It has been brought to my attention that many of my autobiographic series are considered just too long to read.
For those with a shorter attention span, I have a couple of past attempts at ameliorating that.
The graphic to the left is entitled Not Quite Balanced
I wrote a pretty short version of my autobiography when I turned 60 (2008).
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Sixty
While I should be performing other tasks and thinking about other things, my mind keeps wandering back to the fact that I was born 60 years ago on Thursday. The number addict in me observes that 60 = 22 * 3 * 5 is a special number. But we all knew that, didn't we?
Sixty minutes in an hour, so a minute is minute (small). And a second is called a second because it is 1/602 part of an hour...second power. Magic number...as is 360 (= 23 * 32 * 5)...perhaps because it can be divided so well into equal pieces in so many ways. Anyway, the Sumerians thought a sexagesimal system was cool...and that gave us our timekeeping strategy and the way we measure angles. Who knew...until much later, that 60 was also the number of elements in the smallest non-abelian simple group?
One could go back further than the Sumerians and discover that the Chinese use a calendar with a cycle of sixty years...the Jia-Zi system.
each year within the 60-year cycle being named with two symbols, the first being base-10 (called Tian-Gan天干 or heavenly stems) and the second symbol being base 12 (called Di-Zhi 地支 or earthly branches).
60 is the least common multiple of 12 and 10, of course.
Magic numbers are scarce, until you actively look for them. Then you discover that all integers are magic.
Proof: Let x be the smallest non-magic positive number. If x exists, x would be special...and so x would be magic from some perspective or other. If no such x exists, then all postive numbers are magic.
Sort of. Not a real proof, of course. The term "magic number" has not been defined here...as I purposely intended.
But I digress...
So what does a person do when the age of 60 is reached? What will I do on Thursday? I know the answer to that: I will work, as usual. Maybe for celebration purposes I can skip the union meeting. All they manage to do is make me wonder if I have ulcers yet....and if not, why not?
As a gift, we are going to get a couple of new chairs to put in front of our computers. Maybe that will improve the condition of my back. I've been using a chair specially designed for manicurists to use, a gift from a transwoman I helped transition by giving a place to live for in exchange for running errands. It's probably ideal for manicuring. It's probably not so good for typing on a keypad.
I've found that I have been engaging in a lot of reflection. Well, I always do that, but maybe I'm doing more than usual. I'm thinking about the years. And my place in them. And I'm asking myself, in my way, "Come up the years. And love me."
1948 was a mixed year: Early in the year Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Burma gained its independence from England. Gandhi was murdered. On April 1, the idea of the Big Bang Theory was introduced. On April 3, Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan into law, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony appeared on television for the first time, and I was born.
In 1960, I was migrating from Forest Hills Elementary School to Lake Oswego Junior High School. In the wee hours of January 1 of that year I was discovered wearing one of my mother's dresses...an episode which looms big in my memory of then.
In 1972 I was in the military, stationed at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth. I was promoted to Spec 4 and transferred to the Prisoner Pay Section of the Finance Department that year.
In 1984 I moved from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee to the University of Central Arkansas. My parents had died in the preceding couple of years, my spouse hated Milwaukee, and I was in a state of pliability, so we moved to Conway, Arkansas. Everything that happens does so for a reason, I am told.
In 1996 I returned to Conway after after taking a semester off to try to relocate...and failing to find employment in the Seattle area. So I decided to make the best of it and increased my activism...maybe ten-fold.
And 2008 has arrived and we are here.
Chapter 76
Living people are soft and tender.
Corpses are hard and stiff.
The ten thousand things,
the living grass, the trees,
are soft, pliant.
Dead, they’re dry and brittle.
So hardness and stiffness
go with death;
tenderness, softness,
go with life.
And the hard sword fails,
the stiff tree’s felled.
the hard and great go under.
The soft and weak stay up.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, English version by Ursula K. LeGuin
Then again, there is this:
Chapter 52
The world has an origin
Which is the world's mother.
Having reached the mother,
(We) know her child.
Having known the child,
Return and abide by its mother.
(In this way) one loses the body without
becoming exhausted.
Stop the apertures,
Close the doors,
(In this way) one's whole life is without toil.
Open the apertures,
Going about the affairs,
(In this way) one's whole life
cannot be saved.
To see the small is called illumination.
To abide by the soft is called strength.
Use the bright light,
But return to the dim light,
Do not expose your life to perils,
Such is to follow the everlasting.
--Tao Te Ching, translated by Ellen Chen
Although the things that occurred during my life might shed some light on the context in which my life was lived, they don't really illuminate who I am.
Maybe we can get more of that from adding musical reference. Although I have basically no musical talent other than digging out important musical threads which have attached themselves to my life, I find it measurably more insightful.
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Between the Rock and the Hard Streets (2007)
When the truth is found to be lies
and all the joy within you dies
don't you want somebody to love
don't you need somebody to love
wouldn't you love somebody to love
you better find somebody to love
--Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane/Darby Slick)
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I heard the music. Grace Slick spoke to me. The words tore at my heart. I was living those lies. And it seemed that my options were few.
I was a failure in so many ways...or so it seemed. Unwanted, unloved, even in my own family. At least that was my perception. The great hope for my family...but no hope for me. Sent off to an Ivy League school to become the next Einstein, I returned home a broken failure. I couldn't even manage to succeed at suicide.
She said, "There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see."
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well've been closed
--Whiter Shade of Pale (Procol Harum/Keith Reid)
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I sent letters to my past friends. Within them I quoted the Tao te Ching, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada. Sent to crack the code of the universe, I found the words telling me the pursuit of that lay within. On top of that were the words of Brecht's Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder telling me of the futility of war. But there were also the words of Hesse in Steppenwolf, which taught me about transcending. It was 1967.
Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
--Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan)
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I could not stay there in my home town and face the music. Shame forced me to leave. Where was a failure to go? It was the Summer of Love...and I had none. And seasons change.
Strobe lights beam create dreams
walls move minds do too
on a warm San Franciscan night
old child young child feel alright
on a warm San Franciscan night
angels sing leather wings
jeans of blue Harley Davidsons too
on a warm San Franciscan night
old angels young angels feel alright
on a warm San Franciscan night.
I wasn't born there perhaps I'll die there
there's no place left to go, San Francisco.
--San Franciscan Nights (Animals)
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I decided to chase Life...or Death. Which one didn't seem to matter much to me. So I went to the Haight and joined in with the Diggers. I dedicated my life, whatever might be left of it, to giving things away for free. I still do that. Welcome to the Diggers Free Store. Care for some free words? Want me to teach you something?
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
"FEED YOUR HEAD"
--White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane/Grace Slick)
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And I fed my head. Me and "Oh, shit" Bill. Every chance we found. And that was often because Bill could smell dope at amazing distances.
Bill got his name because he heard voices. The voices told him jokes. They were often funny enough to make him cry out, "Oh, shit!" He told me of his escape from Lompoc...and about not wanting to go back. He told me of not wanting to take his medication either. I could grok that. We self-medicated together, so he could free himself of the voices and I could search for myself. I was in there somewhere.
One of the pains of my life is being a day late and a dollar short as they say. I got to San Francisco just in time for the Death of Hippie.
And in my head?
And you see a girl's brown body
dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow
where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her,
she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples
in the tissues of your mind.
--Tales of Brave Ulysses (Cream/Martin Sharp)
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I chased her down and down. My regret is that I didn't catch up to her for a quarter century.
Meanwhile I was stuck with reality.
So many fantastic colors;
I feel in a wonderland.
Many fantastic colors
makes me feel so good.
You've got that pure feel,
such good responses.
You've got that rainbow feel
but the rainbow has a beard.
--SWLABR (Cream/Jack Bruce and Pete Brown)
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Hippie was dead and I was dying inside. I left the Haight for the first time...disillusioned.
I went to search for roots in Seattle. But there are no roots on the original Skid Row. I allowed myself to be nearly raped in order to avoid freezing to death. The experience told me I was not gay.
And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale
--Whiter Shade of Pale
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So I went on the road again, once again in search of my soul. I lost my religion in a mission in Tucson in the waning days of the year. I decided that if that's what it was to be a Christian, then I wasn't one.
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
--Strawberry Fields Forever (Lennon/McCartney)
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