I seem to have puppets on the brain these past few days. In part, it has something (in part) to do with purchasing and playing a game that I wasn’t sure I would like. But that’s not the only thing prompting the ponders on puppets.
(more…)Tag: half-penny thoughts
half-penny thoughts | 03jul25
Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash Half-Penny Thoughts | 24jun25
Photo by Bradyn Shock on Unsplash Every once in a while I find myself cruising comfortable on the highway of life, so I take off my seatbelt and kick back in the convertible as it hugs the curves of the road and I think to myself, “Wow. It’s been a pretty smooth drive lately and I think—”
Then there is an unexpected road bump that sends me flying out of the convertible, and all my motivation to “git ‘er done” (because, you know, I’m feeling the groove of life’s tunes) evaporates like a fart in a strong breeze. All that’s left is me wondering if I can at least stick the landing and not soil myself in the process.
I tell you, there are days that I miss being an underpaid barista in a no-name espresso bar, cranking out some of the best damned shots that anyone can find in town (even if they can’t find this no-name espresso bar). Ahh, to have that self-esteem back. Wouldn’t that be grand?
Instead, consulting: The job where every task has a potential hidden pitfall…
If you have worked both professional and blue collar jobs, which do you have a better relationship with? If the matter of income were moot (“you won the lottery!”), which would you choose?
Half-Penny Thoughts | 23jun25
Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash I used to be really proud about how clever I could be and how much information I was able to amass in my cranium.
The past decade or so, however, I’ve been discovering how liberating it is to be the one asking questions instead of being the one who “knows” stuff. And how freeing it is to let “knowledge” slip away when the information does not have an immediate and proven need. I can always ask the questions, or read something, again and — sometimes, even — I learn something completely different when I learn something “from scratch”.
That means I can often reread books, for example, and see the story or the information with completely new eyes. Or find a new technique to troubleshoot a problem.
Forgetting doesn’t have to be the horror that some folks make it out to be. Memories are not something that require preservation. They may give you joy or feel useful, but there is no real reason to cling to memories, or that joy, just for the sake of remembering. Or is there?
Half-penny thoughts | 12jun25
Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash I’m doing some spiritual alchemy this morning. You know, calcination, dissolution, separation… yada yada yada. Fancy words for a messy process.
As most of you know, I don’t have much patience with fancy language to describe simple things. I also don’t have much patience with elaborate processes when the processes themselves should be (and tend to be) simple.
Stepping back…
I was thinking again, about this process of rewilding my spirit, getting back to the beginning. Part of that involves taking what you perceive yourself to be and going all Zen by seeking out the face you wore before you were born. Or, as the kōan would have it, before your parents were born.
[A kōan, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a Zen “public case” meant to help one realize satori, otherwise known as enlightenment.]
What better place to set as a destination for rewilding your spirit? Your original face, before even your parents were born!
Before nurture came around… Before your nature evolved…
What face did you wear?
And can you find it again?
Note: For the curious, my philosophy is largely Taoist informed by Zen, my spiritual practice is largely animist, influenced by panpolytheistic understandings (with many of those trappings removed). Confused? Now you know why I think these kinds of thoughts.
Half-penny thoughts — 02jun25
Photo by enkuu smile_ on Unsplash I recently realized that sometimes I take what was said or done in the past and apply it to the present, which is flawed thinking when I consider how it might the reality of a given situation.
Yes, that’s how our minds tend to work — we use our experiences to inform our futures and presents. That’s how we try to maximize our situations to our advantage.
And, often, it works as intended.
But there are times where the past does not necessarily inform the present. Or, even when the past informs the present, it does so with such imperfection as to be essentially useless. Instead of advantage, assumptions about the past offer us greater opportunities to stumble and fall face-first into a cow pie. And that’s if we are lucky. Unlucky, we tend to crash and burn in a dung heap.
I’m often on the unlucky balance of the equation. [Aside: If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all, as the saying goes.]
I need to remind myself that, absent other assurances from the past, there is still only the eternal present. Putting too much faith in the (often illusionary) past to explain the present is a fool’s errand. Forget about the future.
Excuse me while I go remind myself of the nature of things by sitting in the dojo of my mind…
Half-penny thoughts — 30may25
Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash One of those ideas that keeps coming back to me is a question that has been on my mind for at least ten years. Whether it is music, writing, or art in general: Where is the disruption and subversion?
(more…)Half-penny thought — 14may25
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash I sometimes ask myself not if I should write, but if I should share what I write.
Writing is my lifeblood. I have occasionally “given up the bad habit of writing” only to find myself slinking back with a scrawled bit of doggerel like a junky needing his morning fix. If I go more than about a day without writing something, somewhere — I get that janky tremor that we used to call “jonesing” back in the day.
I cannot stop. That much has been decided. And, for the most part, I like to think of it as a victimless habit. Mostly harmless… Besides, like decent person with any filthy habit, I wash my hands afterwards.
But should I share what I write? That gets trickier.
I still believe it is “mostly harmless”. But I know, regardless of the perception of “quality” (in quotes for my buddy, Ted), what I write often seems to not be (for whatever reason, perhaps due to “quality”) the kind of stuff that people particularly “get” or maybe even like. And I am not entirely blind to the qualities of the writings that are well-received, but the well-received style of writing is plainly not me.
So I often find myself asking, when I write, should I share it? Or should I hermit myself off in the woods and eventually be found as a dead and desiccated body, with stacks of scrawled within notebooks scattered around my cave that some cold hiker will burn for fuel against the cold autumn air?
Wait… don’t answer those… those were rhetorical questions. Allow me at least the illusion that someone reads and maybe slightly likes what I write, please.
Channeling non-oblique, non-obtuse writer to see if I can make something of something…
Half-penny thoughts — 07may25
Photo by Cornelia Munteanu on Unsplash Eyes chase the dust motes playing in the sun framed in shadows cast by the window frame. I wonder that they might be alive, even if we think of dust as the slag of our skin, cast off in a neverending shedding season, our constant state of ephemera we purposefully cast a blind eye toward — afraid of our own mortality. Unable to accept we are a season of dust, we focus our gaze on the verdant, the thriving as we sweep the parts of our dying under the rug for someone else to discover after we have passed on.
Consider this: Could the “dead” cells of ourselves still be alive? By what measure have we to decide when they are finally and truly dead things? They never had a heartbeat and we cannot confirm they ever had mind — although I will argue that there is more mind than we are inclined to recognize in the world around us — much less this have an active mind.
And yet, be it the vagaries of air eddies and their imagined whims, or dust motes at play, one has to wonder if any of this must be as it seems. Who is to say that if we look beyond the scrim before our eyes and truly see, if we might not see more than what everything seems.
Another Half-Penny Thought
I sometimes wonder what prompts people to answer questions which were never asked.
I think back to myself, “Did I ask anyone about their preferences when it comes to pie? No. I only mentioned I had a slice of apple pie with my lunch.”
And yet, someone tells me: “I am totally not an apple pie person, I can’t understand how anyone could ever eat apple pie because apple pie is gross.”
I scratch my head and say the only thing that seems sensible to say:
“Cool story, bro’.”
I sometimes have to fight the urge to flash two thumbs up.
Is it just me? Or do you encounter these kinds of random responses when you make otherwise neutral statements?
It’s not as if I said, “Everyone must love apple pie! Apple pie is the best pie of all pies ever made! Fight me if you think otherwise!”
