buzzing in the ears

They have asked why "good enough" is not "good enough". They wonder what might be required to make "good enough" an acceptable option. Olympic athletes refuse to accept "good enough" until all possible attempts at something better are made (with the exception of some badminton players). Non-athletes do this too: lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians. Those who rise to the top, find a place in the collective consciousness of an era, a lifetime, a decade, a weekend, all refuse to live with "good enough". Do they not?

Is there always a dangling neuron rebelliously sparking in the brain-stem of a human being, even after some great accomplishment has been achieved, greater heights have been reached, telling the human being that to settle with that accomplishment, however lofty, is to accept "good enough"? Or, if the mountain has been scaled first, or fastest, or without oxygen, or while hopping backward on one foot, why does that same doubtful neuron wonder why it hadn't been done better?

There is room for improvement, and this is a good thing. There is a balance to achieve between improvement and acceptance. So often, attempting improvement is overwhelming and acceptance, at the realization of this fact, receives a powerful lashing from an electrified ganglia. The result of imbalance is a fall. The outcome of a fall is often injury and sometimes death. An injury can be healed, death is inevitable. Healing and growing is better than dying and rotting. Healing and growing are "good enough" and allow a return to balance.

from you tube to yours

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPoK1lryfh4

The above link will lead you to a little piece of the 50s jazz pie, courtesy of Charles Mingus.
Much love,
Zmz

P.S. Jenny, if you happen to read this, look for sumas bignose on the book of faces. She has returned.

a little something

There comes a time in an intimate relationship between two human beings when, well past the honeymoon, and after frustration and doubt have faded to whispered memories on the edge of unconscious minds, time itself begins to surge forward while appearing at each moment standing stock-still. For better or worse, this new era in the two lives hardens them into one sublime existence. Familiarity is said to breed contempt, but complacency is another child of the union. How the relationship decides to nurture its infants in the ensuing period of time becomes its prime concern.
The halting, rushing nature of time is at once astonishing and terrifying, offering boundless possibilities and absolute deadlines. The united beings have achieved a new kind of adulthood, regardless of what has led them here. This is especially so if, regardless of the sexual nature of the people, child rearing is involved.

Mer and Jim have begun to call one another Momma and Daddy. There are more and more moments in their life together that see them in such plumage. They never suspected that they would arrive here, and yet, here they are.

bugs

I like bugs. I miss their easy society in the cold winter months. If I were a bug I would want to be an ant: not for the work-load but for the aesthetics, the look. Male ants, so I've heard, exist only to make larvae with the queen of their colony. I would not like this, shocking as it may seem to any hot blooded human male. I would not miss insect society were I an ant, even a female one. I would long for winter when the work would have to stop (in the higher latitudes at least). But, as a human, at that time of year, I miss them. Is that sadistic?

meandering thoughts revised

The heavens can teach us about things like the space between one thing and another, the distance between our perceptive capabilities and what is. Observation brings new interest in life and inspires thinking. Without thoughtfulness, instincts overwhelm and "what is" loses some of its meanings.

Think of instincts as the mechanics of self-sustenance in the face of impending death.

With death, a new cycle or new part of a cycle for that matter that we once were. It is not all negative, it spurs living things onward.

If a god moves to pick its nose does a universe full of stars come undone? That nagging idea of the Big Bang being just another small atom of something larger.

Sub-creation: Art: making something novel from observable bits and pieces we can hobble together. Creation has happened, or is it always happening? If the latter, then our art is part of it. Still, new things cannot be created... but old things can be reshaped. Can human beings be true creators? Or only breeders and alchemists, a catalyst in the larger, on-going Creation?
The Creation is the forward flow of time, or it creates this flow, or it is the result of this flow....
Both are undeniable to the senses. We are fixed in the flow of Time and Creation but our alchemy or art can allow the miming of stepping outside Time and mortality.

madness

Fellow Earthlings!

Thank you for visiting. The more ruminating I do on what it might be like to be Martian, or just alien to this world, the less I am able to make light of the subject. A seriousness about the search for truth and meaning take over. I am beginning to see the elements of propaganda that have for so long remained hidden from view in the science fiction of the past century. Only with distance does the perspective broaden; yet the heart grows fonder, too. It's a bit of a conundrum. Even the most convincing visual picture (here I am thinking of the media of film) of science fiction relies absolutely upon the strange and wonderful world around us, the same planet some of us long so desperately to escape. This wonderful world includes the human in all its aspects, as well, and the visual picture comes to reflect those who produce it and where it is produced. Hence, the bipedal or humanoid-centric universe depicted in Star Trek and many other imagined galaxies.

The space race between the Americans and Soviets of the mid-nineteen hundreds fuelled a collective imagination that, in turn, further fuelled the space race itself, much like the nuclear reactions that take place inside a star. Eventually though, in the case of both the race and the star, entropy takes over. Like the miner trapped by a cave-in whose body can only reuse its own urine so many times before being poisoned, the system breaks down unless something new is brought in, some source of fresh water discovered.

But now I am reducing everything to the simplest terms: the struggle for survival. Why? In a way this is what the space race was about. Am I over-simplifying? By trying to make blanket statements to deal with the "big picture" I cover up the details that the miner is trying to dig up: the new source of fuel. I am sorry. I am not very good at thinking. Or writing, for that matter.

Now for the descent into confusion and self-doubt, the same old excrement. When will I find the hidden streams that will replenish me?

So, I guess that's it for now. The mind plays tricks, the nebulous shadow-self invades like a force from another world. In a way, this writing, unplanned and meandering is evidence of how I break down from positive, ready to take things on, and inspired. The other self tangles it up. But an attention span is only so long. I will come back to write again. What literary character am I reminded of? It's a Dickensian one: the wealthy aunt of the main character helps to care for a man who is forever writing his autobiography, only to become muddled and depressed by the recurring appearance of a mad royal personage in the tale. It's one of David Copperfield's companions. No, not the illusionist, the literary character. The trick was for him to have meaningful occupation and friends. The devil makes playthings of us in our idleness. Isn't that same Satan of the tales depicted as an alien force that descends from the heavens upon the Earth like the darkness upon the mind?

Don't make war on the strangeness, when it lands its craft. Explore the world with it. Feel the mind expand under the alien springs.

A quick message to let you, the good people, know that Zmz is still operational. It's been a while since words have flowed from these phalanges to the ether. I want you to know that I miss you. I am down but not out. The Earth is our shared space-ship and my attention is drawn to it fully these days.
I am having trouble concentrating, so it is time to be off. Drop me a note sometime, won't you? I will force myself to respond promptly.
Zmz