dark, angry personal thoughts, so many that they crowd out all creative ideas.  That's the  way of negative thoughts; they soon take over and there is no room for anything else.

I'll get over it, but right this moment there's only the urge to react in anger, and that wouldn't do anyone any good.  Also, I don't want the blog to be a place for venting.

So, let me write of beauty, of softness and peace.  Let me feel the darkness as quiet rest, with the tinkling of wind chimes coming on a soft breeze.  Let me reach for an olive branch, and let me be the person I want to be.

This morning our quilt group had its meeting.  If there is a nicer group of ladies anywhere, I haven't had the privilege of meeting them.  This morning we were eleven, where normally we would have seventeen or more.  We admired each other's work, gave advice where it was asked, and truly enjoyed being with one another.

I didn't take my quilt project to the meeting.  It's too large and bulky to haul around.  I suppose I will start a small project to take to meetings with me.  Several did ask me how it was going, and when I told them the truth, I haven't worked on it since before Christmas, they all commiserated, telling me that everyone needs to take a break once in a while.  They made me feel really good.

I had an opportunity to people watch later this afternoon.  I had a quick dental appointment to remove the stitches from my dental surgery two weeks ago.  After that, we decided to have a late lunch or early evening meal, and went to Panera Bread.  Both of us like Panera because their soups and breads are very good, and they don't use ingredients that Marrianna is allergic to.

The restaurant is just a few blocks from the campus, and as usual there were students at most tables and booths.  We settled at a front table.  Without turning my head, I could count students at seven laptop computers next to open textbooks.  One girl had a cell phone and was talking as she worked.  If I turned my head, there were at least six other computers.

I know I am about to sound like an old fogy, knowing that I am, but I would never have been able to study in an environment like this.  I know that's as natural for them as my quiet study time would be unnatural.  But, it continues to amaze me that they can do it.  I have to close the door so that Marrianna's TV program downstairs doesn't bother me as I write this.

Marrianna and I walked the dog together this evening.  I think we both needed to walk in the brisk evening air to clear our minds and lift our spirits.  Copernicus seemed to sense that, and walked further than he does usually.  Anyway, it worked for the time we were out there.

Looking at the day, even with the nasty surprise late this afternoon, overall it has been good.  The wonderful ladies, the intense students, and a happy dog make for a good day.  I guess I'm lucky to be able to look at the good parts.  Eventually, the nasty will fade away, but the good will remain.

Scattered Saturday Evening Thoughts

I have begun carrying a small digital recorder around with me.  Supposedly, it is for me to record fleeting thoughts as I go through my day, and when I sit down to write the blog I just listen to the notes and begin typing.  Unfortunately, it isn't as easy as that.  Today had only one note of one word. The word is "precipitously".  There are no sentences or phrases to give a clue what I was thinking of that caused me to make the note, just the one word. 

I can not dig within my memory to recall the circumstances that caused the note.  It's not there, but surely something happened, or some thought occurred that caused me to reach in my pocket, retrieve and turn the recorder on, and record a one word note.

Precipitously isn't exactly a word that comes through my mind often, so the fact that I would record it this morning and forget why this evening is interesting, and perhaps a bit disturbing.  Consider the dictionary definition:

SYLLABICATION:	pre·cip·i·tous
PRONUNCIATION:	pr-sp-ts
ADJECTIVE:	1. Resembling a precipice; extremely steep. See synonyms at steep1. 2. Having several precipices: a precipitous bluff. 3. Usage Problem Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate: “The change has included a precipitous collapse of Communist authority” (New York Times). See Usage Note at precipitate.
ETYMOLOGY:	Probably from obsolete precipitious, from Latin praecipitium, precipice. See precipice.
OTHER FORMS:	pre·cipi·tous·ly —ADVERB

The Usage Note provides a minimum of new information:

USAGE NOTE: The adjective precipitate and the adverb precipitately were once applied to physical steepness but are now used primarily of rash, headlong actions: Their precipitate entry into the foreign markets led to disaster. He withdrew precipitately from the race. Precipitous currently means “steep” in both literal and figurative senses: the precipitous rapids of the upper river; a precipitous drop in commodity prices. But precipitous and precipitously are also frequently used to mean “abrupt, hasty,” which takes them into territory that would ordinarily belong to precipitate and precipitately: their precipitous decision to leave. This usage is a natural extension of the use of precipitous to describe a rise or fall in a quantity over time: a precipitous increase in reports of measles is also an abrupt or sudden event. Though this extended use of precipitous is well attested in the work of reputable writers, it is still widely regarded as an error.

Our language often mystifies me, but my thought processes do more often.  Why would I record a word without notes to help recall the reason?  Further, why would I record the adverb form?

Returning to yesterday's entry about "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned", [1998, Walter Mosley, W. W. Norton & Co, New York] there remains some remnant of thought that I didn't quite get down.  I'm not sure that I can this evening either, but if not, I'll keep on trying.

Mosley places before us a word picture of a society that is almost completely separated by race and poverty.  And nobody cares.  It's worse for someone like Socrates Fortlow (it's right this time) because he has been brutalized within the penal system and outside.

Mosley writes about a person doing his best to be honest, his best to help construct better lives for himself and those around him, and his best to keep the system from returning him to prison.  I am not sure my listing is ordered correctly; it may be that my last phrase would be Socrates' first.  As I read the book, I felt Socrates was going to succeed.  The very last sentence gives gives some doubt,  "And neither do I."  I hope he did, because if this person, and Mosley's Socrates is real to me, cannot make it, neither can our society, culture, or eventually nation.  We will destroy ourselves because we can't allow people to live like the characters Mosley gives us in his book and not destroy ourselves.  There are, thank God, people who give hope, Socrates, Luvia, Right, but few others.  For most, it seems a downward spiral.  I worry.  I know before the nation makes the decision to change its racial separation - no matter whether we have a black President - I will be gone.  I do pray that I have an opportunity with this blog to raise my voice to start the change.

More on Walter Mosley and "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned"

Since my post below, I've been thinking about how "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned" [Walter Mosley, 1998, W.W. Norton & Co., New York] is also a study in race relations, with a glimpse of prison life, and the completely separate, apartheid condition of inner city, ghetto blacks, and probably Latinos too, though the story doesn't say much about them.  I know that Mosley is known reasonably well in literary circles, but I had never read anything by him.  Now I'm going to have to go out and find something he has written since 1998. 

In Socrates Fortlow, Moseley has created a black man who has an inner compass that he does his best to follow.  He has lived in violence through his entire life, before his 27 years of prison, during those years, and now that he has paid his debt, he is trying to find a life without violence.  But in the part of Los Angeles he lives, there is no escape.  He has to face it almost daily, and Mosley gives a a portrait of a man who struggles with it, and with himself, every day.

But there are times when his capacity for violence is necessary and good.  There are times when Sopcrates uses violence to effect positive results.  In these times, Socrates is not troubled.  He does what needs to be done, and moves on.  The magic in the story to me is thyat he doesn't regret or dwell on them.  It is mostly when he is alone that he feels the capacity for violence within him.

Socrates only has a few friends and their names are important.  Right Burke is one, Stony Wile,  another.  There's also Howard Shakur and Markham Peal.  Howard and Markham are lesser characters,  Right, however, is throughout the entire book, appearing in many of the fourteen stories.  Right is a wounded veteran, and late in the book we are told he is dying of cancer.  Socrates buys him morphine pills to ease his pain, and is willing to give Right a gun with which to kill himself.  Right takes ten morphine pills as they are standing at a bus stop and says ""Let me die wit' sumpin'."  When the bus arrives, Right tells Socrates to go on.  Socrates rides off on the bus.

The last lines of the book are spoken as Socrates rides off in the bus.

"He don't need no police car or hospital," Socrates muttered.  "He don't need none'a that shit.  And neither do I."

Socrates knowsthat he has served his friend well, and that he can end his own life when the time comes.  I'll be thinking of Socrates struggle with violence, right, and wrong for some time.  Even more though, I'll be struggling with a country that separates itself into apartheid-like cultures.  Walter Mosley knows something of all of it, and tells a damn good story.

A Weak Restart

Almost a week has skittered by without a word written on this blog.  Our nation has undergone a sea change without a word from me.  Literally nothing has seemed important enough for me to write a comment.  I've just floated through all of it in a daze.

This afternoon as I played with the dog, I felt a part of something I didn't quite understand.  We have a Chuckit, an implement that is used to throw a ball.  Its primary benefit is that I'm not required to pick up the slobbery ball and throw it myself.

Something very similar to the Chuckit stick has been used for probably thousands of years to achieve greater distance throwing a spear.  It's called an atlatl.   I thought of that today as I threw the ball over and over for Copernicus.  Copernicus is our daughter's dog and we are keeping him while she in an internship.  He loves sprinting after the ball, grabbing it in his mouth, and trotting back to me.  It sure would be nice if all the tools used to hunt and kill could be transformed to a peaceful use like this.

The dog isn't dumb.  Whenever he gets winded or tired, instead of returning to us, he goes over to the side in the shade and plops down.  Today, that area was still covered by snow after our six inch snow this week.  The dog lies down for a bit, then turns over on his back and wiggles, feel straight up.  Then he will gather the ball and trot over to me and drop it at my feet.

That's also interesting.  He will usually drop the ball several feet away and behind me.  I touch the ground in front of me once or twice, and he will pick up the ball and drop it directly in front.

When I got home, I began reading a book from my bookshelf.  I've read the whole thing this afternoon, and it is a very good book.  The title is "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned", by Walter Mosley [1998, W.W. Norton and Company, NY].  A series of fourteen stories linked by their main character, Socrates Fortlow, this book approaches philosophy as much as anything.  

Socrates is a large, very strong black man recently out of prison after serving his entire 27 year sentence for the murder of two people.  He knows violence, and lives within a society that is no less violent and that seems intent on destroying him.  His struggle is how to walk the narrow path between what he has been and the society he is forced to reside, to remain free and true to himself and his friends.

He faces a number of problems and meets them directly with a strength of character as strong as his arms and shoulders.  Through it all, he doesn't allow situations that bring him to the brink to have him step over the edge.  I like Socrates, and hope that he continues to live his true life.  And in a way, that is as good a recommendation as there is; the belief in a character that is so strong that I want him to be there after the last page is read.

"Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned" is a deep study of society, personal strength, and of how we separate and fear that which is different from us.  I'll be thinking of it for a while.

Update:  I have corrected Socrates Fortlow's last name.  I had erroneoulsy renamed hin Fortlaw. 

An Opera Coat Story

Last week Fearrington Village held a two-day Antique Show in the Barn.  Even in a recession, antique shows seem to do well.  Marrianna and I went last Sunday just a few minutes after they opened the doors.  There were already people filling the aisles.

We wandered the aisles, each enjoying looking at beautiful things.  There were over thirty dealers, some from as far as New Jersey and Tennessee.  I looked for thimbles to add to my collection.  Marrianna's interests were more varied, and she found several things she liked.  Among them is an opera coat.  It is a wondrously beautiful work.  She bought it, and it now graces the outside of our closet door.

Since I've never heard of, much less seen, an opera coat, I've looked at it closely and wondered how this beautiful thing found its way to an antique show and then to our home.  This story is what my imagination concocted.

A Quilt's Story

There haven't been any stories come to mind from what I see hauled on trucks recently, but I want to continue to write brief stories such as "Stories From A Truck,"  Advice to would be authors often centers around 'Write what you know'.  That's what I'm going to attempt to do in this story.

A Dental/Medical Experience

I've had a rough day.  Period.  I've had periodontal surgery, followed by time in two separate medical exam rooms.

The beginnings of the day are lodged firmly somewhere in the past.  I have developed arthritis in my shoulders, and occasionally they hurt very badly.  Yesterday I had one such episode, and I thought I was going to sit in my chair and cry.  After taking some over-the-counter pain pills, the pain subsided to a mild annoyance.

This morning I was scheduled for periodontal surgery.  As a person who has extensive experience with dentists, I should be confident in putting myself in their care.  Over the past six or seven years I've had three root canals, and must admit that they are nowhere near as painful as their reputation and use in comedy show lines usually portray.  But this one, I just knew wasn't going to be a pain-free experience.

And then I awoke with my shoulder in severe pain.  This time I did cry.  I dreaded the dentist's chair because of the shoulder more than the surgery.  The pain pills were barely working, but I could at least lay still.  And, of course, laying still was exactly what the shoulder was crying out for.  The hour and a half in the chair was actually interesting and pain-free, especially from the shoulder.  She applied a topical numbing solution before the shots and I never even felt the needle.  She did her work, closed the gum back up with four stitches, and told me my teeth should be alright for a few more years.  She even gave me her cell phone number to call if I had problems.

Sure enough, when we left the dentist's office, the shoulder came back with a vengeance.  I was barely able to see to drive.  Marrianna and I decided to stop at the UNC Family Practice Center and see a doctor.  We saw a very nice physician who examined me.  About all she could determine was that the pain was real, and referred me to the orthopedics section at the UNC Ambulatory Care Center.

When we got there, they were expecting us.  I was X-Rayed from several angles.  And then we waited to see the doctor.  His news was relatively good, confirming that I have extensive wear in the shoulder joints.  He gave me a cortisone shot and a prescription.

We arrived home at approximately 3:00 PM.  I've been sitting around alternating the ice pack from shoulder to jaw.  But the pain is within livable limits now.

The moral of this story is that I should not allow scare stories to overshadow previous experience.  Periodontal surgery is no worse than any dental work if the staff knows what they are doing.  Secondly, even the worse pain I've ever felt can be alleviated.  Now I have to take care of myself.