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The two bookends of life: Birth and Death - the certainty of uncertainty...

The two bookends of life: Birth and Death – the tension created by the frame they create fuels the creative impulse that drives life.”

  
Within each of us a need for certainty exists – a certainty that cannot exist in the world, as we know it. 

From this premise, we begin a journey to seek an uncertain truth that can only exist in faith.  Within the intuitive understanding of this concept, we begin our journey. 

The frame of Life created at Birth and ending with Death is a vertical boundary, open ended at each end. 

To travel beyond the vertical boundary is a matter of transcendence and, if we go beyond the frame, we go from the uncertainty of reality to the certainty of uncertainty.

We call that journey Faith and it cannot be resolved as long as we remain in the frame. 

Brother Giovanni 

From Brother Giovanni’s notes on the Seminary Lectures

“Good and evil begin with rationalization. It simply is easier to rationalize an excuse for evil rather than for good.” Pizzaonia proverb

Conjectures of a recovering dilettante as we continue to move west

 

 
Notes from Brother Giovanni Seminary lecture series

Much of the world’s horror exists in the name of good. It is amazing how much evil we do in the name of rationalized good.  

Moreover, once we rationalize the evil for good, the acceptance of so-called collateral damage becomes acceptable - anything goes as long as the rationalized good is accepted.

Eventually we see through the self-deception.  Even so, some of us will continue to look the other way.  Later, rather than sooner, we gather the individual and collective will to stop the evil.  We just cannot go on any longer and still have some pretense of conscience left. 

Then, and only then do we do something about it, but by then we have done the damage that only rationalized good can do. 

This seems to be the history of the human condition.

 

Are there times when everyone seems a little nuts to you?

  

 

Are there times

When everyone seems

A little nuts to you

Hopefully it’s not

You but your not sure

Maybe it’s the nature

Of the world today

 

Even though it is

Curious that up is

Down and down is

Up you vote for

One politician because

You don’t like the other

Guy and your guy

Becomes the other guy

 

Never could figure

Out why that happens

But campaigns are

Different and promise

Change and then

There’s the other guy

Again except this

Time he’s your guy

 

As I said everything

Seems a little nuts today

 
 

Excerpts from “Conjectures of a Recovering Dilettante”

 

What changed was baseball discovered it could make spring training an event and charge substantially for it.* from April 2011

 
If there is one thing you cannot help but notice in our so-called throw away culture is that we don’t throw as much away anymore, particularly when you can sell to someone what we used to throw away. You notice this with food, sports and entertainment. 

I was in the store the other day and I bought what I thought was a bag of pretzels.  But when I got home and opened the package, I noticed I had bought a bag of pretzel pieces.  

It wasn’t too long ago that when pretzels were being made the broken pieces were thrown away.  Now they are packaged in bright special packages and sold as a specialty product.  Nice work if you can get it. 

The more I got thinking about this, the coming baseball season came to mind. When I was kid spring training was where out of shape baseball players came to get ready for the season.  It was pretty casual, at least in the beginning, and for most people that showed up to watch, it was free, or almost so. 

This year the opening of spring training was treated like a minor version of the World Series. Players who did not perform well immediately were berated by the press and fans for being less than perfect. 

 
I can remember when some of the great pitchers in the game had trouble finding the plate, much less throwing strikes, when they first showed up for spring training, and no one was surprised.  It begs the question: What changed? 

What changed was baseball discovered it could make spring training an event and charge substantially for it.* Also, it became a bonanza for the tourist business in the areas that the teams trained.  

For baseball to pull this off, you need to charge big bucks and you need to have a better than average product to sell.  And that’s what spring training has become. In sports and entertainment today, casual practice properly packaged, is a saleable product. 

It would not surprise me if there are many plaguing injuries to ball players this year.  If there is, part of the reason is because they did not have the luxury of getting ready for the season.  Instead, like the bag of broken pretzels in shiny packages, they had to perform to unrealistic early expectations.  Play Ball! 

Brother Giovanni, PNS Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service

* Professional football was way ahead, as usual, on this one.

Who needs entertainment -- we are in the midst of a political campaign. Brother Giovanni, Pizzaonian News Service

 

Another day in Utopia... now you see it and now you don’t. 

Political campaigns in the United States are interesting.  We, the voters, allow politicians to say what we what them to say, fully appreciating the fact that they don’t mean any of it, and will do what ever they choose to do when elected. 

It is one of the interesting facets about American democracy -- the dismissal of accountability from the folks we elect.  The party that is out is given an edge because they can oppose everything, knowing full well they will not be held responsible for anything they say. 

This all changes of course when the outs become the ins - once elected you can feel free to break any promise you made.  After all, you are now responsible for what happens.  What serious voter would expect you to keep your promises? 

This all works because we the voters only have two choices. And most of us hold our noses when we vote. This supposedly makes American democracy very efficient – and that it does.  Unfortunately, it turns out not to be very democratic.

 

Brother Giovanni, Pizzaonian News Service

On the nature of politeness - politeness often masks the truth by diluting it.

 
What to say and how to say it has always been the problem.  To seek the polite way of communication, that is to speak with an acceptable voice that resonates with politeness and deference, is often the way of the coward. 

This may seem harsh to most, but I am amazed at how many times we hide behind politeness.  Since politeness is considered a virtue it becomes an insidious and convenient mask for cowardness.

The obvious problem is that politeness often masks the truth by diluting it and making it palatable, and in so doing it makes the truth less attainable.  Once this habit of politeness takes root it helps to establish a belief system that seems very comfortable with its delusion of heroic qualities. 

The problem is the truth can only be masked so long, and if you are very lucky, the sham you really are will finally appear in all of its glorious ugliness.  For many this is the beginning of their personal salvation.

 
Brother Giovanni, Pizzaonian News Service

DiVerti Mento keeps Brother Giovanni at Pizzaonian News Service!

 
As you know by now there has been a major shakeup at Pizzaonian News Service. Diverti Mento has been appointed News Director and I can assure you there will be major changes. (I am one of them.) 

DiMento, as he likes to be called, is an interesting figure in Pizzaonian folklore. Considered a passionate, unyielding mystic, he has always been on the fringe of Pizzaonian politics. 

One difference between Pizzaonia and Worldonia (United States) is while Pizzaonians are just as serious about their politics as you are, they know it to be a meaningless endeavor and consider it more as entertainment than anything else. 

Pizzaonians figured out a long time ago that everything runs its course with or without us, and if the system is sound it will usually survive the inevitable stupidity that is part of all political systems.

This type of existential angst or cynicism will seem very negative from an American perspective, but in the evolution of the Pizzaonian personality their cynicism produced an authenticity that gave way to a national integrity that now defines Pizzaonians. 

They see life as it is and remain unwilling to accept it passively. Instead, they choose to live life to the fullest with no grand  illusions as to outcomes.

  

This is the reason people like DiMento will occasionally rise to prominence in Pizzaonia. Since Pizzaonians see the process as pointless, why not let an unyielding mystic have a chance once in a while.  I can assure you it can be very entertaining if nothing else.  You would never let anything like this happen in the United States, or would you?

I am the first casualty of the new DiMento era.  Since many felt I needed to take a rest from the Pizzaonian main stream they needed a place for me.  Now you just don't push an ex Supreme Pizzaonian**aside, so with some reluctance, DiMento assigned me as a roving reporter for PNS.  

I am told I can write about any subject I choose.  I am looking forward to it and hoping to hear from some of you.  I know there is some interest in this strange place called Pizzaonia.   If you have any questions let me know, I will look forward to hearing from you.

 

Brother Giovanni, Reporter at Large, Pizzaonian News Service.

** http://giovanniandfranco.typepad.com/giovanniandfrancocom/2010/01/headmaster-brother-giovanni-proclaimed-as-supreme-pizzaonian.html

Diverti Mento, Pizzaonian Mystic, appointed director of Pizzaonian News Service. Major changes coming

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FROM:  PIZZAONIAN NEWS SERVICE (PNS)

 Contact:  Publicio Relationio at the PNS office of Public Relations at   PIZZAONIAN@YAHOO.COM 

 
SUBJECT:  Shake up at Pizzaonian News Service.  Major changes coming

In a major shakeup at Pizzaonian News Service, Brother Giovanni will no longer be Worldonian Bureau Chief for PNS.  No successor has been named at this time, but Diverti Mento, Pizzaonian Mystic, and newly appointed director of Pizzaonian News Service will name a new Chief soon. 

Mento, new to the news business is creating serious upheaval at PNS with his unorthodox methods of news reporting. 

Mento, who prefers to be called DiMento, is a disciple of the new school of reporting known as “Newsertainment” and is determined to make news the entertainment vehicle of the coming decade. 

“The notion that news is about news is long gone. Today’s reporting is about filling the void that the entertainment industry once filled. Our new policy is to leave them laughing or crying, that’s what Newsertainment is about,” said DiMento 

Brother Giovanni, relieved of all administrative duties, will be reassigned as a feature writer covering both Pizzaonian and Worldonian affairs.

 

Pizzaonian News Service where all the news is reported, whether it is news or not, without bias or inclination to check the facts.

 

 

A funny thing happened on the way to Utopia – reasonableness ceased being a virtue.

 

In these dire times, the President of the United States is being accused of failing to lead the country forcefully. 

Many seem to believe President Obama is not espousing positions some of his admirers/detractors believe he should be espousing.  He is not drawing lines in the sand.  In another words the President is being reasonable. 

When did reasonable become a liability?  It seems to me we are all better off when the leader of the free world who commands enormous power, politically and militarily, is a reasonable man. 

I suspect President Obama's wisdom is much too subtle for the electorate.  He will have to pay the price for his reasonableness. 

What he is demonstrating in these very troubling times is enormous confidence in the wisdom and institutions of the United States to lead us – something that is not currently in fashion. 

When the proverbial phone call comes to the president at three in the morning whom do you want to answer the phone? 

Would you prefer some of our current politicians who believe they have been endowed with uncompromising and unfailing truth – or a reasonable, intelligent man who will make the decisions that only reasonableness and faith will allow to be made? 

The choice is yours.

 

Brother Giovanni, Pizzaonian News Service, PNS

Conjectures of a recovering dilettante -- Busyness is the antithesis of self discovery.

 

It seems the meditative life is necessary if we are to discover our authentic selves.  Sooner or later we must confront the reality of the life we are leading and how it measures up to what we need to be. 

Busyness is the antithesis of self discovery. We live each day in frantic activity satisfying our false egos while our real self remains hidden in the shadows, crying out for discovery. 

Let’s hope each of us heeds that voice while we still can. 

Brother Giovanni, PNS

  The next question:  How do we live a meditative life and still meet our obligations?  Remember, I am a recovering dilettante.  I am searching for answers just like you are.