John Lennon

If John Lennon were still alive he would've been 70 yesterday; he died in 1980 when he was 40 years old. I watched The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which seemed as good a way as any to celebrate his birth. The radio station played “Nowhere Man”, a song Lennon wrote about himself, and no review of his life would be complete without mentioning the song “Imagine”. Lennon believed in peaceful revolution and advocated for human rights, especially where he saw their abuse. It's all there in his song, here's the message, paraphrased: Imagine no religion, no countries, nothing to kill or die for; no possessions, greed or hunger. Imagine sharing all the world, living for today, in peace. I wonder what Lennon would've said had he lived? His song is probably the most widely recognized in the world, a dream countless people still aspire to.

But Lennon's life was not a fairy tale.  He didn't really know his parents.  He seems to have been very abusive of people close to him in his earlier years.  His affair with Yoko Ono (who herself faced hardship in early life) led to leaving his first wife and son, whose existence was kept secret to protect his career.  While with Ono she and John became burned out from drugs, quacks, emotional breakdowns and media attention.  His relationship with Ono was inconstant: she had relationships with gigolos, and at her suggestion he had an affair with their personal assistant May Pang for several years.  Mark Chapman, who shot him in 1980, was obsessed by Salinger's book The Catcher in the Rye.  Salinger himself was interested in a litany of spiritual, medical, and nutritional belief systems.  All told, it makes for a pretty messy story.  But out of all this there was produced moments of beauty, and many people found inspiration. 

New Year's resolution - asceticism required?

I believe that I am most emotionally honest in dreams, even with myself, as it is easy to fool oneself too. Last night (or rather the early morning of the first of January) I had a dream in which I saw through images the tension between fear and greed. Step aside Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Hsun Tzu, and make way for the powerful psycho-analytical cynicism I am about to unleash on the world! Accordingly, my New Year's resolution for 2009 is to resolve the tension between fear and greed in my life, though it will not be easy. In my dream I saw how I inured myself to fear in order to satisfy my greed. There was a dark terror approaching, and I saw it on the faces of loved ones, though I willfully ignored it in order to get some much desired things that had sentimental or amusement value. I wanted to leave, but I wanted to stay as well. I could not bring myself to choose which to sacrifice. Of course, the decision should be easy, and yet there was a palpable tension. As I reflected on this, I think that if I heed the rational fear to prepare for the terrors that can anticipated, then I will have much less stress in my life. It is a perennial problem, but the dream brought it to rarefied form, and on what an auspicious day! In Japan, the first dream of the new year has a particularly important meaning.

I've already started the ball rolling to become a self described "wabi sabi woodwright". I'll post photos of my first completed project soon!

woodworking

I saw a video today of Randy Pausch's last lecture. He talked about achieving his childhood goals and the importance of inspiring the next generation to dream of doing great things in the future as well. One of the things I would like to do is take my time and learn how use wood in the building of useful things, nice things like furniture, like Roy Underhill or Norm Abram makes. I enrolled in a woodworking class in junior high school (a sort of right of passage in America) and didn't really take it seriously. There is a lot to learn, but I only want to learn as much as I need to do what I want. The first thing I'd like to build is a nice aquarium stand for a few aquariums. I looked up do-it-yourself articles on how to make one, and they range from the extremely simple stack of cinder blocks approach through to the use of some joinery methods. I might use commercially available stand construction as a guide. The cost of building versus buying pre-made might be interesting to find out. I could take my time and make something nice. The key it seems is to use good materials, like straight wood, and measure accurately for each cut. Now that I think about it, there are actually at least 12 things I would like to make... this could take a while. To the drawing board!

Critics, flowers, and violins

Critics are everywhere! No one can escape criticism! Two thousand years ago there were critics, one thousand years ago there were critics, five hundred years ago there were critics. Today there are still critics. By way of example, in the late 14th century Jeong Dojeon felt that Buddhism would "destroy morality and eventually humanity itself", so he wrote a book outlining why it was bad. If you aren't familiar with Buddhism, let me introduce Charles Muller. Professor Muller is your average scholar of East Asian thought who works at a university in Tokyo. He has translated a number of Buddhist texts into English, including the Diamond Sutra. His translation is interesting in that it seems obvious what he considers to be the essential teaching of this particular sutra, namely the following lines:

All conditioned phenomena
Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow
Like the dew, or like lightning
You should discern them like this

I'm guessing that Jeong Dojeon doesn't fully agree with this sentiment, as romantic as it sounds. Somewhere in his book he probably says it isn't right to think of everything as an illusion, in fact it is plain stupid. Or something like that, after all he's a Neo-Confucian and they have a different way of seeing things. I don't actually know what he says, but whatever he says I am sure it sounds smarter than that. The Buddhists might counter (if they ever did counter him) with something about infinite regression, or maybe they might say that... well they might say a lot of things. It is interesting to view an argument when you don't have a dog in the fight.

But as for me, I like critics, in fact they make me excited! Seriously, always have. My position: If you think I am wrong, then tell me and be honest please. How can I ever improve if I continue to be wrong? Wouldn't you want to know if you were wrong about something? That is why I like critics. Shouldn't everyone? Yeah, when you prove that I am wrong, I will flinch slightly at the sting, I will lick my wounded ego, but then (and this is the crucial part) I will get back on my horse 'cause I can take it. My sacred cows might not fare as well though.

Why should women get to claim all the symbols that are delicate and beautiful, such as flowers and butterflies, for their own? 'Cause you know, sometimes I feel like a flower, or a butterfly, or maybe a butterfly on a flower. It's like those big buff guys who have a tattoo on their shoulder that says "mom", because inside, they just want a hug. On the other hand, I like big scary animals too.

I drempt I played a violin, but instead of drawing a bow across the strings to produce sound, I used another violin. Now that I think about it, wouldn't that be hard to do?