Mea Culpa, Universe

Mea Culpa, Universe

My Universe, it appears to me,
Shifted focus, that I can see,
You raised me up and brought me here,
So far,
So good,
No harm,
No fear,
But Universe, you dirty rat,
On a dime, where I'm at,
Turning left,
Turning right,
Out of place,
Out of sight.
So Universe, here we are,
Took my health, took my car,
Apparently,
In store for me,
Yet to learn,
Yet to see.
And Universe, the other side,
Of your moon where darkness hides,
See your test,
See your game,
Mea Culpa,
Myself to blame.
So, Universe, challenge accepted,
Obfuscations intercepted,
From the ashes,
From the fires,
A starry furnace,
I climb your spires.


InvinoVeritas
3/12/16
EOF

The Spoils of Battle

The Spoils of Battle

That moment when your friends aren't friends,
And you've no idea at whom you're mad,
When it's too late and faced with adjustment,
When you're the wall and they're the brad,
When the hammer falls and it's too late,
And in your mind where you berate,
You dull the senses and numb the mind,
You ponder change and question fate,
Count your blessings and make excuses,
Dowse the fires with stalwart oathings,
Rally the troops and brandish flamberges,
Charge with torches lit with loathings.
Take the hill and light the fires,
Wave your colors and brave the towers,
Loose the dogs and charge as mongrels,
Ravenous for passage against the powers,
Rebuild your kingdom with walls of granite,
And allies fair to stand by your side,
Seek alliance and brothers in common,
Walking in arms with fortified stride,
And at that moment when you remember,
When day is done and night seems far,
Know that the fires that stand ever burning,
Are marked by many a battle scar.


Invino Veritas
2/12/16
EOF

Invisible

Invisible

We don't like him,
He does too few,
We won't invite him,
No, he won't do,
He will not speak,
Nor will he blend,
No, he won't fit,
Nor, to us, ascend,
But it's so lonely,
Inside his head,
He's all alone,
From us instead,
We can't relate,
We're far ahead,
We've lived better,
And he is dead,
But here's a flower,
Here's all the kind,
When laid to rest,
We'll pay him mind,
He'll be the best,
Friend that I'll find,
Though, when he lived,
Was left behind.


Invino Veritas
2/8/16
EOF

Sunday Lament

Sunday Lament

There's no inspiration without admiration,
No direction and no gifts,
No talents and skills for the pressurized,
No openings and no rifts,
No impetus, no cataclysms,
No sproutings and no light,
There can be no circumstances,
That provide for our delight.
Without admiration there's no inspiration,
No puzzlement nor epiphany,
No hidden treasures for dreams and hopes,
No Archimedian discovery,
So praise the child who imitates,
The songstress with homage to pay,
Reimagine our idols' intentions,
And creations that carve the way,
But inhibit the course of simple men,
The dreamers who dare to try,
We'll kiss admiration, inspiration,
And to each, wave goodbye.

Invino Veritas
11/8/15
EOF

.

Los Provocadores

Los Provocadores

There was a Glorp that met a Glorp,
And though each had experitise,
Without waste, but speed of chase,
They commenced to disagree.
The elder Glorp said at once,
'My sir, although you correlate,
You direct result without cause;
They simply don't relate.'
But the younger Glorp in retort,
Scoffed and rightly said,
' Your research shall besmirch,
And misdirect instead.'
Therefore another Glorp,
Added to each, some dismay,
As another Glorp listened in,
To what he had to say,
"Fiddlesticks and Balderdash,
And bull malarky, too!
Pay no attention to this rabble!"
He professed with much ado.
"Here, here you scallywags!"
The grey-haired Glorp agreed,
"We must, to reason, lend an ear,
Would you lend them, please?
Quite right, indeed you are,
My fellow purveyor hence,
Your silver tongue wastes no time,
And more importantly, my pence!"
But then the scoffs turned to shouts,
And the palms turned into fists,
And the two Glorps from before,
Thought best to not assist.
So hats in hand and papers tucked,
Outside, the two Glorps did sneak,
And each Glorp to the other,
Asked, "Same time next week?"


Invino Veritas
11/2/15
EOF

The Question of the Conflicting Moralities

In my years, I've spent a lot of time mulling over the finer points of this thing called 'morality'.  I asked myself the age old questions: "What is good?", "What is bad or evil?", "What is right?", and "What is wrong?". It's easy to sit in our corner offices or our cubicles as, perhaps, I'm doing right now and and pull half-assed resolutions out of our rear center pockets to sate our philosophical and emotional desires of how we want the world and the universe to be. But that wouldn't be a good thing in the long run. It would just set us up for disappointment, and the inevitability for struggling against an unyielding universe, as it would be.

So, I set on this philosophical (perhaps even existential to some degree) journey that took several years to come to fruition. I was fraught with confusion over how one could argue in favor of moral circumstances or constructs against another with the same conclusion, but with different results. I found myself nearly incapable, at times, to articulate what I thought I knew. After all, people should be kind and compassionate towards other people. That's the moral thing, right? (See the previous article: The Morality of the Two Wrongs) It was simply confounding how one moral construct could possibly conflict with another. Sure, I fully understood that the world isn't black and white. Life and interactions can be complicated as well as complex. That's no surprise and not unknown to me at this point. But since whether or not something is difficult has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not something is moral, I had to abandon the notion of whether or not that was the correct way to approach this question.

So, I was stuck again. Here I was, confronted with the conundrum of moral conflict. I tried to break it down and simplify things in an attempt to find some sort of explanation using Occam's Razor. But that was just a cop-out as I quickly realized that I was trying to make things easier in order to erect a substitute that satisfied my desires rather than striking at the heart of the matter, the resolution to this quandary. I decided that I had to take it on the knife's edge rather than glancing off the blunt side of the blade. Why could this contradiction exist? How is it that these universal constructs, found from one corner of the earth to the other, in all walks of life and cultures, could possibly find themselves at odds with one another? It didn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

I was ready to pull my hair out by the roots. I wanted to take a sledgehammer to anything that would shatter into a thousand pieces simply to relieve the stress this caused me every so often. Was it simply because I wanted to be right? Well, that's a silly question; of course I want to be right. But I wanted to be right for the right reasons, and that meant that I wanted to get it right - even at the expense of my own complacency or notions of comfort. Then I started taking a look at other people at their ideas of morality, and how sometimes they deviated from the universal moralities as discovered by Jonathan Haidt. Across the board, it appeared as if  varying degrees of interpretation existed, whether individually or from doctrine to doctrine. From culture to culture and society to society there were even a few extras thrown into the mix. But neither of those circumstances seemed to be immune to the overlapping inevitability of the moral conflict. Eventually, someone would make the case that they were being wronged using a moral argument where in return the "wrongdoer" would accuse the "complainer" of violating some moral tenet. It would not be enough to simply "win" the argument, but rather it would only be enough if a.) it could be articulated, b.) it could be understood relatively easily, and c.) it could be practiced with relative ease. Yet, before all of that, it had to be deciphered across cultures and societies. It had to be broken down into some universal medium and translated for the masses.

Then I had an epiphany.

In the blink of an eye, the clouds parted. I had been looking at the problem in the wrong way, from the wrong angle. I was attempting resolve what I have come to call the opposing arguments of conflicting moralities from the wrong angle, the entirely incorrect perspective. This stroke of lightning that would alter my perspective on the problem would become my gateway to resolution. The conflict didn't lie in the moralities, but rather in the argumentative constructs themselves, in the very assumptions about what is universally true versus what is personally understood. In other words, there was a direct conflict between an individual concept (personal) and group concepts (universal). This was a fallacy of division (combination depending n which side you're coming from). Indeed, the universal constructs are more than what it is that the personal constructs are because they are observed by multiple groups of peoples whereas the individual constructs are based upon individual, societal, or otherwise cultural idiosyncrasies. This is where the logic was broken and why it didn't make any sense that one moral construct could conflict with another one. My mind had been telling me something was wrong with that, it just didn't know how to articulate what it knew. (Eat your heart out, Einstein!)

Now comes the simple explanation:

(Looking at you, again, Einstein.)

1.) The world's peoples and societies have agreed on a basic set of moral constructs. This has been observed all over the earth in numerous cultures and societies, and are the same everywhere. These simple constructs are the Universal Moral Constructs (UMC), and they are absolute. UMCs are top-level constructs and cannot be compared to constructs below this tp level . They are constant, unwavering, and persist as moral constructs and symbols of morality itself under any and all situations and contexts. These are the constructs by which members of a culture or society judge other members of that same society or culture.

2.) Each person interprets and incorporates belief systems and behavior patterns inherent of their environment and of the individuals with whom they interact. This includes themselves and others as well as physical presences or not (i.e. on TV, radio, pictures, movies, etc.) These may or may not include ideas borrowed from the UMCs. This can collectively be called a moral perspective or otherwise a collection of Individual or Personal Moral Constructs (PMC). Unlike UMCs, PMCs may waiver, disappear, or otherwise change over time or all at once. This is why PMCs are relative as they relate to individuals and single cultures or societies rather than to UMCs. (People, societies, or cultures may adopt UMCs into their repertoire, but because they relate to the whole of the peoples of the earth, they are disregarded as PMCs and defined as UMCs.)

3.) Because of their relationships to individual cultures, societies, and persons, PMCs are not comparable to UMCs which relate to all the peoples of the world as a whole. To do so is unsound; they are logical in-equivalents and are therefore not comparable nor relatable to one another.

OK, so how does this help us when confronted or otherwise involved with this sort of argument? Well, the simple answer is also the easy answer at this point. For one, we can't expect other people to hold the same PMCs as ourselves because they only really relate to ourselves, and therefore, there is no argument to be had. Anyone who argues this is automatically discredited. While two people can certainly hold the same PMCs dear, any variances in those interpretations result in clear differences and therefore are not comparable. In a nutshell, we can view the different argument types like so:

1.) UMC vs PMC Arguments: The PMC is automatically discredited because UMCs are absolute, and PMCs only relate to the individual and/or culture or society.

2.) UMC vs UMC Arguments: Two wrongs don't make a right. Both parties lose out in this one assuming that each party is guilty of the claims by the other.

3.) PMC vs PMC Arguments: Neither one should expect the other to follow moral constructs that are purely individualistic and only relatable to themselves. Should this happen, then they are both discredited.

In the end, if it's a personal moralistic philosophy, then its simply just not reasonable or justifiable to tell people how they should live. On the other hand, if it's something that is universally understood to be a moral construct, then it's not so unreasonable to expect everyone to behave in accordance with those standards. So, the next time you run into a conversational bully who wants to go toe-to-toe with you on all the horrible moral violations you've committed, know that now you can tussle with the best of them in a battle of wits. (Besides, on a personal note, I don't think too many people have thought this through anyways, and won't know what to say other than blatantly deny it without evidence to the contrary. The standard knee-jerk seems to be that two wrongs make them right. )

(Go figure.)

Invino Veritas
10/6/15
EOF

Dharma

Dharma

There, all at once when the outer ring blew,
The scientists immediately knew,
T'was time to vacate the Tarxian moon,
Leaving behind the rare Tarxian boon,
A jerk to the left and swing to the right,
And the silvery craft thusly took flight,
But a chunk of rock pounded the craft's wing,
As the silvery craft thusly did spring,
Then, all at once, it wheezed and it sputtered,
Clinging to his chair, the pilot muttered,
"Distinguished colleague and life-long friend,
Childhood buddy, we've escaped the end,
Alas, I lament those who're left behind,
And curse the soldiers who, us, seek to find,
So enagage the cloak and point the nose,
To a yellow star - right there, I suppose!"
And so, two friends, in a flash of blue light,
Left behind their lives and vanished from sight,
Past the expanse, the Sea of Endless Days,
Past nebulae of endless purple haze,
On a beam of twisted olivine light,
Behind Jupiter's cone of endless night,
Past Io and Titan, Ganymede, too,
Skipping, as pebbles, where trouble shant brew,
When, there, like a glint in a newborn's eye,
A tiny reflection each did espy,
Upon the approach a lonely station,
Circled the planet with sad rotation,
And there on the side: a bumper sticker,
From which the star's amber light did flicker,
A message of warning or perhaps it was pride,
A brand to all who dared to come inside:
"If, at first, we cannot deflower it,
It must be, for us, to devour it,
And if neither is cause for us to keep,
We, the monkeys, shall surely fall asleep.
So please bring tribute that you've meant for us,
But whatever you do, please don't bore us."
Now, it was clear a mistake had been made,
Maybe the choices deserved to be weighed,
The refugees leaned in towards each other,
Each agreed to listen to his brother,
When the pilot spoke to clear his mind,
"My friend, I think we are agreed and find,
'Tis better to be a slave far away,
Than a monkey on this Earth any day."
So away they flew past the distant moons,
Past Jupiter's cone and frigid Neptune,
Across the purple haze and nebulae,
To Tarxian space and the endless sea,
And when our heroes, nay, our refugees,
Before the Emperor, dropped to their knees,
But fate once again meddled as before,
The Emperor's distaste fell to the floor,
Bestowed upon them in spite of their dearth,
Life with monkeys on remote planet Earth.

Invino Veritas
9/2/15
Picture Added 9/3/15
EOF