This presentation by cartoon artist Howard Tayler gets a post to itself, because it isn’t just interesting, it’s Important. There is nothing that determines success in any human endeavor more than deliberate purposeful practice.
That’s an important thing to believe, but watch the presentation, and you may find yourself actually wanting to practice.
I’m late this morning. David had a doctor’s appointment this morning at 8:45 for a case of RSV, which is actually something like a really, really bad cold. So bad that it causes pneumonia. An 8:45 appointment means seeing the LPN at around 10:00, which is to say we got home at around noon. As an added bonus, the doctor’s office and the pharmacy are having a little disagreement about whether our insurance will pay for David’s breathing treatment. Fortunately, a moderate case of pneumonia is as nothing to basic asthma, so I’m unimpressed with his pressing need for expensive asthma medication.
But links:
Some poor prelate forgot to pass them to his heir,
but when Martin Luther found them,
il Papa claimed they weren’t there.
Well, he claimed that those keys weren’t the keys, anyway.
This poem isn’t really finished, but it’s at least round the first bend, and since somehow I’ve already managed to post it once by accident, I’ll let you read what’s there while I work on the rest.
I have been reading Dante, so
Forgive me, if you may,
The way that I am strewing all
These iams on the page.
The mind adapts itself unto
The pattern that it’s fed
And replicates it endlessly
While pulling on its thread –
Unraveling, re-raveling
With endless permutation,
A master-house that has the goal
Of its own renovation.
Who has seen a created thing
That’s made quite like the mind?
Do fish, or birds, or arthropods,
Or beasts that feed on grass
Create themselves the path they follow
And set their lives to plans?
But such is man who’s made like God
The created who creates.
He picks a star and sets his course,
And rides in his own wake.
Yet, unlike God, who gets to choose,
Man also cannot choose.
The mirror shines, and so must he,
Reflecting what he sees.
He halts a bit, and modifies,
Changes meter, or the rhyme,
Opens up his aperture,
Adjusts his shutter speed.
But he cannot cease to worship.
He cannot cease to feed
On wisdom, honor, truth and beauty.
The numinous, the seed
Of glory ever lives inside him
and grows there like a weed.
It forces him to seek the holy
With a holy sort of greed.
And Lord, here is your gardener,
Standing in the field:
He has his seed; he has the soil,
He has a hoe to wield.
He has his purpose, and his duty,
And has the call to choose.
But still he cannot force himself
To ever choose the good.
And like a telescope deciding
Stars are without worth –
It twists itself to look for something,
Unhinging from it’s posts,
Then sways and tips, and holding… falls,
Its lens now mired in earth,
Its vision-shaft now soundly bent,
And lost to starry hosts.
Yet something still is working there,
Receiving what it sees,
Passing up exhumous visions,
Displaying rotten leaves.
So the human constitution,
Though broken by its fall,
Cannot help but seek its purpose,
Shaping self and all
The cosmos to the god it’s fashioned,
Cycling god and self
And cosmos, thralled with choosing, still
Desiring something else.
Good Morning. I’m sitting on pins and needles this morning, hoping that our outrageous tax rebate comes in soon. Apparently our child deductions from last year are the only thing that can help us afford to pay for this year’s day care – until we can get a cheaper situation.
On to the links:
Beat the Polymath by 1 minute.
If you read his links, you can probably skip over most of mine. Half of them are usually copied, I’m afraid.
Good morning. Working on a new site design. Tread lightly.
Good Morning.
I am working on an absolutely awful poem right now, revolving around the theme of being conformed unto what you gaze upon. In eight-and-six. Oh, and it rhymes. It was already tortuously long this morning, when I was going to post it for your general amusement as an example of a poem that obviously wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, I though to clean up a few loose ends first and… well, it’s still not done. It’s currently at 66 lines, and my guess is that I’ve said nearly half of what needs to get out to complete the flow I’ve already set.
Ghastly.
Good Morning, all.
Good Morning. I’ve been flat on my back all weekend with one wasting disease after another, which made our concert experience with Celtic Woman less than ideal for me. In other news, David has taken to tasting his feely books. On to the links:
neumatikos 
