Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Red Bluff, CA Fires


Karen and I lived in Red Bluff, California, from 1998-2017.  

We are following news of a major fire (6/23) in the area.  High temperatures (105F+) and winds are increasing the dangers for destruction.  

We hope friends, neighbors, co-workers, and all folks threatened by the fire can 
find safety and suffer no losses.  

I used to think, as I stood at the western fence of my Red Bluff five acre property, of the serious danger of wildfires near our home.  The weeds in the summer heat are dry and brown.  Scary!!  

Monday, June 25, 2018

I Really Don't Care


On 6/20/18, Melania Trump, visited a detention center in Texas for young children separated from their deported illegal Mexican immigrant parents.  She questioned officials about the condition of the children; and was told it was very difficult and emotional for the children.  

I found it odd that Mrs. Trump wore a overcoat that day with the bold print text message: "I really don't care.  Do you?"  




I would prefer Michelle Obama or Laura Bush's style and skill when representing our country.  

I have had "some tolerance" for Donald Trump and his wife.  However, his tiresome "zero tolerance" rhetoric, and her insensitivity (in my opinion) have really lowered my already less that neutral tolerance for the two.  






Sunday, June 24, 2018

Are Things as Such as They Are?


"If you understand, things are such as they are;
If you don't understand, things are such as they are."|
-  Zen Master Gensha


If you don't understand, things are changing.
If you understand, things are changing.
Impermanence is the permanent condition.

-  Mike Garofalo, Cuttings

Saturday, June 23, 2018

Details are the Big Picture

"We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice, or kindness in general.  Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, and unique."
-  Benjamin Jowett

"Science and psychoanalysis apart, the most profound development in thought since Nietzsche, as far as we are concerned, is the phenomenological approach to the world.  MallarmĂ© sought "words without wrinkles," Baudelaire cherished his minutes heureuses and ValĂ©ry his "small worlds of order," as we have seen: Checkhov concentrated on the "concrete individual" and preferred "small scale and practical answers," Gide though the "systematizing is denaturing, distorting and impoverishing."  For Oliver Wendell Holmes, "all the pleasure of life is in general ideas, but all the use of life is in specific solutions."  Wallace Stevens considered that we are "better satisfied in particulars."  Thomas Nagel put it in this way: "Particulars things can have a noncompetitive completeness which is transparent to all aspects of the self.  This also helps to explain what the experience of great beauty tends to unify the self: the object engages us immediately and totally in a way that makes distinctions among points of view irrelevant."  Or, as Robert Nozick, who counseled us to make ourselves "vehicles" for beauty, said: "this is what poets and artists bring us―the immense and unsuspected reality of a small thing.  Everything has its own patient entityhood."  George Levine call for "a profound attention to the details of this world."  
-  Peter Watson, "The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God," p.536

"The idea of one overbearing truth is exhausted."  
- Thomas Mann, translated by James Wood  

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
-  Albert Einstein

"To study the self is to forget the self.  To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things."
-  Zen Master Dogen

"The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God."
-  Benedict De Spinoza

"God is in the details."
-  Mies Van Der Rohe

"After appreciating and understanding thousands of the details, a common variety God is really superfluous."
-  Mike Garofalo

"Caress the detail, the divine detail." 
-  Vladimir Nabokov

"Details are all there are."
-  Maezumi Roshi

"We think in generalities, but we live in details."
-  W.H. Auden



A Philosopher's Notebooks

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Art of Manliness

The blog, The Art of Manliness, has been online since 2008.  Semper Virilis covers topics such as relationships and family, dress and grooming, health and sports, money, lifestyle, and psychology.

Seven Letters to Write Before You Die

Warrior Mace Training

Creating a Positive Family Culture

How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons

Virtues





Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Questioning Pleasures

"No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety."
-  Publilius Syrus  


"The essence of pleasure is spontaneity."
-  Germaine Greer

"Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations."
-  Jane Austen



"Perhaps all pleasure is only relief."
- William Burroughs



"Man, Nietzsche contended, is a being that has leapt beyond the "bestial bounds of the mating season" and seeks pleasure not just at fixed intervals but perpetually.  Since, however, there are fewer sources of pleasure than his perpetual desire for pleasure demands, nature has forced man on the "path of pleasure contrivance."  Man, the creature of consciousness whose horizons extend to the past and the future, rarely attains complete fulfillment within the present, and for this reason experiences something most likely unknown to any animal, namely boredom.  This strange creature seeks a stimulus to release him from boredom.  If no such stimulus is readily available, it simply needs to be created.  Man becomes the animal that plays.  Play is an invention that engages the emotions; it is the art of stimulating the emotions.  Music is a prime example.  Thus, the anthropological and physiological formula for the secret of art: "The flight from boredom is the mother of all art." "
-  Rudiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, p. 23




Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness  By Willard Spiegelman.  The seven simple pleasures discussed are: dancing, reading, walking, looking, listening, swimming, and writing.  If you included Taijiquan as "dancing" then all of these can be solitary activities.  Picador, 2010.  208 pages.  ISBN: 9780312429676. 


Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism.  By Fred Feldman.  Clarendon Press, 2006.  240 pages.  ISBN: 978-0199297603.  VSCL. 


Pleasure and Enjoyment: Quotations, Sayings, Information

Hedonistic and Epircurean Philosophy

The Five Senses  

Play





Monday, June 18, 2018

Flaming Memories


Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk,
quickly poured the gasoline
over his head till it soaked to his feet.

He sat down calmly on a Saigon street,
straightened his robe, his purpose keen:
to Protest Injustice and the Horrors he'd Seen.

Lighting the match - he Exploded in Flames.

One image from 'Nam was burned in my brain.

- June 11, 1963


I dreamt I died.
Followed by


Cuttings - Short Poems

Poetry by Mike Garofalo

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Happy Father's Day

A day to say "Thank You" to all the good fathers in our lives, our communities, our nation, the world.  Their hard work, generosity, kindness, courage, and steadfastness have helped us all lead better lives.  The good men who have supported, nurtured, raised, and properly educated their children (their own offspring or children they have adopted) are very important in our lives.  These good fathers (past, present, and future) deserve respect and praise. 

For those men who have been poor, bad, absent, or evil "fathers" we shake our heads with disapproval and disdain.  They squandered their opportunity and left the challenge to other women and men to do good towards their children and our communities.  Their irresponsibility is so shameful. 


So, to all these good men, "Happy Father's Day!"  
You deserve the praise. 
Three Cheers to You All !!! 









My own father, Michael James Garofalo (1916-1997) provided well for his family, was very hard working, and was very reliable.  He stressed giving a full effort as a worker, fulfilling one's duties, obedience, and respect.  He was a hard taskmaster at times, but I learned a lot from living with him.  He was a decent man, and a fine grandfather. 
After he retired as the Chief Piping Engineer at the Fluor Corporation, he and my mom enjoyed traveling in their trailer in the Southwest.  





















My father-in-law, Delmer Eubanks (1912-2002) was a good father, grand-father, and great-grand-father.  He was a decent man and friend of many.




The above family portrait was taken around 1987.
Yes, being a good father and grandfather was and is important to me.

















Father's Day, 2018, Vancouver, Washington.



Lifestyle Advice from Wise Persons

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Reginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964)


Reginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964)   
Bibliography, Biography, Links, Resources, Quotations, Comments, Influence, Zen, Haiku
Hypertext Notebook by Michael P. Garofalo





Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Moving Towards Self-Improvement


"Correction of movements is the best means of self-improvement:
1.  The nervous system is occupied mainly with movement. 
2.  It is easier to distinguish the quality of movement.
3.  We have a richer experience of movement.
4.  The ability to move is important to self-value.
5.  All muscular activity is movement.
6.  Movements reflect the state of the nervous system.
7.  Movement is the basis of awareness.
8.  Breathing is movement.
9.  Hinges of habit."
-  Moshe Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement, pp. 33-39, 1972


Notes on Feldenkrais Methods