...actual distinct voices speaking in my mind? Or is it just the weblog of James Lindenschmidt? Here you can see me wrestle with this and other questions, while spewing forth my writings, opinions, and hallucinations.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

 

And they're just now getting around to this?

Finally, it appears, Chernobyl is getting a box to put it in. It's one of the largest structures ever built, a hangar-shaped arch 35 stories high, designed to completely seal in, for 100 years, the 200 tons of uranium and one ton of plutonium that are still in the core of Chernobyl.

Ummm, pardon me, but it's been 16 years?!? And we're just now getting around to this? Here's my favorite passage from the piece:

'The new shelter will not "contain" the core's radioactivity but will be weatherproof.'

Ummm, yeah, sure. Weatherproof is good. But the fact that Weatherproof is an improvement is pretty scary.

^ posted at 9:26 PM

 

Nietzsche as Educator

This is a transcription of a post I made to the Nietzsche listserv recently. It has to do with education and Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

From owner-nietzsche@lists.village.Virginia.EDU Fri Dec 27 21:40:28 2002
From: James Lindenschmidt <jwl@maine.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Nietzsche as educator
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 21:39:21 -0500

Perhaps I should be clearer. At the beginning of the prologue, Zarathustra wants students and/or to "share his wisdom" with the masses. By the end of the prologue, he realizes that companions rather than students are a better goal. So Zarathustra undergoes a change of heart in this area.

And I agree with you that not seeing students as equals make Z an unfit teacher. I believe Zarathustra's final realization regarding pity is relevant to this problem. Despite everything, at the end Zarathustra still has pity for the last men, which places him in a hierarchical relation with them. It is only when Z overcomes this pity -- simultaneously overcoming the hierarchy between them -- that he can see the way.

Insights are valuable, even if they cannot be taught, or even expressed, because they affect the one with the insight. Even if the insight would never affect anyone else in the same way, they have value for the thinker. Insight, I would argue, is an experience; experience and articulation of experience are different things entirely. In the same way, insight and articulation of insight are different things entirely.

Regarding Nietzsche as a teacher, who knows. I've not read commentary by any of his students when he was a professor at Basel. But if, on the other hand, the function of a teacher is to prod and to inspire, then there are few teachers as capable as Nietzsche.

James

The entire thread is available in this archive.

^ posted at 12:44 AM

 

T.N.B.C. 2002

This is priceless. Written by Lee Hall:

T.N.B.C. 2002

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land,
not a critic was stirring, for stirring was banned.
A thousand brown prisoners, snug in their cells,
all held without charges or tinsel or bells;
and mamma was wrapped in the national flag,
while we sang ".Where there's never a boast or a brag."
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the TV I flew like a flash;
I then watched "Survivor" and reruns of "Mash."
The fireworks, exploding above the new snow,
gave a luster of objects to people below.
When what saw my wondering eyes in the flashes:
a miniature George Bush and eight tiny fascists!
Their jerseys were blue and said "WORLD DOMINATION";
I knew right away this was not just claymation.
More rapid than eagles the warlords they came,
as the little Bush whistled and called them by name:
"Now, Daschle! now, Ashcroft! Now Strom, don't relent!
On, Poindexter, Rumsfeld! on Henry and Trent!
To the top of the globe, while the crowd's at the mall,
nowbomb away, bomb away, bomb away all!"
His sack had a war game for each girl and boy;
his pocket, four billion from just Illinois.
Far up on his high seat the driver did mount,
with more massive weapons than Kofi could count.
And then, I heard sounds from away off somewhere,
the booming of bombs that were bursting in air.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
down the chimney old Dick Cheney came with a bound.
He said not a word, nor disclosed his location;
he wiretapped my house in the name of the nation.
Then holding the strings of his little Bush puppet,
he went to the chimney and quickly rose up it.
The sleigh was still running, but Dick didn't hurry;
gas guzzlers, it seemed, were no longer a worry.
He popped the champagne and exclaimed as he served it,
"The world is now ours, and GOD DAMN, we deserve it!"

^ posted at 11:39 AM

 

empathy sympathy

I've known for years that I am an empath (warning: bad HTML alert). But I never really did anything about it. It was more like, "oh cool, I can feel what others feel." For a long time I wondered if it was just a form of compassion that I had. Either way, I never really did anything about it, nor did I attend the ways in which being an empath affected my emotional existence.

But the work I've been doing with my wife in strengthening our relationship has brought this issue to the forefront. When people around me, particularly people I am intimate with and care about, are angry, I get angry. I sponge up any emotion around, especially negative emotion. And this can lead to problems, particularly if the person nearby handles anger differently than I do.

When I get angry, my reaction is to discover the source of the anger, and resolve that conflict as quickly as possible. My wife, for example, handles anger very differently, and she resents anyone going into problem-solving mode for her. But when she gets angry, and then I get angry, and then I go into problem-solving mode, the anger gets worse. And then my anger gets worse. And so on, and so on.

That's just one example. The point of this entry is that I have learned a lot about myself in the past 24 hours. I need to cultivate techniques to deal with my empathy, so that I can more effectively control the amount of energy I am picking up from others. Doing so will help my own emotional health tremendously. And it will help my relationships, particularly the relationship with my wife. I am so lucky to be in a relationship with someone who works so hard at being the best person she can be. Life feels good right now.

^ posted at 11:13 AM

 

Yule 2002

This year's Yule celebration had a transformative effect on me. I felt like a shaman, perhaps for the first time. I went out to the edge, glanced into the abyss, and have now returned. I wrote this the morning after the Yule experience, as I was trying to assimilate it all: "I'm still putting out the embers as I lie here in bed."

Leading up to the ritual, I had been resonating with God energy more strongly than I ever had before. During the ritual, it was my privilege to call the God. The fire pit was full of firewood, skillfully arranged by Mark. I had my drum in my arm, and I began to walk in a circle, deosil, around the firepit. Luminaries had been placed in a lane leading from the Shield's home to the firepit. The ritual was timed so that the God would be called and the fire would be lit right at the moment of sunset. A few people told me they liked my incantation, so I'll reproduce it here (though I improvised it; this is from memory and it may be inaccurate).

"From the womb of the Great Mother I call the Sun God, the male half of divinity, reborn on this the longest night of the year."

I then began a simple heartbeat rhythm on the drum. That was the cue for Mark to light the fire. He did so, and it went up quickly.

"It was a few short weeks ago that you showed the ultimate strength and compassion with the ultimate sacrifice. We now show our strength and compassion by sharing our energy with you in rebirth. Gather your noisemakers, friends, and help awaken the Sun God."

Everyone began to walk in the circle around the fire, adding to the gradually increasing heartbeat.

"We walk for you.
We drum for you.
We sing for you.
We heal for you.
We shine for you.
We burn for you."

By this time, the fire was burning well -- Mark's skill was true. Last year's Yule tree, brown and brittle, went up quickly, shooting sparks of long-dried resin exploding into the already darkening sky. The Yule fire was the central focus of the ritual for me. The endurance to stay up and tend the fire was in me; it felt symbolic of the ability to muster the skill to do anything I set my mind to.

I had many Yule realizations this year. Many of them were actually reminders. I was on the edge in many ways; it was a very shamanic experience for me. The night was one of extremes: cold/hot, dark/light, community/solitude. Many things drifted in and out of consciousness as I stared at the glowing embers, the heat dancing playfully and relentlessly from limb to flame to coal to ash. In some ways I hesitate to even describe them; it is easy enough to lose sight of the difference between experience and articulation of experience; it is especially difficult when talking of religious or shamanic experience. But with that in mind, here are some descriptions of some nuggets of insight I received that night.

The birth of the God is a time of passing, the passing of darkness. In Wiccan mythology, the God, conceived as the male half of divinity, the Yin to the Goddess' Yang, dies at Samhain (Oct. 31st, the day of the dead). This night begins the dark time, which lasts until the God is reborn at Yule. From now, the days shall grow ever longer until Litha. This lengthening of light gives us hope, for although the winter will be long and harsh, the spirit of the God is alive in the world. The seed has been well sown, and as soon as the sun is strong enough, life will once again grow. It is inevitable, and just a matter of time. The cycle moves, spiralling ever onwards, and it doesn't stop. It never stops.

Matt, as always, had words of bardic wisdom for the occasion. Near morning, we were standing together at the fire pit, the last two to tend the fire at sunrise. We were walking around, looking for a place to see the sunrise, and he pointed to several features of his land. One was the tops of the trees, and how they had arranged themselves in such a way as to compete for the rays of the sun. At that moment, I could see the trees actively competing for the sunlight in a conscious way; they knew that sunrise was imminent. Even on the shortest day of the year, when the sunshine is weakest, the trees can feel the sun's power. They reach for it desperately, extending their intertwined limbs, poised to catch the first crack of photons that zoom past.

The totality of the entire night struck me at that moment, when the first rays of the sun washed over my face, reflecting off the tears rolling down my cheeks. Watching the trees reach out to catch the sun reminded me that the fundamental pattern of life, the endless cycle of birth, consumption, growth, slowing, death, and rebirth, is the same everywhere. From this perspective, time means very little. What triggered this realization was watching the tree branches reaching out to the sun, standing in the very field where Matt and I had countless times reached out to catch a football or a frisbee earlier that summer. As above, so below.

I was also re-acquainted with my tarot deck during the night. My cards came alive for me again. I had forgotten that the cards can move if you look at them in the right way. I had given Nikki a promise of a reading on her birthday a few months back, and I finally had a chance to fulfill it. I was not in a place to give a conventional reading; the shamanic mood was too strong. I ended up looking through the cards, face up, and pulling out the ones that spoke. I put those cards in front of Nikki and she picked them up one at a time. She, too, was enthralled and could see the cards move. They spoke to her, and she listened. She said it was a good reading.

What we define as important is completely arbitrary. So we may as well choose our importance in a way that cultivates spiritual awareness and harmony with the universe.

^ posted at 5:44 PM

 

The Two Towers

I saw The Two Towers last night. It was, of course, amazing. It was also surprisingly different from Fellowship of the Ring. The biggest difference seemed to be the scale of the movie. Part of the charm of the first movie was that it focused on a dozen or so characters, really developing them well. In TTT, the focus seems to be on the big picture. We don't get as much characterization, and the focus is on larger battle scenes. The scope of Tolkien's story is getting larger. This is not, in itself, a good or a bad thing, but it demands a different style of moviemaking. The Two Towers is different in that way; it has a completely different feel from Fellowship.

Additionally, the filmmakers have taken a few more liberties with the story, deviating -- in some cases signficantly -- from Tolkien. I'll spare details. None of them are fatal, though. TTT is still an amazing film.

And the technology of filmmaking in this case is breathtaking. The battle scenes have set the new standard (making things like Braveheart look feeble). The Ents look amazing. Gollum was stunning, by far the best CG character I've ever seen. Makes Yoda in Attack of the Clones look pathetic.

All in all it was a very enjoyable film. The best thing I can say about it is that it was part 2. No more needs to be said.

^ posted at 12:12 PM

 

Twelve-Year Cycles

East Asia measures time in twelve-year cycles. Given the mystical overtones of many of these Asian philosophies, I couldn't help but think that I am undergoing massive change. I am 33, I and I distinctly remember vast changes at 21. I was living in Columbus, Ohio, and joining my first real adult community. I was changing spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and politically; all these changes were radical and fundamental.

I think I may be upon another such time of change. The abundance of hope that I currently feel after the haze of hopelessness of the past several months and the fiery catharsis of the past few days has allowed me to attend other long-neglected emotions. Anger, for example, is one of these emotions. There has been an abundance of unattended anger in my home over the past several months. Since the weekend, we have dedicated significant energy to learning how to handle anger when it arises. One good resource has been Thich Nhat Hanh's Anger, which emphasizes the Buddhist principles of compassion and mindfulness as a way to skillfully deal with excessive anger. My biggest questions lately have been: in what ways do I perpetuate anger? Which patterns do I cultivate that contribute to the anger around me?

I feel fundamental change afoot. I suspect I will emerge from this period, in retrospect, affected in an equally profound way as the changes 12 years ago.

^ posted at 3:05 PM

 

Hope

Hope is a wonderful thing. It was an amazing weekend, after a very trying end to last week. But I've emerged into this new week with more hope than I've had in a long, long time. The work has just begun, and this is a good thing.

^ posted at 6:50 AM

 

Get the nine-year-old dope pushers

Apparently in Florida, two nine-year-olds were arrested for possession of marijuana, one of them with intent to distribute. It raises a few interesting questions. The crimes they are charged with are automatically felony offenses, because they involved Schedule 1 drugs on school grounds. I wonder if mandatory jail time holds for nine-year-olds? Or perhaps these Vile Evildoers (I can't believe a nine-year-old would help the terrorists by selling drugs!) will be tried as adults. After all, any kid should KNOW that pot is evil and unnatural and must be wiped out. After all, it's not like cannibis grows in a field or something. No, wait ...

^ posted at 2:25 AM

 

Bin Laden's "Letter to America"

I think it's important to understand Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the terrorist attacks. Not to condone them, but to understand why they happened. There was recently published a letter to America, supposedly written by Bin Laden himself. It's funny, but Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" eluded the mainstream American press. Go figure.

It's an interesting read, a strange combination of antiglobalization (disguised as antiAmericanism), anti-semitism, and fundamentalist Islam. When reading it, I'd go, "Good point. Yup. Good point. OH NO! That's so wrong. Yup. Right. Nope." Perhaps his most interesting point is his indictment of the American people:

3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:

(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.

I find this passage interesting because if the American people were to actually exercise the power referenced here, then most likely few people in the world would be so angry at America. There would be no motive to attack America. In other words, it seems to me that the very fact that Bin Laden's argument is not the case is largely responsible for American atrocities. Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I truly believe that if most Americans knew what was done in the name of "freedom" and "American interests," they would be horrified. But most Americans remain happily ignorant. It is, in many ways, a phenomenon that reflects a realization I had today:

The amount of optimism I feel about the world is directly proportional to the size of the blind spot I cultivate.

^ posted at 1:15 AM