Old Recipe

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I am like an iron cauldron 

                  astir with nature's ingredients 

some thickly settled on the bottom 

                                    others lightly dissolved in the broth

and when the temperature rises

                                passions bubble  

to the surface 

                            and steam

and steam 

                            and steam

               

and after some cooling time 

                                           an aroma wafts like something 

                                                                       new in the air

but it's not      new

                    it's an old recipe 

                                              lifted from a stained page 

handed down for generations, 

                                            every step followed with slight 

           difference, and if 

the end-product tastes 

                                              off 

add salt -

                            

it's how we do it  

            you and me

                        you get off 

from seeing me 

                          come to a boil

cause it leaves 

a sticky residue 

like sap from the tree

dark and sweet.

More Random Thoughts : Self-Consciousness

1. We don't live in nature. We are nature.

2. All of life has four main properties: It is encoded (genetic), responsive (to the environment, also called epigenetic), reproducing and interdependent.

3. Everything in the universe is always motion. Even things that are apparently stationary, a rock on the ground for instance. At some level, the atomic, even a rock on the ground is in motion. The essence of all that exists is motion. Another word for motion is interaction. Another word for interaction is Time.

4. The term Time describes the sum total of all interactions that ever was and will be.

5. The term consciousness describes what it feels like to be conscious, just as fearfulness describes what it feels like to fear. Insofar as no one can know how another person feels, consciousness is by definition an individual experience. This suggests that any inquiry about consciousness, beyond an attempt to describe how it functions is moot. It's emergent aspects can be perceived or sensed, as criteria demonstrating its existence eg. patterns of activity in the brain, but it cannot be independently validated with complete certainty.

6. There are an estimated 86 billion neurons in the human brain. The maximum number of possible interactions between 86 billion is approximately 3.17 quintillion connections. A quintillion is one followed by 18 zeros (10 to the power 18). This gives one a sense of the complexity of consciousness.

7. A simple empirical experiment: Look at the colour red, say on an object. Now close your eyes and think of the colour red (on the same object you were just looking at). It's a markedly different experience. The first experience is 'perception' (sight), the second is 'sensation'. This describes the difference between inner and outer experience. Perception describes the properties one can discern of the outside world. Inner experience (sensation) is generated within the brain and body. Perception ans sensation are distinct, and may or may not be causally-linked, but we tend to conflate them into a single experience, and call it 'reality'.

8. Consciousness is inseparable from a sense of time. Altered consciousness alters the perception of time. 

9. The central mystery of human experience is not the fact of consciousness (animals possess consciousness, because they too have a sense of the passage of time, although limited to varying degrees), but self-consciousness, by which we mean the sure sense that life is ours, that it belongs to each of us (a self). It is a paradox because the preponderance of evidence indicates that almost nothing about life actually does belong to oneself. From our individual birth, to our genetic inheritance, to the circumstances into which we are born, geographically, historically, ethnically, economically etc. None of it is of our choosing or determination. And yet our experiences feel like they belong to us, they feel unique and unprecedented, and our decisions feel independently formulated. This is paradoxical. One way that we attempt to escape this paradox is by searching for something we call identity which is a way of staking independent claim to existence. We declare that we have a point of view, our own thoughts and feelings, and say that we possess freewill. But most of what we associate with freewill is encoded (genetically) or narrowly determined (culturally). At best, the extent to which we are able to engage with life is akin to solving a puzzle that has a pre-set limited number of pieces, and in which there is only one solution, life’s completion in death. 

10. If we are nature, consciousness must be understood as a natural phenomenon emerging from the evolutionary process.

National Poetry Month

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The dread

of March's Ides

slides into April Fools'

and a four week stretch ending

with tax dead-

line day,

what's not to love

about National Poetry Month

an anual celebration 

spanning life's absurdity 

and certainty.

I think it was Camus

who said

I'd kill myself

if it made any more sense

than living (I paraphrase)

and anyway

it's spring

and sure as rain

flowers will bloom

and maybe, just maybe

last year I was poor 

enough to earn a refund

which would bring

a wry smile.

On The First Night of Seder

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On the first night of seder

The wind was howling outside,

The children fell into their seats

The youngest tried to hide.

She's the one given the task

Of posing the four questions,

Like why this night we eat the matzah 

So hard on the digestion.

Blessings said, the seder leader 

Called her name out loud,

We checked beneath the tablecloth

She was nowhere to be found.

We sat and sat, stared at each other

By the minute we grew old,

We better find her pretty soon  

Or the story will never get told. 

A search party was organized 

To scour each room and closet,

They didn't miss a single corner 

Like they were looking for chometz.   

Outside the wind blew stronger

Freezing rain thickly coated the trees,

Branches bent from the icy weight

And snapped into the streets.

Cars were crushed, roads were blocked

And powerlines were cut,

Plunging us all into darkness

And Bubbie cried, Now what?

 

Got in himmel it's as if the plagues

Are happening for real,

It's not enough to tell the story

He wants us to know how it feels.

I reached over to my eldest child

And hugged her just in her case,

The signs and wonders we read about

Were visiting this place.

 

Just then we heard a knock at the door

And someone called for the messiah,

We all stood up, our legs atremble 

Because we knew it was Elijah.

The seder leader went to the door

Taking with him a lit candle, 

Saying a prayer to the Almighty

He twisted and pulled the handle.

There stood the youngest, wet and cold

We gasped, like we'd witnessed an omen,

In her hand she held half a matzah 

And said, 'See, I found the Afikoman'.

[based on true events, Montreal, April 6, 2023]

What does it say

What does it say 

that few people spend their time 

reading poetry these days, 

but they can't get enough 

of something called TikTok? 

The Governor of Florida

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How can we save Disney World? It's come to that. Proof that some people will try to kill anything that's good in this life. The Governor of Florida has vindictively decided to take control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which is like a fiefdom run by Disney Corporation for the last 56 years - whose Board of Directors controls the roads, construction permits, fire services, security, building codes, water services and waste collection, tax collection, and municipal debt - because without absolute control over everything, Disney World can't be Disney World, the 'Happiest Place on Earth'. In Disney World you never see overflowing garbage cans, shit-stained clogged public toilets, trash in the streets or homeless people. There's no inner-city housing or gang violence, and they don't have guns, open-carry or concealed (the only thing that's concealed are the tasks done by the maintenance staff. The garbage vanishes as if by magic). In Disney World music is heard everywhere and a hundred and fifty thousand people a day stand in line calmly to buy their tickets for the rides - not like those immigrants who clammer to get in illegally at the southern border, hop the fence, ford the river. The folks come from all over the planet, every race and religion, and they stand patiently in line to see the shows, the song and dance numbers in Pocahontas and Aladdin. In Disney World you feel secure, and when you are accosted it's by a giant Mickey and Minnie Mouse, or Goofy, and all they want from you is a hug, and to take a photo. In Disney World there's no drug dealing in the streets, no prostitution or child-trafficking. There's no teen-suicide, no disappointment. Now the Governor of Florida is interfering. He's fucking up the happiest place on Earth, because some people aren't happy until everyone else is unhappy. The news these days is all about who you can piss off and how long you can keep them pissed off. And it's working. So fuck you Governor of Florida. I'm pissed off. And not because I've ever been to the Magic Kingdom, but because like America, which was once great and isn't anymore, Disney World will never be the same again, and now I'll never be able to go. Congratulations Governor of Florida. You've won. You've managed to ruin the only great thing left about America. You've managed to get us all anxious and angry. You're Scar and Jafar, Gaston and Prince Hans all rolled into one.