Spring

Not Knowing What I Don't Know

He spoke of not knowing,
rather than of knowing.

What don't I know?
Which begs the question
of what do I know?

I am here. Where is here?
Who am I? How do I know
I'm not dreaming?

What do we really know?
The bird sings, or is it
the tree rubbing against
my roof?

What do we really know?
How to do something
we've done a hundred times,
like cutting a vegetable in half
or putting on your shoes.

And then
we watch a pro,
and realize
we've never really
done it.

Imagine
if kids were graded
on
what they didn't know...
or if
essay tests asked,
what don't you
know about the subject.
Much harder to say
than what
you do know.

What do you know?

What do I know?

Efficient Exercise for Bursting Biceps

I went to a new gym today
that touted
efficient exercise.

I expected an empty room.
Instead it
was a room
filled with weights and
muscle building machines.

The trainer had biceps
that tried to
burst out from his arms.

I asked,
"Could I have
biceps
like yours?"
"Only
if you have the same genetic
disposition,"
he said.

I replied,
"We are more alike
than penguins on an iceberg."
He answered,
"Yes,
we are all alike."

I left,
having no interest
in bursting
biceps.

Maybe, though,
I could sell
them on Craigslist.

Yesterday's Truth and more ADHD.

Went tonight to hear W.S. Merwin (click link to read 12 of his poems). 84 years old, born in the year Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. Now saving a rain forest in Maui, formerly studied Buddhism with Robert Aitken... and Poet Laureate of the US for 2010-2011. Wow! What a knock-out great man!

My favorite thing he talked about was the stuff we don't know... and how that was ok. He said that more knowledge wasn't necessarily better. Oh, he said so many things. Another moving thought was his reason for accepting the role of Poet Laureate, which would take him away from the Maui rain forest that he loves (and his dog). He said that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did say things that he needed to say... and he'd be able to say those things as Poet Laureate.

I titled this "Yesterday's Truth" and realized when I woke up this am that what I wrote yesterday was yesterday. The great thing about being human is we can change our mind. We can change our path. One day we can fast and the next day we can eat sardines. Though some places we don't have the freedoms we have here in the U.S. of A. I don't understand the people who are disgusted with the U.S. What are they comparing it too?

Wouldn't it be great if students were graded on what they didn't know. We ask people, "what do you know?" But maybe a better test of their intelligence would be to ask them what they don't know (a la Socrates). I read tonight that for most of us, evolution is just a story. We take someone's word for it. Others believe in "intelligent design"... another story. Do we really know much of anything... or do we just believe?

I was thinking about the comment about my ADHD that one of my former student ascribed to me (glad that is not his profession). As I walked down the sidewalk tonight on the way to the poetry reading I was thinking about that, and about how everything is related to everything. I watched people walk on the sidewalk, and I watched the sidewalk receive the footsteps. It was never "out of step." And the cars were passing, and the noises were filling the air, and nothing was out of place.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Well, how are you... really? (Too personal?)

Johnny Rose texted me telling me he was safe from the tornado that went through St. Louis. Look at his website. He's quite a colorful character. Anyway, I didn't recognize his phone number so I texted back "who r u?" He texted, "Johnny Rose. How are you, really?" I responded that I'd answer him on my blog.

Today I heard about Roz Savage, a banker who gave it all up to row across the Atlantic. We work hard to build a fort to die in. Then some of us realize that we want to live rather than die. My wife and I had built a pretty sweet place in St. Louis. We thought we'd be there forever. And then we decided to move. Actually she decided, and I went along for the ride... and I'm glad I did.

In the 60s my friend Peter said, "why don't you become Kim the photographer?" He was responding to my interest in everything even though my first love was photography. Peter became a great landscape architect in Nova Scotia, and his wife, a fellow sculpture student of mine, became a doctor. What happened to me?

I took a workshop this weekend with Marc Lesser. Toward the end of the workshop, we had a journaling exercise. He asked us to write about how, if everything went as we wanted it to, what would our life look like in the next three years?

I never liked assignments. My first instinct is that I'm not going to do it. So I intended to do something else.

(I'm annotating, adding and changing this as I copy it from a scrap of notepaper.)

Maybe I don't want to go down the path I'm walking. I like the thoughts and the friends, but I miss being 100% immersed in art. (And now I'm watching a movie with the ocean in it, and think, wow... that's what I want... the ocean. Wow! Glad that movie is over. Now I can focus on this.)

Going at things as I've been doing, I hope to accomplish in three years a few simple things: controlling my eating, my addiction to email, taking regular walks with my wife, and seeing my daughter and her husband in a home that suits them. I hope to continue and improve my writing, and to increase my readers as well. But what about pictures.

Something is lonely about making art. Well, not lonely, but I did write that. It is all about "I" and as I wrote to my cousin today, I'm getting over "I" after nursing him for 64 years. We've had a falling out, of sorts.

First I used a camera as a way of not being in the middle of things, and then painting. All I wanted was to be in life, rather than talking about life. I no longer want to do the art that I programmed myself to do. It isn't cute anymore (I think my mother used to say that about my infantile behavior (when it would occur)). The imagery I brought from STL is dead for me right now. It is wallowing in self. It says "I am me" and I'm bored with that after 50 years.

I'm imagining imaging the cosmos, like Eric's painting that we have on our fireplace.

And all this came from the path I've been walking.

And now, just when you think you (and I) know how I'm doing, I have to print two more pictures that I'm doing for an exhibit that needs to go out tomorrow.

Thanks for the question, Johnny Rose.

Notes on Rationalization, Getting a Job, the Unconscious, and the Secret of Marriage

I went to Central Market. I didn't eat any free samples... but decided I could drink some free coffee because coffee has no calories. Luckily, there was none and I was saved from the slippery slope. But I lusted anyway, and as we learned from Jimmy Carter... oh, what did we learn about lust? He said something about lusting with your heart. Was that ok?

I heard today that those who are unemployed and journal about their feelings find a job much faster than those who don't journal.

Also that our unconscious takes in 11 million bits of information at a time, but our conscious mind sees only 40. How do we make decisions? If you look at a "lie detector" we know things way before we think we know them. Free will? Who is free?

One more thing. Someone asked the priest today what the difference was between attachment and love. He described them as almost opposites where you let go in love and you hold tight in attachment (my words). No wonder people get divorced at the rate they do (confusing the two words).

It wasn't sugar-free. Good Friday.

I went into a medical building and walked past a dialysis center. Outside the center some people were selling some sugar cookies and white cake with frosting (the kind made in a donut-shaped pan). They were raising money for the dialysis center. Good intentions that threw me for a loop.

I told them that something was confusing to me about what they were doing. I asked first if many people need to be in dialysis because they have diabetes. They said "yes." Then I asked if eating too much sugar was a cause of diabetes. They said "yes." Then I asked why they were selling high sugar foods. One of them said that they didn't know how to make frosting without sugar... and the other said that I could donate anyhow and not buy anything. They were very polite... more so than yours truly.

Good Friday. My neighbor said it was the day of the crucifixion. Shame on me for forgetting that. Then I guess Easter is when he rose. I was thinking it was when he was born, and it was quite a coincidence that his birth and death date were so close... but now I remember Christmas... though in Austin, without snow, it is hardly Christmas.

In any case, good Catholics aren't supposed to eat today, which is a nice gesture towards someone who was so important to our civilization.

Why is it called "Good?" Anyone know?