Effort, More or Less

I know it happens to everybody, it is inevitable, obvious...but getting old(er) is kind of strange. You spend 55+ years of your life pretty much with out thinking about it and then, BLAMO..you have to worry about being in shape, or high Blood pressure or digestion or whatever. THEN you find you really do have to worry about such things.

I first started Aikido just before I turned 50, and while I was obviously not as robust as some younger people, there were actually a few times when I wore them out before myself. BUT, just before I quit a few years ago, I noticed my stamina was not what it once was and it seemed to take more to keep the weight off. And then I quit for almost 2 years.

Even after a few week of returning to Aikido I felt an improvement. But this Sunday I felt a cold coming on and by Monday after work it was bad enough that all I wanted to do was go home to sleep. Tuesday, the same. It just seemed my body was really old and tired. What a drag.

By today I felt a bit better but I was a little scared I would poop out mid class. But I felt I needed to clear out my lungs, so I rode around White Rock Lake. Not as strenuous as Aikido but enough to reassure me I was on the mend.

So why do I bother to even mention it? I guess I am trying to reassure myself that I am making an effort.

The podcast where Neil deGrasse Tyson calls me an idiot

Tyson sweepingly dismisses the entire history of philosophy. Actually, he doesn't just dismiss it. He goes much further — to argue that undergraduates should actively avoid studying philosophy at all. Because, apparently, asking too many questions "can really mess you up."

http://theweek.com/article/index/261042/why-neil-degrasse-tyson-is-a-philistine

Yes, he really did say that. Go ahead, listen for yourself, beginning at 20:19 — and behold the spectacle of an otherwise intelligent man and gifted teacher sounding every bit as anti-intellectual as a corporate middle manager or used-car salesman. He proudly proclaims his irritation with "asking deep questions" that lead to a "pointless delay in your progress" in tackling "this whole big world of unknowns out there." When a scientist encounters someone inclined to think philosophically, his response should be to say, "I'm moving on, I'm leaving you behind, and you can't even cross the street because you're distracted by deep questions you've asked of yourself. I don't have time for that."
"I don't have time for that."

OK, he doesn't single me out by name, but since I think Zen is intriguing and may point to the fallacies of conventional thought, AND the mere idea that you should “examine yourself” like philosophy, makes it something worthing of study...NDT tosses aside like a rancid piece of meat.

From this podcast we now know NDT is insistent there is only ONE correct (and Rigid) way to look at the world. Why is it so hard for people to say...”well I don’t get it, but if you want study philosophy, Zen, poetry, pottery or whatever..knock yourself out”

No, he as to tells how stupid we are all for not thinking exactly like him.

Personally I think it is Backward looking not Forward looking. He cannot just revel in the coolness of Science, his view of science is only important because it is not..well, something else. So, he has to dump on people who think there are other things of interest, especially bad is Philosophy. But why stop at philosophy, remove poetry, fiction, and drama since it delays your progress. Screw it, why not just burn the books you don't like.

Strangely he is actually a fundamentalist in regard the religion of progress. Anything that interferes with this goal is detrimental. And it is really an unquestioning acceptance of own world view

The thing is he is taking techniques from science and applying them to the different area of an interior life.

Plus he has only disdain for Philosophy and Zen, but they are not like fundamentalism trying to declare what science is.

NDT feels self reflection and any examination is pointless and in fact dangerous

Pindar Says...

Become such as you are, having learned what that is 
 - Pindar

This could be pithy wisdom or something so vague it can mean anything.

Right now I think it is a cool variation on "Know thyself".

Or maybe that living is a process (becoming) and the trick is to not be pulled into somebody else's idea of what is the "right" way to live.

RELAX...Don't Do It

3rd class of Aikido since my break. On the first night I think I hurt, if not tore, some abdominal muscle. On Monday I discovered that when I did a forward roll it hurt like heck across a line in the area a few inches below my navel. BUT if I really relaxed my abdomen it was totally OK. I had the same problem tonight. So when like a novice I tensed up on a back roll, I felt the pain. And it was only when I paradoxically forced myself to relax when I was tense...I really did relax. And it mostly worked.

Yet another new beginning

Another birthday. That makes it seven years of blogging. And I saw on the internet that blogging is dead now, so I hope it doesn’t apply to me.

So what does it mean? You know I may be old enough that I will chuck the whole “meaning” thing anyway. For some reason now the meaning of "meaning" just doesn't seem as important as it once did.

I guess I decided to go back to my roots, so tonight I went back to Aikido after being away for more than a year and a half. Sort of a birthday gift to myself.

It physically took a lot out of me, since I am older, fatter and lazier than ever. But if you excuse a short break I took, I made it through the class. As of now I am planning to return.

Cat Stevens: And that is why Rock and Roll is a pile of crap and not really worth anything.

OK, this is a “pet peeve” of mine, If you think it is OK to kill somebody because of what they write, sing, or whatever, I think you are full of shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-wjxwpvqps

And if you give explicit, complicit or implicit, assent to said action, you too are full of shit.

Rock and Roll, Punk or whatever, it should mean standing up to “the MAN”

I am not a musician, critic, hip, with it, cool, or anything...but even I know any kind of rebellion means standing up to convention. And if you accept rewards from establishment entertainment on the same stage as somebody who says, or refuses to deny it is wrong, to kill somebody for a novel....well then you have no rebellion, ethics, rightness, goodness, or I don't know what.

I watched the Rock and Roll hall of fame enroll Cat Stevens....and nobody said a thing about how he says it it fine to kill someone because of a novel. So screw you all, Bruce Springsteen, Hall and Oates, Nirvana, and especially Art Garfunkel. You either praised him, or said nothing while you got your gold.

Screw you and your freakin' rock and roll. It turns out it was a bunch of crap anyway.

Things People Ignore #1

Just so I have this reference


At a pivotal meeting of the highest officials in the Reagan Administration [on June 25, 1984], the President and Vice President [George H.W. Bush] and their top aides discuss how to sustain the Contra war in the face of mounting Congressional opposition. The discussion focuses on asking third countries to fund and maintain the effort, circumventing Congressional power to curtail the CIA's paramilitary operations. In a remarkable passage, Secretary of State George P. Shultz warns the president that White House adviser James Baker has said that "if we go out and try to get money from third countries, it is an impeachable offense." But Vice President George Bush argues the contrary: "How can anyone object to the US encouraging third parties to provide help to the anti-Sandinistas…? The only problem that might come up is if the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return so that some people could interpret this as some kind of exchange." Later, Bush participated in arranging a quid pro quo deal with Honduras in which the U.S. did provide substantial overt and covert aid to the Honduran military in return for Honduran support of the Contra war effort.
 
The Iran arms-for-hostage-deal was also illegal--or so Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger thought. At a December 7, 1985 White House meeting, Weinberger argued the Iran missile deal was wrong and criminal, according to his notes of the session. Weinberger pointed out to Reagan that selling missiles to Iran would violate a U.S. embargo on arms sales to Iran and that even the president of the United States could not break this law. Nor, Weinberger added, would it be legal to use Israel as a cutout, as was under consideration. Both Secretary of State George Shultz and White House chief of staff Donald Regan, who were each present, agreed that a secret weapons deal with Iran would be against the law. Reagan, though, insisted on proceeding, noting he could answer a charge of illegality but not the charge that he had "passed up a chance to free hostages." Weinberger then quipped, "Visiting hours are Thursdays"--meaning the deal could land someone in jail. After the meeting, Regan told Weinberger he would try to talk Reagan out of the deal. He failed to do so. 

http://www.thenation.com/blog/156284/irancontra-20-years-later-and-what-it-means#

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm