The other approach...
I need to find a way to construct two opposing fields on the blog page where I can list the theme words. My father has begun what I will call the "other approach". He's gone after the what doesn't matter list and I have to say, he's done a fine job. I can't say that he's got everything right. But not bad for a little ranting list. Not bad at all. Thanks, Dad. Here it is:
"Television (except for PBS), celebrity, CNN, rap music, night clubs, good looks, expensive cars, deodorant, other peoples relationships, cosmetics, women's magazines, religions that claim they have the only God, politicians, lobbyists, drugs and liquor, movies (for the most part), holding a grudge, narcisism, the Moral Majority, lawyers, doctors and nurses who don't care, re-building New Orleans, Iraq, technology, animal rights advocates,
People who don't matter: George Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Howard Stern, John Daly, Al Davis, Mark Cuban, Terrell Owens, O.J. Simpson, Floyd Landis, David Beckham, all the leaders of the entire Middle East, Tom Cruise...
I could go on and on, but YOU are the writer.
Walter Littenberg"
1 comment:
hi joe.
you know what i think matters? or, maybe just what most matters to me...
it's personal integrity. i guess i could mean a lot by that. but first and foremost, to me, it means caring about what you do and what you're doing while you're doing it and what it means or could mean. no matter what it is. it could be talking to a friend about something and really listening as opposed to not giving a fuck. it could be buttering a slice of bread. it could be sharpening a knife for whatever you plan to use it for, be it even violent. it could be watering a plant, it could be enjoying a beer, enjoying a woman, enjoying a sandwich, enjoying the scenery, skinning a cat. but for me it's how one generally feels about being in the world and the attitude towards being in it; confronting oneself and everyone else.
no matter how banal or important, or imbued or seemingly meaningless, for me it's important to care about what you do. or about what you mean by what you do. i guess that means intentions and not perceptions. i guess that means be here now, and i do love my alan watts. i just feel like that whatever one ever does should be done with the full of whatever consciousness one has and the best intentions that that consciousness of one could have. towards everyone and towards oneself, though we all can often be wrong in these things.
i feel like intention is unerring.
cause when it comes down to it, all any of us has is what we intend and what makes us care. it makes all of what we all have together, and i feel like it creates all of what we see. what we create by giving all of this meaning, by sensing, by intending, by understanding, but more than understanding, intending, paying attention, wanting, intending, caring, hoping, loving, paying attention. attention, intending, noticing, consciousness, paying attention to what little we can be and are conscious of. does that make sense? i hope it does. it's something i think about a lot, and actually. yeah. that's what i think matters.
i don't mean to be all new-agey, if i sound all new-agey. i feel this way, and i think this way, and i dwell this way quite often.
which also makes me think of something which that sage my dad always says to me over and over and over and over again, which is "we all always do the best we can."
which i think is also important to note. i think it's true. here we are all, walking wounded, doing the best we can. one shouldn't spend too much time kicking oneself in the ass, either. when one fails to intend correctly. or pay attention.
which is why i also hope to receive, soon, the signed original of that drawing robert crumb did of the self ass-kicking machine. that is my mascot and my emblem.
love,
tiffany
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