Loss

Loss

Getting older means

spending more time

looking in the garbage

for things you can’t find.

Disappointment

Disappointment

I thought that
idea was so brilliant
that men from the future
would come to kill me
just for having it.
But they didn't.

Discount

Discount

When I think of my soul

Watching TV

I recall

How funny

The thought

Struck me

That the Indians

Once sold

Their land

For beads.

Prophet

Prophet

He was

particularly good

at leaving room for

interpretation.

Penetrating

          Penetrating

 Words

    are

  worse

   than

weapons. 

Fugitive

    Fugitive

    The truth

     can set

     you free.

   But I don't

 know how far

    you'll get.

Foreboding

            Foreboding

         Don’t die on the

               last day

                  of a

              dead war.

Thoughts O' Day 12/21/11

Happiness is a Ho!

Community: You can't do it yourself.

He confused his shopping list with one of his poems.

They call a good guess a hypothesis.
They call a bad guess a bet.

No matter
how scared
you become;
please keep
your crap
inside you.

Thanks,
Management.

You can't rob me blind if I was already deaf.

Philosophart

Philosophart

What airs

He dispersed

Describing

How his work

Was between

Philosophy

And Art.

Contusion

Contusion

You are the color of bruises:

Black and blue,

Green and red,

Yellow and brown,

As if you are trying to be all the races

Of a war torn world.

Data

DATA

Science wants 

to measure and measure

and measure the measurements

and measure the measuring 

and for good measure

measure the measurer 

who never lives up 

to the measure 

of the other measurers.

The War of Art

The War of Art

You don't need to suffer

to be an artist. 

You're going to suffer anyway. 

What you have to do

is channel that suffering

to open its depth,

to peer into it

instead of turning away.

Needless suffering

is what war is for. 

Legacy

Legacy

The meek

will inherit the earth.

But the assholes

will sue them for it.

Passing

Passing

I like to look at clouds. 

Their shapes,

their forms,

their meanings

might even

be more temporary

than ours.

Relatives

Relatives

Looks like

there’s some

pond scum

in your gene pool.

Retreat

Retreat

When you give ground

to gain ground

you rarely get back

to where you were before.

Query

Query

In the early years

I was a friend

in the late years

I was a foe.

In which years

of service

did I help you

most to grow?

Two Entwined

This is a poem that I wrote  on the occasion of a wedding where I was friends with both the parties getting married.  I gave them this poem as one of my gifts.  I later had it translated into Chinese and then six months later the translator put it back in English from Chinese.  Kind of interesting to see different forms. 

The Two Entwined

Today is a moment of the future

And I wanted to mark time too,

with a unforgettable gift.

But my wallet is empty,

and my mind is wrung,

so I will offer you a wish

which might just be Hope

in its purest form.

To friendship:

it may allow us

to laugh

last.

And I might have tried

to lend you a part

of my heart

but what need those

who have the most.

So I give you a piece

of my eye,

and a spot on my

memory,

Hoping that you

won't

forget

us.

1. 最伟大的探索者是那种海纳百川的人。

2. 即使花费了很多时间去探索正确的途径， 但没有什么事业是在浪费时间， 

有些思想需要更长的孕育时间。

3. 如果背景恰当， 任何东西都可以成为一种艺术品。

4. 人们常常以为艺术家相互摩仿， 

他们并没有意识到两位艺术家可能看到是同样的东西。

5. 要想成为一个艺术家， 你应该去发现那些看似平常的东西。

6. 从根本上来讲， 所有的艺术品都要超越现存的框架和自我的批判。  

大多数艺术都要跨越它自身的东西。

7. 艺术使人变得年轻。

8. 对于一个画家来说， 任何东西都是美丽的。

9. 每个人都应该有一定的诗意。

10. 发现美丽比发现丑陋更难。

11. 诗人的心态是离经叛道。

12. 灵感并不是漫无边际的。

13. 精神苦闷可以成就一个艺术家。

14. 每天你至少有一个值得记录的遐想。   

1. Heart to Heart   By Richard Bargdill

2.   Today is a special moment of the future

3.   I tried to find you a unique gift

4.   To remember this significant moment

5.   But I have nothing and

6.   My heart is crying

7.    I can only present a best wish to you.

8.   Hope is my best wish

9.      Friendship is the most valuable thing for us.

            10. It makes our life fulfilled with vitality

11. I tried to let you be in my heart

12. But now I feel it is no longer necessary

13. A simple look and memories are good enough

14.  I sincerely hope that WE are always in your heart.

Chinese to English [trans. Lening Zhang]

Relativity

Relativity

I could have fallen in love with you in an hour

but I only had a minute with you each of sixty days.

For his age

For his age

Sometimes we grow up in a minute

most of the time it takes years 

I guess it depends

on what types of experiences

you run into

and what ones run over you.

Asymptote

Asymptote

The thing to remember

that is most often forgot

is that what most people see

as your limitations

are most likely your virtues

Self-esteem

Self-esteem

   Believe

       In

     Your

    Beauty

History

History

I stared at that picture

for an hour or so. 

I must have been, I don’t know,

at least six years old.

I had some home made pants,

some five and dime shoes

and my hat sat on my head

like only John Deer hats do.

Discipline

Discipline

Don’t make

so many rules

and you won’t have

so many violations.

A Psychologist's Thought Book: Observations #10

                                                # 10

Therapy begins when the "you" becomes "me".

One of the things that psychotherapy can help to produce is the transition between understanding one’s self as the “false universal” and becoming more firmly an individual.  It is amazing to listen to all people speak and hear how often we all use the word “you” in a way that seems to mean everyone.  So a client, when speaking about him self might say “So sometimes you do things that you’re not proud of.” In this context, the “you” distances one self from the responsibility for one’s own actions. Part of the self-building that can happen in therapy is to replace those “yous” with “I”s and “me”s.  Some critics have suggested the therapy that does this makes people selfish and over emphasizes “individual” needs to the detriment of society because to ‘produces’ a narcissistic ME. Nothing could be further from the truth. By putting people in charge of their own lives, it removes narcissism of the Universal You.  The you says whatever I think--everyone else thinks as well.    The you is far more dangerous than the I because the You allows the projection of unanimous values onto people who probably do not hold those values.  When the client says I, she is only speaking for herself and now others are free to disagree with her, be aligned with her or have an number of differing opinions. The I is far from selfish, it pulls me out of a false sense of unity so that I can firmly can say what I stand for and it inherently respects others because I now don’t initially assume that there is universal agreement with me.

A Psychologist's Thought Book: Relationships #7

                                                # 7

                                               

I hate when I can’t find anyone else to blame.

Recognizing one’s own responsibility in any failure is quite a delicate task.  There are two extremes that have to be avoided: Blaming others for things that are your fault and blaming your self too much for things that are out of your control. In psychology, there are disorders of blame, namely the personality disorders, in which the person seems unable to take responsibility for ones’ actions.  This is detrimental to good health because one cannot learn from one’s mistakes and if others are deemed responsible for my bad circumstances.  It also makes sense that if I see others responsible for the problem making that it makes sense that only others can fix my problems. So blaming others often leads to passivity. On the other side, over-blaming one’s self seems to be a key ingredient in mood disorders like depression. If everything that goes wrong is somehow linked to me then I’m going to have a hard time appreciating myself and believing that I have any redeemable qualities.  One needs to steer in between these extremes and that requires understanding your humanness. 

A Psychologist's Thought Book: Paradoxes #5

# 5

I had the American Dream but I woke up sweating and screaming.

At the heart of the American Dream is a paradox in that we often stress individual success and yet there is also a strong tendency to conform.  We have been told that the Dream is to have a good job and thus we can work hard to have a beautiful home, a spouse and two kids and two cars in the driveway. The problem is, of course, this is a cultural dream and it isn’t individual. While we do see the individual being the one who is largely responsible for the own success, we only accept certain expression of that success.   Ortega y Gasset once said something to the effect that we no longer are satisfied with an ordinary life, now we are only happy with an extraordinary one, which of course makes the majority of us miserable. 

Next project: A Psychologist's Thought Book

I had some success with my first project "An Artist's Thought Book".  This was a series of aphorism that I wrote about making art. Chapters covered topics like 1) what it means to be an artist 2) reflections on painting 3) making music and singing 4) writing poetry and finally 5) the nature of creativity.  This was a success on an irrelevant scale (my mom liked it).  So I decided to try again with a similar book about being a Psychologist.   I plan to have two parts to the book.  In the first chapters I will have just the raw aphorisms as I did in the Artist's version, so people can read them and have there own interpretations of what might be said.

The one important addition here is that in the second half, I will have my own thoughts about what the aphorisms mean to me. This, of course, will be somewhat arbitrary since I often write some thing down, only to think it is significant months later, and I could never remember the events that lead to the original thought.  But at least the reader has an opportunity to compare one's impressions with that of the author.   The planned chapters are: 1) the self 2) relationships 3) observations  4) life and truth 5) paradoxes.

Upset

Upset

All

I

did

is

do

what 

I 

do

well

.

Business Plan

Business Plan

Where

trailer courts

first appear

condos

will follow.

Principle

Principle

Sometimes

the kid who

looks like

he could use

a good beating

has already

had too many.

Vinyl Culture

Vinyl Culture

May all

your holes

be small

and all

your leaks

be audible

Depression

Depression

A particularly painful event in the past

Becomes the primary part of my

Permanent punitive identity.

Cluster B

Cluster B

The longer

she speaks

the less

you believe

that she

is talking

to you.

Plastic toys & Diapers

Plastic toys & Diapers

Children

really don't

get enough

blame for 

destroying 

the 

Earth

!

random thoughts #5

Meaning is the coat hooks of your life.

Random thoughts #4

That was the sound of snow falling off the mud-flap of my soul.

random thoughts #3

Tears only occur when something matters.