Entering a game without an exit strategy is asking for a fool's mate. Painting a floor without leaving an alternate way will corner the painter. Even the most ordinary tasks have an order and logic that puzzles those who try them mindlessly & get caught with their pants down. If a particular street is known for a gang of hoodlums who waylay pedestrians, don't go that way. Instead, be schooled by those missing teeth and wallets or again wear the dunce cap.
Author Archives: Brian Hodgkinson Jr.
Street Smarts
Caught
A watching squirrel holds vertically to the trunk of a tree with tail curling down. It doesn't move until we are almost next to it. Then stealths up into the concealing foliage but still intently observing from its semi-hidden seat. Murphy sees too and points her snout as if to ask "May I spring and catch it?" She assumes I am such a killjoy.
Substrate
The five gates have a substrate, which is undervalued and hugely ignored. But what if we dig down into our bare perception? Who is known if we are aware of our own attention? If we can watch ourselves from a third-person vantage point, who is watching? The observed is who? Is there one or two into one --or more? See how effortless it is to depreciate our real essence? We take our existence for granted because it is.
Cycles
After 38 billion elliptical miles, I realize the watchcare over my life is circumspect. Like the vibrating atmosphere surrounding the hummingbird, it swam through yesterday before my lagging eyes. It had no frown on its metallic blue face while it poked the Lady Baltimore one by one.
Face Off
The gradual discovery of who You truly are is the supreme romance-- What You are beneath the molded crust of artificial misrepresentations may lie inert for decades. One day pops like a jack-in-the-box, there You are--- face to face with a stranger, unrecognizable, until it dawns on you that the original is the real, and that you have unwittingly degraded into a faded simulation of the authentic You.
Conflicts of Interest
Never try to address a problem without first having a proposed real-time solution that can satisfy every contingency. I came upon two bodies who were in a somewhat heated political debate. One was red in the face with veins poking from their neck, shouting and spitting swearwords in a very harsh manner. The other appeared cool, calm, and collected, trying to answer genuinely the rattled hothead who was rude and unruly. Which one do you suppose is more tethered to reality and fact? Which one is probably more true to their actual beliefs? Who appears to be more confident? If a person builds a mental castle or an empire of personal codes upon vacuous unworkable ideas, it can only be spurious, at best; Many will try to bombastically defend their warmed-over delusions in a way that betrays a fundamental flaw they secretly intuit but are trying their damnedest to pretend isn't there.
Worth It
Nothing is something to eat because the stomach & appetites are awry. Human primates have fouled the nest of planet earth and their physiology too. It's high time to take out the garbage, to dump the trash. The human species has a tremendous propensity to misrepresent the truth if it feathers its cap. Remember "Eating fat makes you fat"? Ha- well, what about sugar? 40% obesity with metabolic disorders affecting about 80%. That's some lousy poetry right there. So, hear this: Nothing is terrific to eat intermittently. Cleanse the worldly palette. The knife and fork will dig an early grave.
Cat’s-Paws
Two fat mice had a competition to see which one could amass the most cheese. They each had a box to put their cheese in by stealing it from their human cat's-paws. One had a blue box and the other red. Both were sneaky and evil. One mouse broke the rules much more than the other by cutting a deal with the house cat to let it steal as much as it wanted without resistance. Not only that, this sly rodent installed a secret door in the red box of its opponent by which it could steal cheese directly from the other. I guess all is fair in lovemaking and cheese. Right? But then, when the cheating rodent with the blue box having the most cheese boastingly declared that this cheese competition was the most honest in mouse history - that takes the cake.
Spin Meisters
Big heads will not sufficiently answer the big questions. A child will guide them. Wisdom resides with the simple. Talking heads are just that. They point to problems and even fabricate them from whole cloth but never present any real solutions. Half-truths are their empire. They spin their news around and round, put you in the toilet, and flush you down. So terrified of the rest of the story that they will strongarm and censor those who dare.
Venture
He swam the channel to find enrichment; it was only a little over a kilometer across. He saw the city, stores, and businesses with opportunities for pleasure and prosperity. He always imagined it would be easy just to swim back to family and friends, where he began. But one day noticed his old way had become treacherous, overtaken by a rushing high water roiling and boiling like a cauldron. He realized with a sick feeling in his gut that to attempt to swim back was certain death, also the unruly waves had begun to sweep the big city and businesses away so that all were fleeing-- so he looked at the flooded channel and commenced.
