I finished teaching for the semester on Friday and am still catching up on sleep, so I'm going to call it quits early tonight and get to bed. Buddy took this picture-- unfiltered-- as the sun rose on Monday morning a week ago. Let's hope this week begins as well.
I'm always happy when you don't write a 'real' posting, not because I don't want to read your wonderful words, but because it's a reminder to all of us to keep that balance in our lives.
I frankly do not know how you do it. Being a former academic myself (PhD in Comparative Medieval Literature from Columbia University) I cannot fathom the energy and intelligence you bring to us daily in addition to your full teaching load. . And yes, rest tonight with our thanks that you have not ceased in your good letters after the first 100 days of the Biden Administration. I support you and I thank you and I value you.
This retired professor knows well the fatigue so predictably a part of those last weeks! Know that on this Mother’s Day, my daughter and I, especially in line with the highest aspirations for her daughter—my granddaughter—celebrated your accomplishments, praised you for your knowledge, ability, and desire to communicate historical truth and its deeper meanings to persons at every level of interest! You are a woman among women, making history more accessible to others, and helping to ensure a better future for all.
Beautiful, TY Buddy. Heather take the week, we need you rested and fresh. Your voice is more important than any news outlet, specifically because you are a real voice in the trees! Sleep, recover, recoup and refresh. We need you on your “A” game as we take on those that would end our democracy! ❤️
Since Heather isn’t writing today I feel safe going off on a tangent. Actually, it turns out that the tangents are actually more interesting to me. I’m, what, three weeks into my experience of having male breast cancer and want to recognize the pervasive effect of this kind of thing on my perception. Somehow having the other end of the parenthesis defined even if it is still nebulas seems to affect everything.
I have always been an outlier and have never embraced the notion that what the greatest number agrees to is actually a solution. Instead it has seemed to me that what the greatest number can agree to is almost never an actual solution. I have also always been clear on the fact that most people are way too easy to manipulate. In my view these two combined facts doom a democracy. Ours, as I have learned reading Heather these past four months, has stumbled along haltingly addressing our problems but more often being controlled locally and nationally by the most persistent special interest group.
Capitalism on the other hand has always been the same. It energizes the world but doesn’t point it in a direction. Capitalism has no morals and in fact I would say that while it has the power to lift and create it ultimately results in long-term destruction of resource and the domination of the majority by the few. A bit of Marxism there I suppose.
Then, enter the Internet. The effect here IMView can be split into two directions. The first is good and revolves around the sharing of information. From its origin in the scientific community all the way to Face Book if the only effect was increasing the connectivity of individuals this would be a net positive. However, it turns out and this is something I didn’t see coming, that its more powerful effect is manipulation for profit. This is rooted in its seemingly generous and benign ability to allow everyone to have a voice, like my writing here and, yet what turns out to be the lasting effect so far is its ability to support lies. As we have learned, it is much easier and more powerful to lie big and to lie to a large number of people at the same time. Further, our social platforms have fed (profited) off of this by creating mechanisms whereby those lies can be spread (shared) so easily. Humans have essentially been in a popularity contest since the very beginning. We feel safer in groups so what ever allows us to feel that the quickest is unstoppable.
Solutions though, are not rare or obscure. There are many people who find them and try to bring them to notice. Having the medical record owned, possessed, and understood by the patient rather than having it possessed and controlled by a profit motivated service provider is IMView one such solution to the seemingly complex, endlessly expensive, industry that claims to have our health as its goal (a lie). It has profit as its goal and illness as its tool. Individual practitioners know this but the industry is not in the control of individual practitioners any more than our country is in the control of individual voters.
IMView Government also has solutions that are known at pretty much each step of the way but that do not come to the fore because they cannot be as popular as the lies. Groups, even this one, will express a multitude of opinions obscuring the underlying truth even as we pursue it. For instance, IMView, Biden’s belief that unlimited debate is good is a delusion, a lie one tells oneself, often based on past experience, which is no longer valid. That he can convince the opposition of anything at all by endless debate is the residue of that delusion, which spawns the secondary delusion that there is a hidden plan we don’t know about that will save us in the end. Having Cancer gives one a yearning for truth and insistence that it does exist and that it can be found, in fact, that it is here in plain sight. It just can’t be seen by a group that is self-involved in any way. Politics it seems is the very epitome of self-involvement.
The solution to Government? IMView, simply stop telling lies. I believe that every individual knows when they are telling a lie if they approach it not from the perspective of trying to anticipate or control effects but just simply asking themselves, is this a lie or a truth. Can politicians do this? As surely as any other human being. Can they do it and retain their power? Not in a culture of lies. Are the details of all the competing lies important? Not really says the guy with cancer.
IMView true solutions are, almost by definition, the providence of outliers because they are ideas and pathways that are not being followed. Unless you believe that we are on the right track as it is - or subscribe to the spiritual idea that it is always all happening just as it needs to happen. I can actually get with this concept at the individual level but if we extrapolate it to the whole of humanity I just see that there is a really large amount of suffering ahead and personally I’m going to wait all that out before incarnating again and I do feel sorry for my grandchildren.
Contraire-wise, I also believe that we as a species have been raised on the Earth for a purpose and that we do have a positive probability of fulfilling that purpose. I believe this purpose requires us to come together as a whole and think together as one being. Every circumstance gives us that choice but we apparently aren’t ready yet so we cling to individuality as if it will be lost otherwise. The lie that it is even possible to loose our individuality has been told for eons.
For some reason I enjoy writing in the mornings and having somewhere to post it. I suppose I could just reawaken my dormant FB account but until Heather kicks me off for being irrelevant I’ll click this button here. A while longer anyway. Reading the desperate and conflicted though may have to be curtailed.
Buddy Poland, Your photo struck me with its beauty and intensity. Just finished watching the Marvin Gaye documentary, an artist who felt 'What's Going On' and then replied to subscriber Christi's personal story. It has been an emotional night, so the light of your photo is demanding for my tired eyes. Thank you. Thank you, too, Heather. I am thinking a lot about the American people. It doesn't feel comfortable to group us together these days. People seem to be attached to a number of different realities, more than the two divergent ones, and violence is making a strong showing. More of this another time. Sleep well.
Rest well, HCR! Happy Mother's Day and thank Buddy for the splendid photo. 🌷(My daughter finished entering her students' grades this afternoon and is working on next fall's syllabus, she's a happy camper to be heading into summer!)
I'm always happy when you don't write a 'real' posting, not because I don't want to read your wonderful words, but because it's a reminder to all of us to keep that balance in our lives.
I frankly do not know how you do it. Being a former academic myself (PhD in Comparative Medieval Literature from Columbia University) I cannot fathom the energy and intelligence you bring to us daily in addition to your full teaching load. . And yes, rest tonight with our thanks that you have not ceased in your good letters after the first 100 days of the Biden Administration. I support you and I thank you and I value you.
Happy Mother's Day to you, Heather! You deserve an early night, especially tonight! Your flock bleat with joy when you look after yourself.
What a magnificent sky! Buddy captures them to perfection! A huge thank you to him for sharing his glorious photos.
Happy Mothers day! You cared for us all this last hard year and democracy is better for it
This retired professor knows well the fatigue so predictably a part of those last weeks! Know that on this Mother’s Day, my daughter and I, especially in line with the highest aspirations for her daughter—my granddaughter—celebrated your accomplishments, praised you for your knowledge, ability, and desire to communicate historical truth and its deeper meanings to persons at every level of interest! You are a woman among women, making history more accessible to others, and helping to ensure a better future for all.
One of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:
“Why I Wake Early
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning and
spread it over the fields
And into the faces of the tulips
And the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
Miserable and the crotchety -
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
In happiness, in kindness.”
Sometimes your short posts along with Buddy’s photos are just what I need. Thank you for taking time for yourself. Sleep well and rest.
Beautiful, TY Buddy. Heather take the week, we need you rested and fresh. Your voice is more important than any news outlet, specifically because you are a real voice in the trees! Sleep, recover, recoup and refresh. We need you on your “A” game as we take on those that would end our democracy! ❤️
Whew. Relax. You can save democracy on Tuesday.
Since Heather isn’t writing today I feel safe going off on a tangent. Actually, it turns out that the tangents are actually more interesting to me. I’m, what, three weeks into my experience of having male breast cancer and want to recognize the pervasive effect of this kind of thing on my perception. Somehow having the other end of the parenthesis defined even if it is still nebulas seems to affect everything.
I have always been an outlier and have never embraced the notion that what the greatest number agrees to is actually a solution. Instead it has seemed to me that what the greatest number can agree to is almost never an actual solution. I have also always been clear on the fact that most people are way too easy to manipulate. In my view these two combined facts doom a democracy. Ours, as I have learned reading Heather these past four months, has stumbled along haltingly addressing our problems but more often being controlled locally and nationally by the most persistent special interest group.
Capitalism on the other hand has always been the same. It energizes the world but doesn’t point it in a direction. Capitalism has no morals and in fact I would say that while it has the power to lift and create it ultimately results in long-term destruction of resource and the domination of the majority by the few. A bit of Marxism there I suppose.
Then, enter the Internet. The effect here IMView can be split into two directions. The first is good and revolves around the sharing of information. From its origin in the scientific community all the way to Face Book if the only effect was increasing the connectivity of individuals this would be a net positive. However, it turns out and this is something I didn’t see coming, that its more powerful effect is manipulation for profit. This is rooted in its seemingly generous and benign ability to allow everyone to have a voice, like my writing here and, yet what turns out to be the lasting effect so far is its ability to support lies. As we have learned, it is much easier and more powerful to lie big and to lie to a large number of people at the same time. Further, our social platforms have fed (profited) off of this by creating mechanisms whereby those lies can be spread (shared) so easily. Humans have essentially been in a popularity contest since the very beginning. We feel safer in groups so what ever allows us to feel that the quickest is unstoppable.
Solutions though, are not rare or obscure. There are many people who find them and try to bring them to notice. Having the medical record owned, possessed, and understood by the patient rather than having it possessed and controlled by a profit motivated service provider is IMView one such solution to the seemingly complex, endlessly expensive, industry that claims to have our health as its goal (a lie). It has profit as its goal and illness as its tool. Individual practitioners know this but the industry is not in the control of individual practitioners any more than our country is in the control of individual voters.
IMView Government also has solutions that are known at pretty much each step of the way but that do not come to the fore because they cannot be as popular as the lies. Groups, even this one, will express a multitude of opinions obscuring the underlying truth even as we pursue it. For instance, IMView, Biden’s belief that unlimited debate is good is a delusion, a lie one tells oneself, often based on past experience, which is no longer valid. That he can convince the opposition of anything at all by endless debate is the residue of that delusion, which spawns the secondary delusion that there is a hidden plan we don’t know about that will save us in the end. Having Cancer gives one a yearning for truth and insistence that it does exist and that it can be found, in fact, that it is here in plain sight. It just can’t be seen by a group that is self-involved in any way. Politics it seems is the very epitome of self-involvement.
The solution to Government? IMView, simply stop telling lies. I believe that every individual knows when they are telling a lie if they approach it not from the perspective of trying to anticipate or control effects but just simply asking themselves, is this a lie or a truth. Can politicians do this? As surely as any other human being. Can they do it and retain their power? Not in a culture of lies. Are the details of all the competing lies important? Not really says the guy with cancer.
IMView true solutions are, almost by definition, the providence of outliers because they are ideas and pathways that are not being followed. Unless you believe that we are on the right track as it is - or subscribe to the spiritual idea that it is always all happening just as it needs to happen. I can actually get with this concept at the individual level but if we extrapolate it to the whole of humanity I just see that there is a really large amount of suffering ahead and personally I’m going to wait all that out before incarnating again and I do feel sorry for my grandchildren.
Contraire-wise, I also believe that we as a species have been raised on the Earth for a purpose and that we do have a positive probability of fulfilling that purpose. I believe this purpose requires us to come together as a whole and think together as one being. Every circumstance gives us that choice but we apparently aren’t ready yet so we cling to individuality as if it will be lost otherwise. The lie that it is even possible to loose our individuality has been told for eons.
For some reason I enjoy writing in the mornings and having somewhere to post it. I suppose I could just reawaken my dormant FB account but until Heather kicks me off for being irrelevant I’ll click this button here. A while longer anyway. Reading the desperate and conflicted though may have to be curtailed.
Buddy Poland, Your photo struck me with its beauty and intensity. Just finished watching the Marvin Gaye documentary, an artist who felt 'What's Going On' and then replied to subscriber Christi's personal story. It has been an emotional night, so the light of your photo is demanding for my tired eyes. Thank you. Thank you, too, Heather. I am thinking a lot about the American people. It doesn't feel comfortable to group us together these days. People seem to be attached to a number of different realities, more than the two divergent ones, and violence is making a strong showing. More of this another time. Sleep well.
Love love the photo!
Rest well, HCR! Happy Mother's Day and thank Buddy for the splendid photo. 🌷(My daughter finished entering her students' grades this afternoon and is working on next fall's syllabus, she's a happy camper to be heading into summer!)
Beautiful photo. Rest well.
Beautiful! Rest well, Dr. Heather! 💜 We are so grateful for you and the enormous effort you put into these Letters.
The sun rises on all. Not all can see the sunrise.