Non-conformism

Standing Up To Shutting Down

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
“I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”
– Isaac Newton

You know what I hate? Going to the beach on a hot day and baking in the sun. You see the Sun has a funny way of defying every maneuver I make with my flimsy umbrella to shield myself from its searing heat that creeps ever closer towards me. As sweat pours through my blistered pores, each and every solar radiated fibre in my body screams ‘Help! I’m burning up!’ The grievous cacophony of cellular shrieking overwhelms me so … that I just lay there and allow sunstroke to set in.

So that’s what I hate. Unfortunately, it’s only a metaphor for what really has been bothering me lately: life overload. And trust me, I’m completely and utterly fried!

Continue reading →

In Light Of A Bohemian Smile

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
– Voltaire
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
– Henry Miller

 

How easy is it for you to smile? Can you manage a fake one? Do you need someone’s help? Go on and give it a shot.

A few mornings ago, I looked in the mirror; it was my birthday. I’m 49 – a little older and a lot wiser with still lots to learn. Ok, maybe ‘learn’ is not the right sentiment; maybe ‘make sense of’ is. In any event, I think the older I get, the more I scratch my head over life, which no doubt might be the reason for my thinning hair! Still, compared with other male members of my family, past and present, I still have plenty of hair on my head, so I really shouldn’t complain.

Indeed, I have a lot to smile about and day by day I try really really hard to remind myself of that. If you blink though, you might miss it.

Continue reading →

Dangling Angles: Rules, Lines And Floaters

Jay Leonard Schwartz Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
WORK-TO-KEEP-FREE-NARA-516190Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
– George Orwell
 
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
– Albert Camus
 
It’s important to know thy keepers … because they certainly know you. Yes, they are watching, planning and plotting as you go about picking up the pieces of your daily dander. They are watching to make sure you remain occupied and don’t venture too close to the unmarked boundaries they have drawn. Go on and scoff all you want. Go ahead and laugh, too. It’s ok because that’s exactly what you’ve been programmed to do; when in doubt, keep on doubting.
You see, our lives are marked by rules to follow and lines not to cross. A friendly tip might suggest for you to be mindful of where you step. Step on the wrong toes or tread on the wrong flag and you will be crushed, most certainly. ‘Step on a crack, break your mother’s back’, remember? Yes, that’s how the life goes; ‘them’ is the rules. And, there are quite a few angles, as well. 

In Apathy We Trust (Never Mind The Drone)

Jay Leonard Schwartz Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
“I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t make any difference.”
– Jack Kerouac
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
– Thomas Jefferson

 

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know” is an exasperated cry often heard by the apathetic and scared. “Run for your lives!” often punctuates a panic, and many are all to eager to comply. Children are admonished to heed the words ‘curiosity killed the cat’. Build a bomb shelter, stick your head in a hole in the ground and live to hide another day.

And then there’s denial … obstinate denial. ‘It can’t be true!’ we exclaim. We don’t want to believe that which is perfectly obvious because some how or another we may become implicated. So, we shake our head, close our eyes, cover our ears and refuse to listen, see, care, feel and most other than behaviors that characterize us as living and breathing human beings. In light of this, maybe it’s true, as a friend of mine is wont to say, that ‘the dead ask the best questions’ … simply because many of us don’t.

Continue reading →

Drive Me To The Occupation

Jay Leonard Schwartz Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
– Bob Dylan (The Times They Are A-Changin’)

 

Back when I was a teenager, I remember being eager to reach the legal age at which I could take the examination for a learner’s driving license. It wasn’t that I really thought I’d be driving, but I wanted the license just the same. It signified some rite of passage to me, I guess. License to go and be free.

A friend was kind enough to give me his copy of the ‘Driver Handbook’ published by the ‘Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ (read: road hogs) to help me study for the required exam. One of the first things I remember reading were the words “In the state of Florida, driving is a PRIVILEGE.” The words sort of jumped right off the page and blind-sided me (almost as unnerving as the way in which Florida Highway Troopers (read: stormtroopers) would suddenly appear, riding your rear bumper, their blue lights a blazing). Before even delineating how one attains this privilege, the handbook launched into a list of how said privileges could be taken away. Words like ‘suspended’, ‘revoked’ & ‘incarceration’ seemed menacing … purposely so.

I’m sure you will agree that teenagers quickly catch on to what the word privilege means, especially because they are always being threatened with having theirs taken away. It does seem fairly sadistic to teach children the value of ‘liberty’ by robbing it of them every now and then. It’s even more perverse when the exercise has less to do with education and more to do simply with authoritarian ‘control’.

Continue reading →

Wool And Water: Who’s Fleecing Whom?

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
“Can you do addition?” the White Queen asked.
“What’s one and one and one and one and one
and one and one and one and one and one?”
“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.”
– Lewis Carrol (Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There)

 

I ask you … is inconsistency the only thing consistent in your life? Is ambling through life with no real purpose seem to be the norm for you? Does getting through the day seem to be both a tall order and the order of the day?

Turbulent times, indeed! I’m reminded of the old Chinese toast that chimes, “May you live in interesting times”. Of course, the saying actually reflects a curse … but then I guess it’s all how you interpret it. Still, a devil’s advocate might suggest that going all ‘Pollyanna’ would most likely mean that something has gotten lost in the translation! Yes, it’s often hard to know what to believe and more importantly what to think.

Continue reading →

Dialing For Rejection: Just Say No

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,
It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
– Bob Dylan (Don’t think twice, it’s all right)

Do you find it hard to say ‘no‘? By the same token, how easy is it for you to accept rejection? In reality, these are two sides of the same coin in respect to how developed your ’emotional intelligence’ is … and perhaps how stable you are as an individual. Now to be honest, if you are already questioning your stability, then you might as well question that of society’s, as well … as I often do on this blog.

Back when I was in kindergarten, I distinctly remember being told “when you grow up you can be anything you want, even the President of the United States!” In retrospect, I wonder what the point of this ‘pie in the sky’ pep talk was? On the surface, it was surely to motivate us kids to succeed in life. Certainly it was to inspire us to set goals and to be all that we were born to be. Yes yes, we all know teachers are liars but …

Continue reading →

Weed Whackers

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dadaism, Dialogues , , , , , ,

PROLOGUE:

Herb: In the known universe there are beings that never quite question their existence. They wander wildly through the underbrush of society, slowly strangling the life out of all within their grasp, including themselves. It’s senseless. 

 

DIALOGUE:

Charlie: And so it begins, our journey … our wandering.

Ivy: I wonder … will we wander in vain? Is there a point to all this creeping about?

St. John: About our destiny,  yes. And, we must have faith in our function, our purpose, our very reason for being.

Charlie: Being that you know so much about life, the universe and everything, don’t you think it’s about time we questioned our existence and that which drives us?

Ivy: What drives us is life itself. Isn’t it? 

St. John: It is! Our very existence demands we kowtow and bow to the will of what we were born to do.

Charlie: Do tell! We are slaves to our wills then … or the wills of our nature … and after we do whatever it is we are supposed to do then what happens? What then?

Continue reading →

Fettering Fetid Feta Cheese

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , ,
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you,
pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. 
 – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is dangerous to be right
when the government is wrong. 
– Voltaire

 

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not an economist. That’s ok though because the lesson of today’s sermon has less to do with economics and more to do with emotional blackmail and bullying … and yes, a bit of politics, too – especially in relation to Greece where these days insanity is the ruling rationale of the day.

In my last post, I referred to the dire economic straights Greece is in concerning it’s debt. It’s a precarious situation to be in because in deciding how to resuscitate itself the country is basically in a ‘damned if you do and damned if your don’t’ position. Meanwhile, economists far and wide have weighed in on the crisis, mostly waxing doom and gloom. More troublesome still is that the country is practically being forced by its peers into adopting austerity measures that are not only unpopular back home, but also quite ineffectual in both the short and long term. 

For its ills, Greece’s economic ‘partners’ in the European Union (EU), all with vested interests, have prescribed some very bitter tasting medicine. Unfortunately, in this metaphor, the patient has been misdiagnosed and the medicine will eventually prove fatal. Some even argue the country is already brain dead and that it’s only a matter of time before the decision must come whether to amputate from the neck up or neck down before ‘the plug is finally pulled’.

Continue reading →

All Thumbs Going Forward

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
“Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.”
– David Foster Wallace

Last Thursday, in one of those ‘stupid clumsy me’ moments, I bashed my hand against a wall and screwed up my right thumb. As I’ve had my fair share of broken bones over the years, I didn’t think it was fractured and even managed to play guitar with it for a couple of hours with my buddy. Nevertheless, I had it x-rayed the next morning just to be safe; it was swollen and stiff, and the thumb, too! 

While waiting for the x-ray report to come in, I sat thinking back to when I had broken both elbows in a bike accident a couple of years ago, on April Fool’s Day no less. I thought about how crappy it would be to start the New Year incapacitated, trying to get by with my left hand, especially as I’m right-handed. I thought about toasting the New Year holding a champagne glass in my shaky left hand, as well as typing this post one letter at a time in true ‘hunt and peck’ fashion. I considered how 2011 might be giving me one last kick in the crotch before it winks out of existence. And then, a sobering thought struck me, “aww was 2011 really so bad to me?”

About 6 hours before my accident, I had been reading the last post of Joe Bodolai, a comedy writer with many notable television stints to his credit, including Saturday Night Live (SNL). Eulogizing himself, he listed his life’s achievements in length, as well as noted his regrets, personal peeves and even his sardonic predictions for the coming year. He then closed his extensive suicide note expressing thanks to the many who had been a part of his life, as well as suggesting “I need to feel the good that I did and whatever good I have ever done for you is enough for me.” … Well, apparently whatever good he did in his life wasn’t ‘good enough’ for him to rest his laurels on and so he offed himself by drinking a mixture of Gatorade and antifreeze.

Continue reading →