If a health care bill is signed into law and does not include the popularly dubbed public option, we may well have to edit The New Colossus–huddled masses cower with the tired, poor, the wretched refuse crumbling from foreclosures, the homeless, and the tempest tossed abandoned and alone beside a darkened door.  So soon have bankers, hedge fund managers, the rank and file of financial investment firms returned to their old practices: bonuses as entitlement, excessive profit taking and the resumption of the use of derivatives, which are still unregulated despite the governments best pantomime of posturing to the contrary; the stigma of greed has become once again a badge of honor–at least among certain classes of thieves– while men of power opine and do nothing except hint that somewhere, somehow, they will staunch the flow of executive bonuses.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, almost as persistent as the practice of bloodletting, which finally faded from our lexicon of medical treatments after an ignominious run of 2000 years.  Want money for health care?  Withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan–it is a given that we should not send more.  We have a splendid history of supporting corrupt governments: Saddam Hussein, Musharif, Karzai, Reza Pahlavi, Fugencio Batista.  How can we ever doubt our leaders’ perspicacity to evaluate the motives of foreign governments when there are such fine skills exemplified by our own beloved W looked into Putin’s soul and thought he saw the heart of the man but unfortunately we learned later that it was only a reflection of Dick Cheney.  Sadly, the rubric now being bandied about is that any decisions regarding Afghanistan will be determined, at least in part, by the outcome of the run-off vote following an egregiously corrupt election orchestrated by the even more egregiously corrupt Karzai family and its hegemony of cohorts.  Every drop of blood is precious regardless of national origin; however, our actions suggest that we are willing to sacrifice our way of life and values to maintain the façade of a democratically elected government in Afghanistan.

Following our government’s policy in Afghanistan, it should come as no surprise that the same indifference is manifested in the area of healthcare and education.  Certain members of Congress pontificate about the pitfalls of the government’s involvement in the administration of healthcare insurance yet none decline the healthcare our tax dollars purchase for them–As far as I am aware no one has volunteered to pay for their own insurance–it comes with the work, if you are lucky enough to get it!  There is no ignominy in broadcasting misleading advertisements sponsored by private insurance companies or the conspicuous and unrelenting pressure powerful lobbyists exert upon every elected official at every level of government.

Less becomes the new more, especially in education.  Titillation has supplanted effort reducing learning to a state of tingling and jangling nerves.  Everyone succeeds, in his own mind; however, all too frequently, failure is a matter of national tragedy.  The success of Plato’s Republic was based upon a noble lie about our fundamental nature, the categories into which each of us are bound.  Whether we repair our aging Republic or build a new one, perhaps we will reveal our true selves by our penchant for or our aversion to deception regardless of its lineage.

At the Oreck store we tried out the full line of vacuums as well as inquiring about the half-priced model listed in the advertisement.  As I expected, the vacuum on sale didn’t measure up to the various models I tested but that was due more to my specific requirements than the performance of the vacuum itself.  In the end I opted for the Oreck XL Platinum Plus which comes with a 15 year warranty that includes yearly maintenance on the vacuum and its parts as well as a canister vacuum–I chose the mid-line canister model for its combination of features and portability.  The initial outlay for the Oreck  that I chose was substantially more than I had considered spending for a vacuum; however, the life expectancy of the appliance and service contract added sufficient value to the primary feature of the product (its excellent performance as a vacuum) that it offset the cost.  Besides, there was a thirty day trial period which included a money back guarantee.

I did hold onto the old Panasonic while I put the XL through its paces and for one scary day I was beginning to think I would have to revert to my aging dust creator again.  The week we bought the Oreck an emergency arose and we had to make a quick trip north to see family so I didn’t have the opportunity to test our new vacuum thoroughly until we returned.  Shortly after I commenced vacuuming in earnest, an ear-piercing squeal  developed.  The sound only occurred during the backstroke, when one was pulling the machine back toward oneself; however, the effect of the squeal was almost nauseating.  It is probably an understatement to suggest that there are occasions when I tend to be more reactive than on other occasions.  I can tell you that each time that Oreck squealed at me it sounded as if dollar bills were being shredded in a modified trade of cash for toxic assets deal.  So I called the Oreck Store immediately.  When I finished my description of the problem, I was told that a shipment of vacs had come into the shop that had not been properly lubricated at the factory.  Apparently other customers had reported similar experiences as the Oreck representative was familiar with the problem.  I was told to bring the vacuum by the shop and it would be fixed/adjusted while I waited.  The vac was adjusted in a matter of minutes and we were on our way.

I don’t often go for the warranty gambit offered with most products these days as they do not appear to add enough value to the product for the cost.  I’ve read that engineering has become so refined that manufacturers can produce products with specific failure rates built in which are accurate to within a week of the projected point of failure, which, can conceivably allow the fees from warranty contracts to be applied directly to the bottom line.  Costs for certain replacement parts exceed the purchase price of a new item, e.g. one can buy a newer model laser printer for less than or equal to the cost of the old printer’s toner cartridge.  So why bother with a vacuum from a company that includes service as an integral part of its business model?  For starters, there is something appealing about resisting the waste produced by the throw-away attitude which is so prevalent today.  Caring for whatever one used–without consideration of ownership or value–had been an implicit code of conduct in general society; it certainly was drummed into me as a kid.  Of course, the notion of caring may have had its roots in everyday living where a certain frugality was necessitated by the limitations of one’s resources.  Until the recent global economic collapse consumption and not conservation was the dominant mindset of the average individual.  We became short-sighted in our estimation of value, misled by a faulty system of cost analysis where the constant churning of production was an insatiable maw that cannibalized itself.  Complicit with the unending cycle of producing was the concomitant drive for entrepreneurs, large and small, to create need where before only want stood day-dreaming about the imaginary world it was constructing.  I’m not implying that all novelty is a matter of ulterior motivation or that creativity is merely a process of deception; however, while both statements contain the seeds of truth, it is the growth and the yield which are often the source of ambiguity.

Of course, I am extremely pleased with the Oreck; it has performed as advertised.  I may not feel the same way in 2019 or 2024, two-thirds of the way into the service contract and at its end, respectively, which, returns us once again to the topics of obsolescence and longevity.  If the present climate has taught us anything it is that businesses, even those considered too big to fail, can in fact fail; and that obligations, promises, and contracts are as transitory as the organizations that offered, issued, or underwrote them.  Oreck, as a company, may not survive the bargain it has struck with me as a customer.  Fifteen years can be an eternity these days, besides, in a year or two some better product may (will) come along that will offer more for the same cost or less, or be more green, as we are inclined to say to show off our global view and environmental awareness.  It is both confusing and perplexing; it is even seductive, this surplice of green cloth which at once protects us and our environment and blinds us from our own self-centered ratiocination.  Perhaps the solution depends upon not what we have but how we have it; not what we do but how we do it.

Theory

I am what is around me.

Women understand this.
One is not duchess
A hundred yards from a carriage.
These, then are portraits:
A black vestibule;
A high bed sheltered by curtains.

These are merely instances.

—Wallace Stevens

The hurt of reality can become a constant agony if we are unable to accept the endless flow of life and not rejoice in its variety and celebrate its creative advance into the unknown.  My mother was alive to me in the reality with which I had wrapped myself; that world burst as the family entered the funeral parlor.  I had dreaded this moment; the penultimate things that we humans feel the need to say to each other were already said and understood by both of us–I had always loved her and she had always loved me; there was something so elemental in our relationship that more addenda was simply superfluous.  So I did not want to evaluate the beautician’s or the mortician’s skill; I did not want to view a hollow shell that bore no resemblance to the living whirl-a-gig that was my mother.  The first half-hour in the funeral home was torment for me; as I entered I was unable to breathe, my breath felt as if it had been sucked out of me, and I was overcome with emotion.  I hurt all over, every part of me wept and would not be consoled.  When I thought I would never recover, I did, in time to stand and speak about my mother, to color our memory of her with authenticity bereft of cliches that so often are uttered in eulogies and have no connection to the life being celebrated.

This has been a season of mileposts for me.  I became a grandfather on our nation’s birthday and subsequently, in a little over a month’s time, my mother died and I turned sixty-four–today, in fact.  We often are seduced by the notion of infinity–a delicious prospect on many levels and just as daunting and dismaying on others–but we fail to comprehend the freedom and limitations of finitude.  Probability ascribes to me a remaining longevity that can be reasonably calculated by the addition of all of my digits(fingers, toes and thumbs) with the caveat that scientific discoveries may require something more extensive than digital enumeration: this little piggy went to market…might embark on a journey slightly longer than we anticipated.  When I extend my hand, in truth, there are times I see the wrinkled, spotted hands of an old man, but more often I am reminded of persistence even in the midst of the ephemeral nature which is our life long habitat.  There are so many tasks left undone; many are daunting, but they are all the obligation of the living.  We’ve endured so much how can we not be intrepid as we shape the future?

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

– Omar Khayyam

Any friend whose age is more than three score years and who has been out of touch for more than two score years has a way of capturing life’s evanescent characteristics in chillingly Lincolnesque terminology; it is even more sobering to realize that one has actually lived long enough to make it possible to have college classmates who could reappear after an absence of four decades, especially when one acknowledges that implicit in that realization is an unpleasant, if not grisly, observation that one has even fewer years remaining in one’s own life.  One is tempted to make the claim that youth measures time in units of infinity–a minute can explode into an eternity– and that prudence is the helpmeet of maturity; however, it is more likely that the young are arbitrary in the selection of whatever standard they apply; that life is both carousel and kaleidoscope, static and changing, rising from one turn and dissolving into another.  One generation becomes its own antecedent when age transforms its dreams into memories.

It is incorrect to assume that whenever we pause–to watch the wheels go round and round–that we have become immobile or even detrimentally idle when, in fact, our detachment has permitted us to regain a fresher perspective, equipped and enabled us to venture into the treacherous domain beneath the surface of the shell we call the self.  Of course the aim and hope, should we survive this episodic psychic spelunking, is that we will discover a world revived with its own light, a light to which we were once blind, and which retains an arcane potency to illuminate both literally and figuratively.  The eye is a gatekeeper of knowledge; the world we peruse is our lexicon, the cipher that corresponds to the landscape of the soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first wife died only two years after they were married; a little more than a year subsequent to her burial Emerson opened her coffin.  His reaction to death paralleled the Apostle Thomas‘ response reported in the Gospel of John to the resurrected Jesus; Emerson’s drive toward self-reliance was irrepressible and he had to see through his own eyes the remnants of death’s efficacy, the nail points of finality, the ineffable remains of love lost.  Whatever else he gleaned from his macabre gesture–doubt or proof–death was irrevocable; and, while he would afterward remarry and raise a family, Emerson’s love for his first wife, Ellen, remained intact; his life, however, the source of his vitality, would always be centered in the present.

While my given name is an eponym for doubt–paradoxically, it may also be considered an eponym for a type of belief–my own curiosity or need to know stops short of plunging into a loved one’s coffin to satisfy scientific inquiry.  On the other hand Emerson’s action is understandable.  Most of us do not awaken daily entertaining the possibilities that may await us.  Few of us confront the most sobering and irreversible of fates; and, fewer still are capable of the skill and grace of articulating our encounter as Keats demonstrated in his sonnet, When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be.  The boundary that death inscribes around one’s life seems implausible at first.  Whatever unit with which one reckons time, it does not prepare one for the sheer otherness of death and its satellites.  Who or what once was is no more.  A sentence trailing off as interest or expression loses its focus is hardly an instructive paradigm to prepare one for the loss of a loved one.   Experience prepares one for the enterprise of collecting the abstractions, the words cut loose from life, the rigid surrogates that attempt to imitate vitality, but its hospitality is a vain comfort for the bereaved, failing both love and reason.

It should not come as a surprise that one may tend to be more introspective whenever one encounters death–especially when the local newspaper seems to contain an inordinate number of obituaries of people who are one’s age or younger–or when one is confronted with injury or issues related to health, specifically those which have the chilling characteristics of being sudden, progressive, and without apparent origin.  Contemplating any person’s illness is daunting enough; however, when it involves one’s self, the mind can become overwhelmed by a legion of opinion and fear.  Most of us tend to brace ourselves with scenarios in which we are alternately healed or abandoned although neither may prove very likely once we commit our care to qualified professionals.

The mind needs the torque provided by some encounter with the natural world to keep it agile, vigorous and engaged–this is applicable, as well, to the constructs which derive from the mind’s activity such as the manifold forms of society, religions, governments, and the rich variety of cultures; however, death and illness are just two of the many powerful stimuli–the yeast to which Emerson referred–capable of attracting a process of the mind to its corresponding and edifying analog in nature.  The concern about my knee or the knowledge of my friend’s similar predicament, taken individually, is an insignificant event which bobs briefly before it sinks beneath the sea of consciousness; but, it is precisely this kind of abstraction and dismissive generality that severs the bond of intimacy that connects all that is.

I am unnerved from time to time when it occurs to me that, barring miraculous scientific discoveries in gerontology and depending on which life expectancy charts I adopt, I have consumed approximately 75% of that luscious apple pie my mother baked for me at my birth.  Although in one respect what remains of my life is a matter of simple addition or subtraction depending on one’s point of view–and truthfully that has always been the case regardless of one’s starting point on one’s continuum of aging–there remains a lifetime to complete.  While a sense of urgency has merit, becoming frenzied or harried as one re-calibrates the balance beam is inefficient and downright counterproductive.  The sun has risen far too high for me to be rescued by Herrick’s cavalier admonition To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time, although living every moment to its fullest is certainly applicable at any time of life.  Of course for Emerson the living present was the source of our sustenance; the living now, the creative process was rooted in self-knowledge and grounds for discovery.

Whether it was just my anxiety over a bum knee or commiserating with the plight of an old friend, it seems fittingly appropriate that now I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, after all, Ezekiel said: the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

While Cloud Computing has become all the buzz lately, the skies will clear abruptly if the cable companies pursue the current trend of putting caps on broadband internet usage.  Why would any user switch from desktop based programming to cloud based programming when access to those clouds will be metered so that best case scenarios result in far more cost to the consumer than any gain he or she might receive?  As Judy Collins sang:

Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career.
And where are the clouds?
There ought to be clouds…
Well, maybe next year.

Okay, I know, I know, Judy sang CLOWNS, Send In The Clowns.  Come to think of it, her choice of words was spot on because that seems to be more descriptive of the strategy behind this latest development from cable providers; of course, it may also be another example of unmitigated greed surfacing as our economy tumbles ever downward and reveals the machinations of these companies in sharper contrast.  Ed Cone offered a weak but later abandoned defense of the “last mile” gambit trotted out to justify the egregious actions of the capping broadband usage as the facts just don’t substantiate the claim and they vanish under scrutiny.  T-W does not include the amount of broadband usage in its cap for an internet phone if that phone is a part of T-W’s internet phone plan but it does if one uses Vonage!  Hmmm…  Same wire, same broadband, same last mile.  The same approach applies of any of T-W’s services which involve video transmission–there is plenty of bandwidth to deliver any of T-W’s video on demand features but not for Netflix or YouTube, etc.–because T-W lusts for another pound of flesh on top of the fixed rate it is already charging for unlimited internet access.  The difference is, of course, using monopolistic practices to control an already captive customer base and to gouge it with arbitrary fees with no chance of mitigation or amelioration.  Well, there is one way that a customer can make her voice heard:  cancel all T-W service!  The economy is in the pits, why not save a few bucks by canceling T-W service?  We can use the savings and I’m certain that T-W wouldn’t miss 10 or 20 thousand customers in this area.

There are alternatives to T-W’s internet access available even though they may not have been our first choice.  As the economic travails extend into 2009 and even 2010, the notion of self-reliance is reviving in a populace once jaded by unabashed consumption.  T-W may think that consumers must choose a lesser of two evils; that the choices are between a cable provider or a telco; that whatever we do we will not abandon some glutted form of delivery system which is a product of habit rather than careful consideration.  We could opt out altogether.  What Doc Searls and Steve Lewis have been saying all along is that business fails when it operates on the notion that customers are cattle that need only to be herded by top down business practices instead of an equitable partnership whereby needs are defined by those who have them and met by those who listen in order to satisfy the demands of a well conceived business:  customer satisfaction through customer involvement and profitability for the business.  The concept is simple but the proof is always dependent upon application, which of course translates into a dynamic process rather than a static, etched-in-stone business plan constructed to gain dominion once and for all over those whom they were designed to serve.

State and local government have a role in this since its raison d’etre is the electorate it serves and whose interests and well-being are the clauses in the compact that it is obligated to uphold.  Our United States Senators and members of House of Representatives presumably represent us in congress where the nation’s business is distilled from the reservoir of local needs and requirements.  So far elected officials on all levels have been relatively silent on this issue which means that T-W and similar businesses have powerful, well-financed lobbyists who represent their interests ahead of the average citizen.  Since Bob Dylan claimed in It’s Alright Ma(I’m Only Bleeding)–Money doesn’t talk , it swears–perhaps our representatives will remain mute rather than to reveal their allegiances with obscenities.

Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want…
Sorry, my dear!
And where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don’t bother, they’re here.

Among a host of other strengths, President Obama offers a thoughtful, measured approach to governance and coalition building among allies as well as pragmatic diplomatic overtures to those nations with which there are pronounced and substantive political difference.  It is precisely because of this characteristic of thoughtfulness that I find the decision to escalate the role of the US in Afghanistan as so out of sync with the other aspects of Obama’s administration.  I did not support either the US’s incursion into Afghanistan or its subsequent war with Iraq.  In both instances the measures were acts of retribution to absolve the government of failed political policies that short-sightedly treated symptoms instead of pursuing a more holistic approach to diagnose the cause of the ailment first and then to attempt to provide an appropriate remedy.  The necessity of war is always justified with the fallacy of spontaneous generation:  an assumption  which fails to acknowledge the inseparable connection of causality and time.  The conditions for war have never been immediate but rather developed over time due to acts of commission or omission and negligence; therefore, a specific outcome is not automatically mandated.  Alternatives depend on our imagination and industry, whereas war relies on our ability to sanctify killing as a pre-eminently divine right of retaliation–we see our enemies in a context similar to the one portrayed in Jonathan Edwards notorious sermon: Sinners in The Hands Of An Angry God.   George Bush rode the wave of anger and retaliation into the backwater of Talibani fundamentalism and repression–ironically a form of extremism that shares the same fervor and rigidity as fundamentalists of any religion, including a plethora of organizations in the US–for the expressed purpose of apprehending or killing Osama bin Laden, the Saudi mastermind of the brutal September 11 attacks.  He accomplished neither and abandoned Afghanistan after implanting a rag-tag government which, while not as violent as the previous political regime, has become feckless and corrupt.  The wound inflicted on the Afghani people as a result of our seeking retribution for the deaths and the dishonor the nation suffered in the attacks on September 11 festered and became infected with a different and more resistant strand of hatred because the leaders in the Bush administration were less than honest about their purpose or objectives.  Afghanistan was abandoned for all intents and purposes while Bush pursued his true agenda which was born out of that righteous indignation common to all fundamentalism.  In the vacuum created by our indifference, dissidents increasingly gained strength until just as in Iraq radical elements have re-established themselves and have begun to flourish.

As cliched as it is, the phrase, Mighty Satan, has never lost its meaning nor has its referent changed:  the US remains an evil villain which, to the twisted thinking of those who subscribe to such a theory, provides them with ample reason to continue to wage a war against all who oppose them or those who don’t support their cause.  As the US continues to increase its presence in Afghanistan by sending in more troops and supporting civilian personnel, it exacerbates an already tenuous situation.  Hamid Karzai has failed to rise above the tribalism and nepotism that dominates a culture which remains largely hidden to us and obscured by the excesses occasionally documented in press reports.  In a democracy the disaffected generally seek nonviolent and legal resolution to their grievances; however, the history of Afghanistan suggests that its version of town hall meetings is more likely to be conducted with scimitars and kalashnikovs than debates on ideology or points of order.  The inertia gripping Afghanistan has been compounded by decades of war, the colonial ambitions of foreign powers, poverty, and religious extremism.  As the number of American troops grows, the inertia will become more profound and irreversible.

Unfortunately, the withdrawal of troops will not automatically guarantee a cessation of the woes plaguing the people of Afghanistan; however, such an action is a prerequisite to achieve a larger, more inclusive strategy in the region.  Meanwhile, the state of the US economy dictates a re-evaluation of the nation’s overall military objectives in addition to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The black hole of war consumes the nation’s resources instead of being applied to rebuilding the crumbling and outdated infrastructure of the US and providing much needed assistance to the downward spiral of American businesses and the havoc unleashed on citizens of this country as a result of these failures.  Amid the gloom there are points of light but our policy in Afghanistan is not one of them nor can we ignore the foreboding implicit in our failure to develop a constructive relationship with two counties that border Afghanistan: Iran and Pakistan.  While Obama’s pragmatism is a welcome change from the Shock and Awe of the previous administration and will certainly promote a much different atmosphere among nations which will be more conducive to fruitful dialog and conflict mediation, it will also court failure if it does not avoid the perils implicit in escalating military activity if the opposition remains entrenched and its resistence becomes more violent.  Victory has always really been a calculus of the degree of pain one combattant inflicts on another; even the finality of death does not guarantee defeat of one’s enemy, it only inflames the hunger of his allies for retribution.  The hand extended in friendship and reconciliation is an empty gesture if it remains unclasped; profound religious and ideological questions remain with regard to Islamic nations which can only be addressed internally.  If the citizens of these nations have neither the will nor the inclination to engage in serious self-examination, the region will continue to suffer through political, social, and economic instability and increasing violence.  And even if we have a respite of sanity in the middle east, North Korea casts a growing shadow from the far east.  I suggest that Barack Obama add William James‘ The Moral Equivalent of War to his Lincoln reading list and compare the earlier pragmatism of James with his own and update the former with contemporary thinking, and perhaps, just perhaps, forge a way to help improve the outlook for all people the world over and seek an end to the nihilistic scourge of war.

I opted not to call Terminix again.  It was clear to me that the ants would win hands down short of poisoning every living thing within a 50 yard radius of our house.  We use as few chemicals as is reasonably possible around the house and garden organically so nuking the environment with a cocktail of pesticides is not something we take lightly.  While talking to one of my neighbors I related my tale of woe regarding our ant infestation and he said there was a simple, inexpensive solution to my problem:  Terro.  Frankly, I thought his prescription sounded too good to be true, but it wasn’t.  Provided the problematic ants are the sweet eating type, Terro works like a charm.  Battalions of ants formed two lines: one marching to the feeding station that consisted of a piece of cardboard on which a few drops of clear Terro was placed and one returning to the nest carrying food.  Depending on the size of the ant colony, in a few days to a week, the ants will simply vanish.

With the ants in retreat, Murphy’s Law was immediately in play: the shower that had recently been repaired began leaking almost as mysteriously as it’s repair had easily be effected.  My wife had showered before me without a problem; however, when I finished showering, turning the knob to the off position did not stop the flow of water but allowed instead a steady, albeit, diminished stream of water to continue.  None of my attempts to stop the water flow were successful so I spent the morning and actually part of the afternoon contacting the plumber who had repaired the shower just a few months earlier.  When I was finally able to speak to a real person–the plumber’s voice mail was not working–I was told that the plumber was not in and he would return my call as soon as he was available, a scenario which, includes certain other skilled service professions, has become the norm.  By the time my wife returned from work in the evening the shower had stopped leaking as abruptly as it had begun several hours earlier.  When the plumber returned my call late in the afternoon of the following day I told him that the shower had simply repaired itself and was no longer leaking.  Since he was familiar with my shower and the type of hardware he said I should give him a heads-up if the leak reappeared so that he could get a replacement cartridge for my aging shower.

Recently I’ve been reading a systematic analysis of Nietzsche as a philosopher and the coincidence of anecdotal calamities involving home ownership suggested a less serious theme of recurrence; perhaps, not quite eternal in nature but at least possessing some extended cycle of periodicity.  If anything, Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence seems to provide a sardonic footnote to the mayhem which has resulted in the unrestrained pursuit of the great American ideal of becoming a home owner and the consequential underpinnings of his nihilism.  Depending on one’s perspective–an integral point of reference for Nietzsche through which we impose grammatical order on the phenomenal flux of wills provisioned by our language and its unique structure–every iota of our physical and psychical existence, yea every tick of time down to the last detail (except there is no last detail to speak of) has come before and will come again exactly as it has before and will be again may or may not offer us comfort in the present or the incipient repetition of our lives.  I have and will call again that same plumber and he has and will reply again at the same time and same way and with the same advice.  If Nietzsche’s claim that any statement about “reality” is false then his own philosophical system is subject to the same test and is equally fallacious as it stands whereas its verity is hardly a candle of hope as it offers no improvement and would do little more than imprison whatever is–the phenomenal flux of will-to-power in a primal dance of force–in an absolute unending cycle of return.  While the yea-saying, life embracing approach of Nietzsche distinguishes him from Schopenhauer’s pessimism, it seems small consolation when one is actively embracing what has already been and will recur countless times thereafter:  one is reminded of the alchemical symbol of the snake devouring its tail or its modern visual analog, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  Hmmmm, is that the shower dripping? Again?

I suppose the safest approach in evaluating The Tacit Dimension is to begin with an unbiased repetition of Polanyi’s  signature quotation:  We can know more than we can tell.  Actually, Polanyi’s catch phrase, when taken at face value, offers a thoroughly commonsensical point of view which may account for its appeal as a truism.  Michael Polanyi had already achieved an impressive record of accomplishments in science–he received doctorates in both medicine and physical chemistry–before his foray into philosophy and the social sciences.  The threads of his argument in laying the foundation for tacit knowing are arrayed in logical sequences that belie the rather simple mantra that we are able to know more than we can articulate: the quasi-formal proof structure that Polanyi employs to illustrate his point stands in stark relief to the claim that he makes regarding the obvious nature of what it is that we can know and articulate.

One could interpret Polanyi’s comments as suggesting that there is an underlying reality which may have one or the other of the characteristics ascribed to it by Parmenides on the one hand and diametrically by Heraclitus on the other hand.  In some respects Polanyi’s explanation of tacit knowing may be regarded as revisiting the subject-object dichotomy which has been most famously expressed in the work of Rene Descartes.  The introduction of existential commitment as a starting point from which an individual embarks on his journey for knowledge/discovery is the basis for Polanyi’s opposition to and departure from the lifeless sifting of facts and repetitious verifiability demanded by the approach of logical positivism.  Personal choice matters in discovery, passion sustains the special relation between the seeker and the knowledge which is sought, insight is shot through with informal familiarity of its object, and what we seek, at least metaphorically, seeks us as a sign of our worthiness.  Each discovery bears the exclusive earmark of the discoverer; knowledge is never simply procured but enticed to reveal itself to its suitor.

One supposes, at least given the context outlined in The Tacit Dimension, that the nature of reality is not the focus of Polanyi’s work, although one may speculate as to its nature based on Polanyi’s references to Bergson and the other writers.  Whatever is, is another matter although the kind of process which is detailed in tacit knowing strongly resembles the nature of reality implied by quantum theory.  What we can articulate is shaped by what we cannot articulate and in some sense what is revealed is dependent on what we cannot formulate.  Carroll Feagins was fond of the term “isness” to describe a certain indescribably obviousness about a state of being or condition which, paradoxically, could not be described but was fully present in a form of knowing.  As as matter of comparison, Polanyi’s tacit knowing seems to share characteristics of what Whitehead referred to as prehension; both men account for continuity and tradition as foundational elements in knowledge and avoid Hume’s dilemma of sensory destruction and recreation from one moment of perception to the next; without prehension or tacit knowing each note of a Bach fugue would have to be created instantaneously and simultaneously with all of the preceding notes as we attend to the musical opus or as the composer created it; and, the fugue itself may be no more than a succession of notes, wholly lacking the unity which the musical structure implies.

The nature of reality doesn’t seemed disposed to reveal itself via the nexus established through tacit knowing.  Parmenides’ solid, unchanging Being rebuffs our store of knowledge as illusion since the fragmentary and possibly incremental vision we create as a result of our individual discoveries remains aspects of individual articulation.  On the other hand, process which, Whitehead denoted as the fundamental relation to reality, accommodates the reciprocal relationship inherent in tacit knowing.  One of the many possibilities of Polanyi’s thought is that knowledge depends on individual seekers who are specially disposed to enter a unique relationship with whatever is waiting to be articulated as if they were members of a peculiar form of oligarchy.

If what we are able to articulate falls short of what we can know then we might make some assumptions about ourselves and the nature of what we may be able to know.  Polanyi suggests that knowledge depends in part on its nature as a lure and on our capacity to recognize and act on this subtile provocation.  Although Polanyi discusses hierarchies, layers of knowledge as it were, subsumed under the accumulation of tradition, custom, culture, our bodies, for example, he does not mention whether there exists a preeminence of knowledge or seeker.  Despite the revelation of knowledge and its subsequent codification and sharing, it apparently does not have an obligatory component that was implied by Socrates statement that to know the good is to do the good.  In light of present global challenges–economic, political, social–one must wonder about the nature of reality and what it has chosen to make known and to whom.

At some point during my walking, after the early effort of reaching and sustaining a brisk but manageable pace, I find that I am able to lapse into a more contemplative state–not the regimented rigor of a monastic but an open-ended dialog where topics present themselves without fanfare or introduction: a fallen leaf or a bit of refracted sunlight edges from the periphery into focus, the wind calms, my breathing and heartbeat syncopate and I can hear only the skeletal groaning of the poplar and pine.

 Perhaps the combination of mistletoe and oak leaves set off a chain reaction of associations which forced open the shuttered repositories of memories.  I can’t say what triggered my introspection; however, as I continued to walk, the fragments of recollection from the fall of 1967 wove themselves into my consciousness.  As near as I can describe it, the fall of that year marked the closest that I’ve come to having a mystical experience; it was a seminal moment in decision making for me; and, it was as highly unorthodox as it was out of character for a person as analytical as I am.

I’ve described that eventful night in October of 1967 in detail in an unpublished memoir that may one day see the light of day; however, my mention of that occasion here will be cursory, an overview at best.  One night as I walked to philosophy seminar held at Carroll Feagins’ house that lay nestled in the woods behind the small pond on the Guilford College campus known at the time as Guilford College lake, my thoughts were preoccupied with current events and especially the impact these events would have on my life.  The war in Vietnam and its coverage was ubiquitous; its carnage was served as frame of reference for nightly news reports.  From my enrollment in Guilford down to that very moment in October I was opposed to the war and gradually the maturation of my own thought and personal beliefs had extended that opposition to include all war.  Beliefs and ideals have little relevance when they are convenient, intellectual affectations held in isolation; they matter when one’s life is lived and tempered by them, when the quality of one’s life and the manner of one’s death depend upon the practice those principles define.  So in the crisp night air with the moon’s autumn light illuminating the silent landscape like a preface to a Poe short story, I paused in the road as my internal dialog suddenly ceased.  Before me stood a small section of oak trees which shouldered either side of the road and reached their limbs toward each other to form a canopy over the road.  As I looked into the shadows, the dilemma that had dominated my thoughts came rushing back.

While I was still the same blue collar kid of recent immigrant origins, my approach to  life had matured from a small town context to one which was now informed by the rich complexity of ideas I had encountered as a philosophy major; and, there was the lure of an intoxicating promise of open-ended potential to which James had referred.  I had also discovered an “ism” in Quakerism that was so unencumbered yet impeccably profound that it defied  glib compartmentalization.  And I had fallen in love.  My dilemma peered back at me in the darkness:  Did I have the courage to live the ideals that I professed?  Was the life of the mind antithetical to the life of the body?  And what of love?  My life had become inextricably bound to another; I knew the risk in Emerson’s advice –Give all to love…when the half-gods go, the gods arrive– but I was powerless not to heed it.

Shadows motioned to me.  The moon was silent, a breeze stirred in the treetops, leaves shook loose from fingers of limbs that rattled as the wind steadied itself, then began to twirl and dance as they descended, plunging randomly, moving in a reel to the commands of an invisible caller.  Although the quiet was mesmerizing, it did not ease the feeling of uncertainty that held me captive.  I would graduate soon and be thrust from the elegant edifice erected by academia and be forced to face the “real world”.  I had thought my way to pacifism while at Guilford and was confronting the prospects of what that choice meant for me; I had examined the destructive habits of my childhood and quelled the rage that often led to unexpected outbursts of violence.  I was not squeamish and as a matter of fact I was less afraid of violence than I was of the ease with which I could behave so violently myself.  Rationalization can be a powerful sedative; it can provide one with an armament of excuses to justify the prosecution of the most egregious acts: and retribution is its twin.      

In retrospect there is a logic to the role chance played that October night.  I wagered that my passage beneath the canopy of oaks would determine my fate.  If I were able to walk through the glade of oaks untouched by a single leaf, no harm would come to me as a conscientious objector.  As I entered the grove of oaks, the breeze intensified and leaves cascaded from overhead.  The mind is a master magician, misdirection is its hallmark.  By the time I was half way through the gallery of trees not a single leaf had touched me.  I thought to myself that if this were a fitting test, an equally worthy sign was in order.  So I stopped walking, looked skyward to watch the leaves descend, and risked the hubris my behavior might have elicited.  More than affirmation, I sought a clear response, one without nuance:  yes or no; right or wrong; good or evil; courage or cowardice; passive or aggressive; love or hate.  I knew all too well that our lives were color wheels spinning so that the sharpest contrasts were often grayscale not black and white.  The leaves floated toward me time after time and each one spun wildly away before it could touch me as if some hidden hand reached out to push it away or a breath deflected it.  I don’t recall how long I stood there watching leaves fall in the enchanted moon mist.  Time paused.  I became aware of my breathing once again after I had resumed walking and made my way out of the hall of oaks.  Not a single leaf had touched me.

I can state with reasonable certainty that in the fall of 1967 I had not yet read The Golden Bough, in fact, I knew nothing of James Frazier or his epic work on anthropology involving myth, folklore, and primitive religions despite my fondness for some of T. S. Eliot’s poetry.  While it is possible to reconstruct events of the past, not even those charged with the eternal drama of life and death can survive completely intact, free from the prejudices of later speculation and the interpretation of hindsight.  I have been unable to duplicate the emotional content of that night, nor have I experienced another like it.  When I finally got around to reading The Golden Bough, I was forced to reconsider the notion that my experience was just another example of life’s randomness.  Had my epiphany occurred amongst a bucolic setting of maples, it might have been filed away as an interesting coincidence or a good party story to entertain friends.

The Golden Bough:  The Roots of Religion and Folklore by Sir James George Frazier was an opus of modest origin:  Frazier’s initial intent in writing the book was to provide an explanation of an ancient Italian folk custom.  It was believed that a runaway slave who could successfully pull down a bough from a special golden tree would win the right to fight to the death the king of the sacred forest grove at Nemi and perhaps become the next king of the woods.  However, Frazier was intrigued by the similarity of the golden bough of Nemi and the golden bough mentioned in Virgil’s poem the Aeneid, which, allowed Aeneas to enter the underworld and gave him access to its secrets.  By exploring the correspondence of the two stories, Frazier eventually opened up a whole new world of myth and ritual from the legends of the distant past to the practices of the primitive peoples of his day.  Frazier’s work in anthropology suggested that the behavior and practices of primitive people were comprehensible, and could even be accorded rational in their own right; however, the most revolutionary notion that astonished Frazier’s readers was that through the study of primitive institutions we might gain insight into the workings of our own society.  As Frazier elaborated on his initial studies, they became unwieldy with illustration and masked the thread of his original argument although these words of his appropriately summarize his views:  

When all is said and done our resemblances to the savage are still far more numerous than our differences from him; and what we have in common with him, and deliberately retain as true and useful, we owe to our savage forefathers.

While Frazier cites accounts of myth and ritual on nearly every page of his book, the section devoted to Oak-Worship was particularly compelling in light of my own personal experience.  The trees that I walked beneath were oaks and the leaves which tumbled down around me were not just any leaves, they were oak leaves.  Frazier mentions that  

Amongst the ancient Italians, according to Preller, the oak was sacred above all other trees.  The image of Jupiter on the Capitol at Rome seems to have been originally nothing but a natural oak-tree.   At Dodona, perhaps the oldest of all Greek sanctuaries, Zeus was worshipped as immanent in the sacred oak, and the rustling of its leaves in the wind was his voice. 

The oak ranked first among the holy trees of the Germans and was their chief god.  In fact the oak, Frazier adds,

was not only the sacred tree, but the principal object of worship of both Celts and Slavs.  

My genealogical research traces my ancestral roots to an essentially European source divided among Italian, Irish, and German antecedents, which mixes elements of superstition, religion, folklore, and an heritage transmitted through primeval bloodlines.  Perhaps my actions that night were merely a part of a twentieth century re-enactment of a sacred ceremony in which my ancestors might have participated, or a biological memory that was triggered by circumstance and flooded my consciousness with images imprinted on the body’s circuitry from the dawn of creation.  My wager may have been addressed to more than empty air; it may have been an appeal to plead my case before the rustling leaves, the voice of god, the genetic codex of ancestors transmitted through millennia of evolution.

My foot race with age has brought me a considerable distance from that wooded encounter some 40 years ago.  I’ve retraced the path I took that night a number of times and have never experienced anything more than a pleasant walk in the woods.  The oaks stand unremarkably quiet, stoic guardsmen, bound by some arboreal honor code to watch over passers-by, and if, by chance, they are privy to secrets, they remain the epitome of discretion.  I made a choice that night under a canopy of somber oaks shedding their leaves, their naked limbs dusted with the moon’s silvery light elongated  into shadows diffused in the cold air of October, a month fit for Poe and his dark imagination; however, the shivers that ran down my spine were caused less by fear than expectation.  I entered that glade of oaks seeking a sign.  Like Socrates before me, I was certain I already knew the answer, the trick was finding the appropriate question to ask; and, myth, may be our only means to comprehend, that which eludes articulation.

As I was to learn later in the day, it would take all of the mental and linguistic gymnastics Whitehead employed in his metaphysical opus, Process and Reality, to digest the feast of farcical abstraction which was to unfold yesterday. The day began auspiciously enough. Coworkers had planned a surprise birthday party for my wife and engaged me to provide them with photographs taken throughout my spouse’s lifetime. As we had taken slides from about the late sixties until well into the nineties, this meant that I had to sort through reels of slides, select and scan them, and finally burn the converted images to useable media such as a CD. I managed the task of reviewing old slides without arousing her suspicions or delaying my progress by indulging myself and getting lost in the rush of memories that the images triggered. My daughter had insisted that her mother take a day off from work on her birthday and the two of them spent the day together which also provided my wife’s coworkers opportunity to finalize party arrangements without the awkward secrecy that would be required if she were at work that day. The only surprises my wife received that day were all pleasant: a day with her daughter, a call from her son and the present he had sent awaiting her when she returned home; all good omens for the surprise party awaiting her return to work the next day.

After finishing off a little yard work in the morning I showered and headed off to party. We are famously known for being punctually impaired so I over compensated by arriving nearly an hour earlier than the scheduled time for the party. To kill time, I took a long walk on a nature trail on the campus of the facility where my wife worked; however, even a couple of loops did not fill up the time as I had expected. I called my mother to chat with her about the usual goings-on–her health has declined over the last few years so I make a point to call her a couple of times each week; unfortunately, her short term memory suggests she doesn’t discern one call from another, although she does perk-up at the sound of my voice, and she still remembers me! The chat with my mother would have been nice if it had actually occurred. The first two calls produced no answer; the third call transported me bodily to Jerry Seinfeld’s bizarre-o-world! I listened as my cell kept purring out its signal to my parent’s house several states away when someone picked up the handset at the other end and just as abruptly set it back down. I expected to hear my mother’s voice and I did; however, she never responded to my “Hello’s“, in fact she was engaged in a rather vigorous discussion with my father. I kept speaking into my cell, with each subsequent attempt at greeting increasing in volume, until I was shouting away at phantom sounds ostensibly inhabiting the flesh of my parents. Try as I might, I could get no one to respond, so for the next 5 or 10 minutes I remained on line. My eavesdropping revealed that my parents were going out, and that neither of them apparently had a clue that one or the other had answered my phone call–actually they were avoiding a call by picking up the handset and cradling it immediately; they just didn’t realize that the handset was askew and the call not disconnected–and it was an alarming revelation at that. I proceeded to call my brother who lives only a few miles away to make him aware of the situation. Just on a lark, I called back at 6 in the evening and got a busy signal!

Before I placed the call to my parents I had received a call from my wife who was clearly upset. As she spoke, I knew Rod Serling had to be a spirit guide to our family. Some people get Jeanne Dixon, or John Edward, the lucky ones get the buxom Jennifer Love Hewitt. We get Rod, must be the literary proclivities of our family toward the written word!
Was the meeting in South Carolina supposed to be today?
Meeting?
Yes, the one with the scammers.
Oh? Yes, actually it was. Why?
Daddy’s on the way to Greenville, South Carolina to meet with those people.

This preamble requires its own preamble.

For the last year my father-in-law has been the willing victim of one of the many variations of the Nigerian mail scams. I say willingly because one has to rule out insanity as an excuse since neither his current wife or his family have had him committed for his aberrant behavior. While he is approaching the grand old age of ninety, his personal accomplishments are undeniably impressive: He has endured the loss of his first wife after a protracted illness, recovered from two strokes that might have felled men less driven, remarried in his 80’s, worked his way out of a hard-scrabble childhood in eastern NC, graduated from college, became a successful businessman and respected pillar of the community, an active and honored Rotarian, and retired from military service as a Brigadier General in the Air National Guard. He has enjoyed almost divine status in the small town where he has made his home for over 50 years. The precision, accuracy, and the detailed recall of his memory precludes his peers from judging him mentally incompetent, although no one has been creative or bold enough to categorize his actions as those of an idiot savant. Perhaps neuroscience may find that apparent facile brain function and judgment are not equivalent.

I was introduced to the nefarious get rich quick scheme by my father-in-law at one family gathering about a year ago when he showed me the email exchanges he had with a barrister from Great Britain who was acting on the behalf of a dying widow (a Christian woman) who had 8 million dollars that she wanted to give to a good Christian man so that he could oversee the distribution of the money to the glory of God, or some such bilge. At first I thought my father-in-law was joking, simply displaying the messages to point out how absurd they were–the spelling was atrocious, the grammar and syntax was laughable, only the names of some of the principals in this charade were the least bit amusing; you gotta love a name like Pollack James! He was deadly, greedily serious, which on second thought is the ultimate seduction: something for nothing! Of course, the something is what the victim gives and the nothing is what the victim receives; it’s a one way street for both the scammer and the victimized, just not the same street. Once it became apparent the old fool was actually sending money to the scammers, I took a more proactive role in ending the folly. I contacted state and federal authorities, wrote to congressmen. I contacted Yahoo, the major source of free email at the time and had each new bogus email address of the scammers canceled when I forwarded a copy of the email with headers to Yahoo’s fraud department. Once the scammers opened Yahoo email address via China, I was unable to get Yahoo to cancel them–something about China, I guess. As I was the one who set up and maintained my fathers-in-law’s computer, I knew his email password, etc. Armed with that information and my father-in-law’s lack of sophistication with technology I was able to set up blocks and filters which effectively prevented the scammers from contacting him. Of course it was several more months before I could convince his wife to allow me to do the same with her email account as my father-in-law quickly indulged his lust for that 8 million dollars by using both is own email account and his wife’s to contact the scammers. Eventually, the spate of emails from the scammers withered to a mere trickle until they stopped coming altogether.

After dispatching thousands of dollars in money orders during clandestine trips to a local Walmart and much ululation on the part of family, it appeared that the blood lust for money had subsided. Any avid Tolkein fan can tell you that Sauron’s spirit lay waiting for the right time to regain the ring of power. Gollum survived the torture of Sauron’s minions and resumed his search to recover the ring which had robbed him of his former self, protracted his life with an obsession to possess that which destroys because its only power is its need to be possessed. And so, my father-in-law calls the scammers, surreptitiously when his wife is out. He had to initiate the call because she had the phone company prevent any incoming international calls so that the scammers could not contact her husband. The forces of darkness began to gather again. The Shire was once more subject to strange and unnatural occurrences, Scamwraiths appeared from an electronic void. There were rumors of trips to South Carolina, a Mrs. Stella Brown who would help in the arrangements for the delivery of a package and a place where the transaction was to take place: $7500 in exchange for the package containing 8 million dollars. I noticed disturbing images in the forgotten Palantir I had used to filter incoming email. An image of a shipping label indicating the delivery of a package to Greenville, South Carolina arrived with instructions for my father-in-law.

Ambling on

After my wife had quizzed me about the rendezvous in South Carolina she elaborated on the present state of affairs of doings in the Shire. It seem her father called her sister to ask if her son could accompany him to Charlotte as he had a National Guard meeting there and would appreciate it if his grandson could do the driving. What’s a daughter to do but comply when one’s father makes an ostensibly reasonable request. Once under way, the ruse was foiled by my father-in-law’s wife who had refused to go with my father-in-law because his destination was South Carolina and not Charlotte as he had indicated to his daughter. There is no guard meeting she told my sister-in-law whom she had telephoned the minute her husband had left their house. Furious, angry, lied to, the daughter called her son on his cell, had him activate the speakerphone whereupon she expressed her disappointment at her father for his unconscionable behavior and ordered him to bring back her son immediately. He did. Nonplussed by the disturbing ease with which he can employ prevarication or be swayed by unrivaled stupidity or greed, which often can be synonymous, my father-in-law engaged the assistance of another 90 year old fool and the two of them headed south to seek their fortune, in a manner of speaking. My wife called her father’s cell. No answer, not when a man is on a mission to find and retrieve the holy grail, the summum bonum, the ring of gold, twisted into a hideous maw of greed. Meanwhile, the wife when contacted for an update, ruminates about the timing of her husband’s flight to SC: He’ll hit Greenville at rush hour! She exhibited not the least bit of concern of the potentially deadly consequences of his folly. He was meeting individuals he had never seen before who were expecting him to have $7500 for them, at a place unknown to him, he was old, quite truthfully, too impaired to drive safely to say nothing of the injury and harm he could cause to unsuspecting travelers on the highway because of his frailties. Eventually, my wife was able to raise her father on his cell. He was driving, on his way back from Greenville where he pronounced that he had had a very fruitful meeting and seemed quite satisfied with himself. A later conversation with her sister revealed that there was supposed to be a meeting the next day in another city nearby.

I destroyed my Palantir, prescience is impotent to rescue those who are inebriated with ignorance. I can hear Bob Dylan chant, Money doesn’t talk, it swears; he is prescient too and just as helpless. There are days when I stand rapt in awe of our life, the unimaginable intricacies of reality. Complexity abides along side simplicity; reason, logic, commonsense are fitting lodgers in the same house. To be honest, I find experiences like the one I’ve recounted more confounding than Whitehead’s blueprints for reality with its foundation, lintels, trusses, plumbing, and wiring replaced by actual occasions, concrescence, prehensions, satisfaction, nexus. While Whitehead attempted to avoid the loss of reality to empty words, our actions frustrate the clarity and precision of our definitions to lay hold of the sublime correlation of abstract and concrete. Despite care, patience, and love somewhere in another city, a distorted, surrogate reality is unfolding. Pity, if not understanding, may be our only response to the haunting terrain of another’s surreality.