THE NECESSARY INGREDIENTS

One is happy as a result of one's own efforts once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.

-George Sand (1804-1876)

Okay, maybe I am belaboring this point, but only because I am truly in search of an answer that brings me peace and, if not prosperity, at least economic sustainability. But how does this obtain to work and finding it? I rather think this quote originates from someone who has no worry about finances and security.  I think George Sand had some financial struggles of her own, but was able support herself through her writing. A little Wikipedia research suggests that she inherited enough to be comfortable, so there.

That said, I am going to keep this method in mind.

Meanwhile, it is a happy-Winnie-the-Pooh day in that it is entirely blustery. The weather is stormy on one side of the street and coldly sunny on the other. I had an errand or two to run which caused me to do some cruising around the county. At times, the light and the play of colors was nearly hallucinogenic (not that I would really know anything about that). Sadly, the iPhone is not a fine enough instrument to really capture some of the subtleties (and not so) of the landscape. I got some good shots here ... and Hipstamatic is fun, if challenging.  

I mean, does this not shout crispness?

Whew ... well, I'm here at the Mahopac Library again although I did not get here early enough to snag a window seat. I can still see the lake and the sky and this desk is close enough to enjoy the sense of space. I am still trudging through Greil Marcus' The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. I have several books that I am nearly finished with and just haven't put in the time and concentration to put them away, so to speak.

But I liked this 

"... Why was there so little art that seemed to live up to its name, and so little music that lived up to that art? If was as if pop culture, something real, had been hijacked by pop art—by something that wasn't real.

Once, trying to figure out what pop culture was, I ended up with the phrase "the folk culture of the modern market." Pop culture is a culture in which people tell themselves, and tell each other stories, stories about the modern market. That doesn't mean the billboard Elektra Records put up over Sunset Strip to announce the Doors' first album, a marketing first; it means an unknown station playing unknown music, until both turn into secrets everyone wants to tell. The modern market is a field of rumors and tall tales, promises and threats, warnings and prophecies: as people talk, pop culture is landscape and the change of seasons, war and peace, the clearing of forests and the building of cities, religious revivals and moral panics, wealth and poverty, adventure and discovery, sex and death, citizenship and exile. 

Discuss among yourselves. MMA and I had a conversation about this just the other night as we were making dinner (or was it gin-and-tonics?) ... that the milieu in which we find ourselves living these days seems very much about selling selling selling ... and not hard goods, but insubstantiality and sleight of hand ... all about perception? 

Greil's flashes of brilliance do make it worth reading through his bullshit. Hey! Maybe we are alike in this way!

Well, I should try to accomplish some actual work. There were a couple of high points this week, in a slough of despond, as one person put it. And it was that person's correspondence that was one of the high points. I dreamt about another friend and sent her a short note only to get some lovely correspondence from her. Those things help. 

Anyone who has an extra $5 kicking around, this would be a good time to pop over to that paypal button and send a friendly hello. I am running mighty mighty thin and not in the best way. Here are some more pretty pictures.

Also, if any of these photos strike your fancy and you would like a full-rez version to print out, just let me know. And also feel free to share this blog with your friends. Or send me their email and I will add them to the mailing list.  

(Too much coffee today?)

SUMTHEING THEIS NIESCE

Hey there. I don’t want to leave you all fretting about me. I do seem to have more than the customary brain chemistry for sadness. My writing about this is not to engender worry in you. What is wrong with me, worry and concern really can't fix. Or it can't fix the root of it, although grand and small gestures of kindness and grand ones of generosity and hospitality CERTAINLY help. I mean, my problem is not feeling alone and unloved. The difficult factor in this equation of sadness and failure is my thorough lack of self confidence and possible inability to love myself. 

And that makes it difficult to sell yourself to others. And selling yourself to others is how you make moolah in this world. 

I do like me. I am good company, a first rate listener (mostly), enthusiastic, loyal, patient, and interested.  I don't bore me, although this sadness and current "stuck" state (there is doubtless a better word out there somewhere) is a trial. 

Please forget the BeeGees, but it just the refrain "to love somebody/who don't love you"  (To Love Somebody in a much better version ...)

Now, I am getting to get me productive self going and see if I can't make some progress somewhere (beyond making my bed and cleaning the litter box) on something that will improve my lot ... 

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

-William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)

Those are words to live by, I’d say, but not so easily accomplished.

My morning moment of joy:

This was stolen from Facebook... 

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i expeict you to wriete sumtheing theis niesce atfer i croake