Day: October 14, 2022

The face within your face

You revealed the face within your face
Human,lowly,humbler than an ant
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The other face, defended, has no grace
With it ,you appear quite confident.
Yet you revealed to me your hidden face
I know now of the suffering of your days
A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The mental torment heavy all your days.
Yet you must hide from men intolerant
You revealed the face within your face
Like martyrs, you were tortured and disgraced
You wandered feebly,lost, itinerant
The pathos in your eyes makes sad my days
If Love exists then would that not embrace
The lost, the lonely, even the vagrant?
You revealed the face within your face
The pathos in your eyes made me feel base

Isolation makes me feel alone

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This isolation is not good for me
Unless there is a God,how could it be?

The viruses are not like friends who talk
Yet they can come with you on a walk

Invisible to naked human eyes
Viruses are now akin to spies

Who is watching me as I write this?
I’ve now forgotten who Paul Dirac was

Should I block the camera with white tape?
It might bring me some pleasure,ah, too late

Is it wrong for women to read books
New ideas might make us into freaks

Yesterday was warm but now it snows
I’ve got itchy spots and feel morose

Should I buy merino knickers now?
Should I breed some sheep or just a cow?

Why algebra exists is really queer
If you spot it then you are a seer.

Rings and groups and donuts are germane
Topology has driven me insane

What is small yet makes the gradient clear?
Calculus is like an atmosphere

Did you say Eureka in the bath?
It means you’ve met yourself without the glass

The microphone is faulty I proclaim
Perhaps I’m going deaf, we’re all insane

The phone is complex, perfect and effete
I cannot hear the voices when they speak

I got up in the night and wet my pants
That’s my husband’s ghost, the miscreant!

I had to wash pyjamas every day
4 pairs are enough if you are gay

Imagine

The four dimensional shapes in Dirac’s head

broke into four much simpler shapes instead.

How can we dream of 4 dimensions when

The head has only 3 in any man?

The complex brain imagines when it can

We could look inside its wider scan

Dreams bring more dimensions visions grand

then we turn to food like fish and chips

Mathematics tortures as I knit.

In the end it’s patterns that we need

The rhythm of Life a slower nature bteeds

Words matter

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/opinion/words-jews-antisemitism-whoopi-goldberg-apology.htmlThe Talmud teaches, “The world exists only in the merit of the person who restrains him or herself at the time of an argument” (Chullin 89a). Words create narratives. Words have the ability to disrupt, provoke and uproot, and in a world that is divided, they can cause terrible harm. Building false narratives about Jews — or any other group for that matter — can destroy. In Nazi Germany, Jews were dehumanized first by words as they were described as rats, defiling society. Dehumanizing another by using words can help

Our Culture of Contempt

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html

What we need is not to disagree less, but to disagree better. And that starts when you turn away the rhetorical dope peddlers — the powerful people on your own side who are profiting from the culture of contempt. As satisfying as it can feel to hear that your foes are irredeemable, stupid and deviant, remember: When you find yourself hating something, someone is making money or winning elections or getting more famous and powerful. Unless a leader is actually teaching you something you didn’t know or expanding your worldview and moral outlook, you are being used.

Next, each of us can make a commitment never to treat others with contempt, even if we believe they deserve it. This might sound like a call for magnanimity, but it is just as much an appeal to self-interest. Contempt makes persuasion impossible — no one has ever been hated into agreement, after all — so its expression is either petty self-indulgence or cheap virtue signaling, neither of which wins converts.

What if you have been guilty of saying contemptuous things about or to others? Perhaps you have hurt someone with your harsh words, mockery or dismissiveness. I have, and I’m not proud of it. Start the road to recovery from this harmful addiction, and make amends wherever possible. It will set you free.

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Finally, we should see the contempt around us as what it truly is: an opportunity, not a threat. If you are on social media, on a college campus or in any place other than a cave by yourself, you will be treated with contempt very soon. This is a chance to change at least one heart — yours. Respond with warmheartedness and good humor. You are guaranteed to be happier. If that also affects the contemptuous person (or bystanders), it will be to the good.

It is easy to feel helpless in the current political environment, but I believe that is unwarranted. While we might not like the current weather, together we can change the climate to reward leaders — and be the leaders — who uplift and unite, not denigrate and divide. Watch: The weather will start to improve, and that will make America greater. I am dedicating the rest of my professional life to this task.

Mr. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt,” from which this essay is adapted.

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