TONY ON HOW THINGS WORK & MORE

Including ABC Wednesday, Heads or Tails and Monday Poetry Train.
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POLLY TICKS – On sense and senselessness

I like learning what others have thought and done. The one leads to the other. It isn’t necessarily the case that thought and action are in the same person. Often it is a thinker who has the thought, and a whole society that continues with the action. This is, infact, the process of history and philosophy.

It can lead to sense and senselessness.

For instance, most of a scientific view see their paradigm as sense, whilst the religious view is senselessness. This does, of course, work the other way round, too.
This suggests that sense is not necessarily a definite, but a state of mind in itself. Thought, it seems, is needed to decide between the two – and never the twain shall meet. Which to me is insanity.

We can find little sense in Communism.

At least, we can’t how it turned out. It becomes repressive and totalitarian. Yet surely there is sense in the idea that we should all be equal? That people should share?
Of course it makes sense – as a sentiment, if not a reality. But why did it all go so wrong? Why did a beautiful foundation of Christianity in Jesus turn so many into mass murderers in his name? (If you disagree, think Witchhunts and many other atrocities).
I think the answer is this: there is usually a large degree of sense in any argument or stance. But then it all descends into senselessness when people decide it is the only way to think. Thinking is always right and sensible – but the fanaticism that arises from action from the thought is always senseless and wrong.

© Anthony North, February 2009

My Columnists

HEALTH NEWS: A drug which seems to erase painful
memories has been developed. Scrap it! We are our
joys AND our pain. We are NOT machines.
*
HEALTH NEWS: Row ‘cos heavy drinkers get 1 in 4 liver transplants.
We are in dark days when people try to decree med treatment by
lifestyle.
*
GREEN NEWS: Scientist warns effect of warming to be worse than
thought. But the importance is in the message. Poorer, we’ve lost
the agenda.
*
SCI NEWS: Love of fatty, salty, sugary food down to evolution.
So, not our fault? Oh, yes it is! Needed for survival in past. No
excuse now.
*
BIZ NEWS: Drugs co GSK to offer cheap meds to world’s poor?
Good move, but why? In bad times builder takes cheap work to
keep ticking over.
*
BRIT NEWS: 2 issues. Parents not curbing bad kids. GPs’ bonus
for giving kids contraceptive without telling parent.
Responsibility blurred?
*
BRIT NEWS: New hospital computer system causing havoc
and heartache. A case of too much tech and treating
patients as cogs. They’re people!

Find fiction, poetry and sayings on comment 1 below.

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THE PHILOSOPHY

To know is to empower

**********

E is for … ESCHATOLOGY

I’m telling you now, it has been said,
The time will come when we’re all dead,
It won’t be nice, it’ll hurt a bit,
It doesn’t matter if you’ve true grit;
Written often, such tales of woe,
Of End Times, when the gods say no,
Man is inspired to miraculous things,
Haunted by death, how we reach the sting;
Essential to how we live our life,
Our myths of death must be rife,
Telling what comes after our last breath,
‘Cos we’re a damned long time in death

(c) Anthony North, February 2009

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THE LEGEND – Fiction

‘He was a legend,’ said Jim.
Fred agreed: ‘He was that.’
Jim continued: ‘When he did what he did …’
Paul stepped in: ‘He didn’t do it, though.’
Jim and Fred both looked, agog: ‘What do you mean, he didn’t do it?’
‘Well, he didn’t,’ said Paul.
‘He did,’ said Fred.
‘How do you know,’ said Paul. ‘You weren’t alive.’
‘But.’
Jim butted in: ‘You’ll be saying next he didn’t even live here.’
‘He didn’t,’ said Paul.
Fred asked: ‘So where did he live?’
‘How would I know,’ said Paul. ‘I just know he didn’t live here.’
‘So who did it, then?’ asked Fred.
‘No one,’ said Paul.
‘What do you mean, no one?’ asked Jim.
‘I mean it never happened,’ said Paul.
‘It must have,’ said Jim. ‘I do it myself. I do it because he inspired me to.’
Paul smiled. Said: ‘I think that’s the point.’

© Anthony North, February 2009

TONY’S POETRY CHAIN
Call back Wed. See it grow.

Totally Optional Prompts – Search Engine Stories
ReadWritePoem – Three Word Wednesday
Weekend Wordsmith

THE REWARD

To play a part, an actor’s dream,
To feel like him, see what he’s seen,
No greater reward can come our way,
Other demons to try to slay,
Your mind is open to other thoughts,
To not do this, life is naught

A DIFFERENT LIFE

I play a role upon the stage,
To let him in, assuage,
Filling my head with what he does,
A mad man! What’s that buzz?!!
The curtain down; it’s over, I’m alone,
But he’s still there! I’m taking him home

OVER THE HILL

On one side sanity, the other insane,
A normal life I try to feign,
A hill between two different minds,
I stand on top, trying to define,
Below me the conflict of my troth,
I feel I’m falling, but down which slope?

DEDARY’S HERE

Dedary’s here, he’s in my mind,
For a long time he was undefined,
Wasn’t really sure whether he was of me,
Doubts abounded on my sanity;
Is our mind a coordinated whole,
Or a mish-mash of people from a great big hole,
Of universal stuff, archetypal kin,
Making us sane, or making us sin?

THE NEXT PART

An actor I am, I play many a role,
The last one, I took home his soul,
Quite a risk he was, to my sanity,
At first candid, then he ate my tea,
But now, on impulse, I am back on the stage,
Playing a timely, wise old Sage,
And I do believe the soul has gone,
But …
Oh dear! I’ve caught another one

(c) Anthony North, February 2009

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