Love

I'm glad I'm a musician.

I'm glad I learned music. The language of music. The theory of music. I'm glad that I can go to a keyboard and play the notes written by Debussy, J.S. Bach and Rhapsody in Blue.

Tonight's Music Appreciation Moment, is brought to you by Toots Thielemans.




I dig the kiss.

Compare the Belgian's love for Stevie with this:



I'm supposed to forgive this, since this racism appeared on a Leftist network (MSNBC.) I guess if the only news you get is from big city newspapers and network news, you haven't heard of the racism of the Left. Occupy Wall Street, originating in British Columbia, has been filled with lurid slurs against Jews. The violence, the theft, the rapes, none of this has been reported.

Remember when the big news about the Tea Party was someone spat upon a black Congressman? (No? Well, it was a big deal. Teapartiers are racists, yannow?)

Why does the Obama Administration continue to harp on race, racism and the opposition he faces in the national dialogue as racist? What do you call it when arguments aren't made, but coloured? If I agree with you at the correct time, I'm not a racist. When I contradict you at the inopportune time, I am a racist.

Here's another Thielemans riff, with Billy Joel:



Black, white, yellow, brown, I am indifferent.

If you think, if you rely upon yourself, if you take care of you family and your friends, your clients, you're going to find me willing to be your friend. So, I'll wrap up.

The last cut, is, again, Billy Joel. But here's the tie-in. Toots Thielemans wasn't just a great harp player. Mr. Toots was also known as a great whistler. If you ever heard an "Old Spice" commercial, that was Mr. Toots whistle. He was one of the world's greatest whistlers, among whom I also number Bing Crosby, myself, and Billy Joe.



If you haven't read Camus, I recommend it. L' Étranger was published in 1942. Camus was a contemporary of Sartre. I guess the reason why I preferred Sartre to Camus was the idea of reflection, rather than abnegation. The revolution in thought created by the inquiries of Sigmund Freud were taking hold, at a time when the criticisms of C.G. Jung were being planted. Freud introduced us to an idea that we weren't who we thought we were. Jung introduced us to an idea that at best, who we were, or attempted to be, was a representation of the metaphor of who, or what, we were, as we attempted to represent that existence. And, consequently, who we were, and who we thought we were, were totally different beings. Camus saw this as the "stranger," or "the other," creating a duality of thought, either denying who we are and accepting who we thought of as ourselves, or as reversed, living who we thought we were, but denying who we truly were.

It leads to a confirmation bias, when examining Sartre. Sartre wasn't, in my opinion, attempting to state that there was either a denial in our existence, but rather, a lack of comprehending the scope of our existence. That there existed a duality? Sure. Perhaps. "Being and Nothingness" (1943) posited that our apprehension of who we are and what we do may be appositional to who we "really are, and what we're really doing." But the product of Sartre wasn't the nihilism of Camus, but an ontological inquiry into what we can perceive about ourselves, compared to the beliefs we've been taught to hold. Combine Jung with Camus, and you have L' Étrange. With Sartre, you have No Exit. 

C.G. Jung (Siggy) is later adapted by Campbell. Duality continues, and is explained into rational and non-rational. Sign posts versus symbol. Or, as I like to divide it, funny or non-funny.

The heuristics of Campbell are often misunderstood. While Sartre attempted an heuristic of study, through a certain acceptance of the ontological method, Campbell associated more closely with Camus, and the metaphysics of Kant and Heidegger. Drawing upon the principles of the Platonic School, it was easy to talk about the beginning and ending points, without describing the process that occurs at either end of the spectrum. This isn't entirely fatuous, since discussing pure reason and the perfect rely upon much of the insigh and reason of Plato, and his teacher, Socrates.

Induction a priori, is legitimate. What is not legitimate, is extending those templates onto what we naturally observe in the world. We simply don't compare the results of induction to deduction, when deduction is possible. At a certain point, we need to examine what is truly a priori. What exists, in advance of experience. If that a priori condition has no foundation, it is not a condition. Numbers have values, as we define them. One is one. Two is two. One plus three is four. And it is, every time. An equilateral triangle as three sides of the same length. These are a priori statements, and true in every re-statement.

The problem comes, when we attempt to construct the perfect, equilateral triangle. It isn't possible. We can come close, very, very close, but perfect triangles are impossible to build. So, there is a thing we can know, in our perception of things that are knowable, that aren't possible in existence. Duality continues.

The existence of the rational and the non-rational is the fifty, or one-hundred, year old monkey on our backs. We like sports because, in most cases, there are definite outcomes. We ignore politics because we never seem to gain a clear outcome. The "Tea Party" won the elections last year, but it isn't clear whether or not those individual victories will actually have the impact on the national political process we were hoping they would have. Mitt Romney, we are being told, is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. A "moderate." Someone, we are told, who represents the middle of the Party.

We know, a priori, that we cannot continue to spend more than we take in. That the promises made from prior politicians are simply used tissue paper, not worth the time flushing down the toilet. We're also being told, that unless we ignore the fact that we cannot spend more than we take in, that we will not win in the upcoming elections, and that we need someone like Romney to gain control of the White House. This is a new type of duality.

We know one thing (about our debt, and increasing indebtedness) and we are told that we need to ignore this need to end, limit, or reduce our debt, in order for our desire to end, limit, reduce this debt, to succeed. This is like looking into a mirror and seeing a monkey. Which is great, if you're a monkey.

I'm not a monkey. There is not a non-rational position on debt. You cannot wish it away. You cannot tell yourself that is someone else's debt. It is your debt. You may wish to shove it off onto someone else. But this is not an act of love. It is an act of theft. Just because you may not have to pay the bill, doesn't mean you aren't charging the item to the national account. This is not a form of duality.

It is a form of theft.

It's time to stop lying to ourselves and to others. Not having to pay for a thing today is not a form of duality.

Billy Joel teaches: