My motor shifted sometime last year.

I used to always be revving, gotta go do THAT gotta do the NEXT THING

Oh no! Gotta go do it!

But I sorta realized, hey, I could still get it done without the freak-out. Yeah, I need to go get that part. I’m getting that part. How about I relax? Maybe that part isn’t the right part. Well, I have to trust myself that I’ll recognize that and then go find the right answer.

It is a different way of being…the Calm-the-hell-down way of being.

I’m not entirely comfortable with it.

But it has a lot of advantages

had a tiring day. But not a bad one. Now we are doing the parenting dance.

“Let me talk to her…”

sure, fine. You shall succeed where I could not.

eh.

So today I’m thinking about scorpions. They turn on you

and they are kind of everywhere.

Jesus had a lot of scorpions. Judas was a big one, and he offed himself. So. JEsus didn’t have to forgive him.

Peter betrayed him too. THe cock crowed after he’d denied christ three times. But Jesus forgave him.

Two different levels of betrayal. One was not forgiven.

But the other guy was more than forgiven.

So. What does this tell me about how to deal with scorpions?

Not sure yet. Thinking about it

Someone has been blogging through the alphabet.

It’s a new blog. Should I be condescending?

I mean, okay, my first impulse is to be condesdencing. That says a lot more that’s negative about me than anything really.

I”ve had a  blog fora  long time. But I dont’ post every day. I do post every week.

But, not every day. Maybe a prompt to get me to post daily would be warranted.

the alphabet…I dont’ know.

My problem right now is that my blogpost ideas are longer than I have time to complete.

I have to MAKE myself make time.

Seems that the world is dissapointing me again. Why aren’t we all better than we are?

I am not making the progress that I wish I were on pretty much any front. And it looks, from a survey of what’s around me, that the tower of babel never ended, and we are still all bumping into one another getting nothing done.

but…wait…if every body is having trouble..and if it is so freaking impossible to make any progress at any time…well, maybe the little scratches I’ve made are noteworthy after all.

hmm…I shall have to try thinking of it that way

life has gotten busier.

Funny. I know this about myself, I do much better when I have slightly too much to do. It’s like the lyric

“I don’t believe in energy

the tension is too low”

Like a sewing machine. If then tension isn’t right, everything is tangled

It is a cliché to talk about calligraphers losing their jobs as soon as the printing press was invented. I suppose they mourned the loss of their art. Except that new art was formed. The advent of the printed word changed everything almost immediately.

Walter Benjamin wrote The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. I am not saying read it. It is a CRAZY difficult little essay to read. I am not kidding when I say I had to read each sentence three times before I could move on to the next one. AND I found it pretentious.

But it exploded my brain. What possible measuring stick can we use for art when it is all mechanical, or digital? What does it mean to spread the elusive epiphanic beauty of art all over the planet by mechanical reproduction? Because we are already doing it.

I dare to say, this very message is an example of that. I’ll name it: the Wonderblog is art. And I am disseminating it mechanically-digitally all over the world.

It used to be that art was exclusive. The beautiful Book of Kells, with words drawn so beautifully and artfully angels were given the credit for creation.

There is one Book of Kells. I have seen it. It is in a museum, behind glass, and it is open to one place that day. If I wanted to see the next page, I have to wait and come back after they have turned the page behind the glass for the day.

Except, there are now facsimiles. I have pored over the reproduction in detail. It is not the same as the original. But I can touch it and see it in a way the original does not allow.

Which means I can use it intelligently as a metaphor for this other bit of art, this blog.

Benjamin says that art in the age of reproduction means a transformative availability. As in, with so much thought-provoking and inspiring art so widely available, we must all be changed.

I have had that discussion, “Is this art, the kind that is popular and widely available, good art? Is it as high quality as the more difficult, less accessible art?” and it’s a fine discussion. But Benjamin points out something else entirely, which I had not thought about. If my belief that art changes us is true, that has consequences If art changes us and makes us better human beings, then the wide availability of lots of art will change lots of people.

Are you ready for us all to evolve again? Because we are tipping off the point.

FUDOG

Fear

Uncertainty

Doubt

Obligation

Guilt

FUDOG

It kinda sounds like a cuss word. “Those FUDOGers!”

It feels like hell.

And it looks the poison arrows in the quiver of Beelzebub. All multi-pronged and dripping with noxious fluid that burns.

Those FUDOG feelings are, however, fully self-inflicted. And that is what makes them so insidious.

We have found the enemy. Oh boy have we found the enemy. It is us.

No. It’s me.  It’s me that feels fear and doubt. It’s me that takes on an obligation and guilt. It is me that is uncertain.

I don’t want to be. I want to be free, confident, convinced, loving, and pure.

That doesn’t make as good of an acronym. But I guess free doesn’t need a mnemonic device. We remember that we want to be free.

I have been meaning to write this piece about FUDOG for a while. But I was uncertain, afraid that I didn’t have it together enough to explain the research that led me to this discovery of how these work together. I doubted I had the right to portray this as my own idea; maybe I was obliged to credit a source that I’m not sure of.

FUD is a well-known tactic in politics. And I read about FOG in an article about unhealthy relationships.

But I think I put it together. At least I did for myself

Fear

Uncertainty

Doubt

Obligation

Guilt

I started to think of how I make my choices. When I recovered from surgery, I finally got enough sleep to think and not react.

Am I making this choices, taking this action because of FUDOG? Isn’t that the opposite of how I want to live my life?

I want to spend my time doing things that I love, with people I love. Who is using FUDOG tactics on me?

Maybe I don’t have to cooperate. Maybe I am not obligated to cooperate.

I may feel guilty. True, I AM guilty. All have sinned, and I raise my hand. Here! Sinner reporting.

So. I want to walk in love and freedom, and leave behind the part where I am imperfect. Grace is necessary. For me, From me, To me.

And for everybody else. If I am not twisted up and poisoned with fudog, then maybe I will have some grace left over to give to other people too.

Even if I am not sure what I’m doing. Even if I’m not as good as I’d like to be.

Shake it off. Cut it off.

NO FUDOG ZONE

Have a blessed Wednesday, readers. That’s what I’ve got.

Chris went over the list of things the kids are expected to know for kindergarten. They say that a bigger vocabulary is the best indicator for success. So. I have to say new words to her.

She is a learning sponge.

used the bath toys to explain the 5 different kinds of animals.
Read that this is an important time to teach vocabulary. Every category was represented, thank you dinosaur, duck, frog, fish (shark), and her own self.
She repeated after me: reptile, fish, bird, amphibian and mammal.
She is however resistant to the idea that she is an animal. I reassured her that she is a person.
Volcano is not an animal. Water is not an animal. It’s fund to discuss these things.

There is nothing more beautiful on earth than my daughter. And I would like to say that is true objectively, and know that this is an immovable truth that I have found for all time.

But there is no such thing as objective beauty, is there? It is all in the eye of the beholder.

Other people tell me she is beautiful sometimes. She doesn’t seem concerned about it. But I am flattered to have a fellow admirer of her eyes, and her little hands and legs and skin and all-over body.

One of the side effects of having a daughter is that she looks like me. A little. I think she has my eyes. She definitely has my legs. Her little legs, perfect legs straight and strong, and they are kinda mine.

Stupid women’s magazines will make disparaging comments about thighs that rub together–presumably because they are too fat–and I have always felt like that was a flaw that I should find a way to correct. The inside seams of my jeans rub and wear out first. Obviously it’s something wrong with me.

But Veronica’s perfect body has strong thighs that meet all the way down to her knees.

Like mine.

Maybe those magazines are wrong. Because she is undeniably perfect and beautiful. Never a doubt.

I do enjoy the beautiful. I have an art print in my dressing area. La Toilette

Isn’t she pretty? It’s nice to have her there as I get ready for my day and try to make myself presentable.

Veronica noticed her one day. She pointed and said “It’s mommy.”

Well. Perhaps she is a mommy. That’s also nice to think about.

“No. It’s you mommy.”

“That’s not me. It’s somebody’s mommy, but that’s not me.”

She is too beautiful to be me. If I were to sit like that there would be so  many flaws, I would not…I just couldn’t..

“It’s you mommy!” Veronica wasn’t giving it up. SHe insisted that the beautiful woman in the drawing was me.

I guess to her, I am that beautiful. For her, the flaws are not even visible or possible.

Maybe the magazines are wrong. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And love makes everything beautiful.