Funayūrei

The next thing I knew I was over the side

The black waters rose up to enfold me

The cold night without

Became the inner night of the ocean's depths

The endless expanse of water

That would become my tomb

My head broke the water's freezing surface

The ship that bore me already receding

To a distant point

On the bleak, storm ravaged horizon

Marooned among the towering waves

Suddenly alone, utterly lost

The waters closed above my pleading lips

Encased in silence my body descends

Towards the locker

Sparks and flashes from dying Neurons

Images from birth to grave

Tears lost at sea

Here's the good ship Francesca

Its business is your pleasure

Her captain will make your voyage a joy

That's certain by any measure

It cuts through the mighty Atlantic

Searching for the Northern Lights

With days of relaxation and shopping

Followed by crazy party nights

Has anyone seen daft old Jim

Who tells stories of his novelty shed

He knocked back a right old skinful

Before he excused himself to bed

We'd better go and check he's alright

Last night was blowing up a storm

He might have fell and banged his head

Before he managed to find his dorm

Jim!  There you are, daft old goat!

Recovered from your evening's repast?

You need to get some food in your belly

Let's go and get some breakfast

You're awfully quiet this morning

Has the hangover got your tongue?

Let's have some hair of the dog

That'll bring back a sense of fun!

Jim, I never took you for a soup fan

That ladle would feed the whole crew!

Don't have the lot you greedy thing

There's more mouths to feed than just you!

"I don't call this a ladle," said Jim coldly

"The true word for this thing is 'hishaku'

It is the tool with which my vengeance

Shall be brought down with fury upon you

"You'll never eat again," pronounced the man with grey skin

"It's not soup but the ocean this thing dishes

For the ocean has judged and found you guilty

And now you're going down to join the fishes

For I fell overboard and was left

I screamed for help, and nobody came

Think on that, when Davy Jones comes for you

And remember that you die in shame"

In truth that was not Jim that stood there

In his place stood a Funayūrei

A name whispered in fear by the eastern folk

A ghost for a soul lost at sea

And from the hishaku as he called it

A flood of saltwater came streaming

And the passengers turned and fled in terror from that place

Filling the ship with their screaming

---

In the cold grey morning I watch, impassive

The last survivors calling out, helpless

Just as I was

Mere specks in an endless valley of water

That rises and falls

And slowly consumes them

Quieter now, they are disappearing one by one

Down to the same place

Becoming as I

Their struggles fade, their spirits bow

Hope fails at last

Silence descending

I remain by the grave

A new sister

Is standing by my side

We depart

Further judgements await

The waves continue, eternal

 

The Pursuit of Happiness

Should we pursue happiness?

I watched a very witty graduation speech by an Australian comedian called Tim Minchin.  In it, he listed the 9 principles that he thought one should live their life by:

1. You don't have to have a dream.

2. Don't seek happiness.

3. Remember, it's all luck.

4. Exercise.

5. Be hard on your opinions.

6. Be a teacher.

7. Define yourself by what you love.

8. Respect people with less power than you.

9. Don't rush.

The one that caught my eye the most was Don’t seek happiness.  This interested me in its diametric opposition to the American 'ideal' which we know as ‘The Pursuit of Happiness.'

‘The Pursuit of Happiness' is a principle, an ideal that I have admired without reservation in the past.  This is probably because other sets of ideals and principles set out by nation states were always ‘weighty’ and of very 'high' morality and worthiness.  Witness similar initial stipulations proposed by post revolutionary France, and the Marxist inspired protocols of Russia, USA's future cold war enemy (in its incarnation as the USSR).  If there was an argument for America as a more attractive destination for those seeking a new life, I thought to myself, surely then this "Happiness clause" was it?
 
John Lennon, of course, famously got in trouble at school for answering the question "what do you want to be when you grow up" with the answer "to be happy".

On the other hand the legendary motor racing driver Niki Lauda, declared that "happiness is the enemy".  Who is right, I wonder?

The answer, possibly, lies between the urge to 'act' and the contentment to simply 'be'.  Should we try to change the world or should we be content to simply wonder at it?  There's your existential conundrum for the day.

The Gamut of Emotions

Gamut?!  Gamut?!  What kind of stupid word is that anyway?  Can't we just say range?!  Anyway...  let's take a look at my handy gamutometor of emotion...

Note that madness lies both above ecstasy, below despair and off the scale at either end of the gamutometer.  Now, considering madness goes hand in hand with genius, we must logically conclude that one must ride a wave of intense emotion in order to express whatever world changing idea is in one's genius's locker.  And it's okay Mr Spock, you can still be a genius despite your emotion free outlook.  You're half alien.

Ever Changing Moods

I have generally spent life at the mercy of mood swings.  The lyric "I'm up and down like a bride's nightie, I'm up and down and I don't know why, ooh, I'm happy and then I'm blue" has applied to me almost constantly.  I've learned that when you're up, accept the situation and be grateful, and that when you're down, it can sometimes be useful to locate the source of your despondency, as you may be able to correct the situation and cheer yourself up. 

Of course sometimes there is no real reason for your funk.  You're trapped inside the ageing skin of a mortal human that is hurtling through an endless uncaring cosmos on a mote of dust.  You could fill this vacuum inside you with gratuitous eating, sex, violence or blog writing.  Or you could simply appreciate the notion that if this is the worst quandary on your mind, you're probably not trapped in a famine, a natural disaster or a war zone.

Or you could get out there and pursue some happiness...

 

Autumn Haikus

Fields of aged gold

Boughs hang heavy with ripened fruit

Shimmering Cider

The year grows old

Leaves blown by the wind

Golden rainfall

The rolling fields

Fade into a mist shrouded horizon

Dark ocean of trees

The seasons turn

Cold bites the wind blowing from the North

Jacket required

Chill touches spine

Voices from ages gone whisper haunted imprecations

Costumed carnival

Young eyes sparkling

Domestic explosive detonates among the stars

Sacrificial straw man

Equinox to Solstice

Advancing nights herald Winter's Onset

Cyclic beauty

The Ghost in the Machine - Or Where Are We Going, Part 2

Our lives are increasingly being lived virtually.  As well as a literal, we also leave an electronic footprint.  In the younger generation this dual life is even more strongly realised.

For those of us who have taken part in the internet revolution, it feels strange to think that moving forward there are two versions of yourself - the 'real' you, and the virtual you.  Sometimes I think of the 'virtual me' that I have left as a computerised echo across the World Wide Web.  In my virtual life, I have taken part in many conversations and debates online.  I've shot the breeze, reacted to the issues of the day, told stories, argued, joked around, played my favourite music, lost my temper, made friends, made enemies and flirted. 

Indeed, if the diaries of such as Samuel Pepys have caused such fascination with their snapshots of 17th century life in London, what will it be like for future generations to look back at us?  As the first 'cyber generation', I would imagine that we will have a certain hold over the imagination by default.

If future generations chose, and as technology advances, I would imagine they would be able to make a perfectly serviceable facsimile of my virtual self, warts and all, that they would be able to interact with if that was their fancy.  For all I know I may have just given one of my descendents that very idea! I can only hope that my simulacrum will offer a modicum of entertainment.

We have seen films such as The Matrix, Total Recall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (among many, many other movies and books) play with the idea of living in an artificially constructed world, and now we stand at the shoreline of that virtual universe, and the watermark is slowly rising as we witness the digitization of existence.

I wrote Where Are We Going part 1 some thirteen or fourteen years ago for a website I hosted that has long been consigned to the virtual dustbin (thank you AOL).  In this blog I speculated that one day the last 'physical' human would download themselves into a Universe contained within a subatomic cube that would then be cast adrift and float through the cosmos (if it was small enough it perhaps could  even survive the theoretical Heat Death of the Universe, thus granting us immortality).  When I look around I see we are well on course for that possible future.

I can imagine the horrified thoughts that may be coursing through the mind of a reader as they contemplate this future, trapped in a pseudo reality where you will never feel the wind upon your face or watch a sunrise and stuff like that - but the way I look at it as long as uncontrolled human interactions remain a part of your world, there will always be something there to stop you getting bored.  Besides which life, and how it is lived by that time, will have evolved to such an extent we can't know or judge what those cats will be finding groovy.

And if they get that bored they can always talk to my ghost!