Decoding my blather and other detritus

I do tend to become voluable at a moments notice and such things need fair warning. That is a fact of my life now... the days of speaking much through speaking little and concisely appear to be over for me, although reverting to older styles of language appears to be some part of my mind's attempt to do that. No idea why, that part now works independently of oversight trying to construct a workable thinking capacity out of the ruins of its predecessor. The grand edifice is gone, now, so I make do with a little hovel and let my mind do as it will to see if it can make something better.

And as it does so, I think it best to give a quick bit on some of the phrases I use and their meaning. If, I can keep it down to something less than an encyclopedia.

First off is Greyness and all of that. It is taken from Babylon 5 and the Minbari Grey Council. Although a Council for the three Minbari Castes, made to help guide the entire race, the conception of it as standing between the outer darkness and the light of civilization is a generalized one. I see all of that which represents civilization and knowledge and the goodness within us all as the Light... the Darkness is a form of chaos, disunity, and seething that seeks destruction only to build. The Light is a form of order, but it is also compassion and much else to me. Some get so used to looking deeply into the light that when they look away and see a dim figure to the side they cast aspersions upon it, thinking it dark. In truth it is one of the Gray. Those who stand as Gray know much of the goodness of the Light and decide that it is worth protecting... worth saving... lest chaos snuff it out for good and all. I have seen much good in many and in many more than some slight ill, but so long as we work together then the light will not waver and it shall not fall. Once accustomed to seeing else but light the perceptions adjust and we see the Shadows cast into the Darkness, fading darker and darker still until they disappear. And by looking we see that this Dark consumes, encroaches and destroys in many different ways. But the one thing it cannot do properly is *build*.

There is a second Grayness in my life, however. When afflicted with cerebral atrophy which tripped off latent genetic tendancies, my sleeping patterns became disrupted and resting sleep disappeared from my life. With cataleptic attacks and some underlying narcolepsy, the borders between the Dreaming and the Waking have grown cloudy. Medication has curbed my attacks, but reality no longer has a crispness to it that it once had and light Gray of Dreaming slips through at the fringes. I read the Sandman Comics as I grew older and enjoyed them greatly as they offered a wonderfully 'other' view of all we saw. The Entire cast of characters from the Endless to God and Gods of many stripes and kinds to Lucifer to Cain and Abel to various mortals made the entire DC universe come alive in a way that was not only novel but entirely unique in my experience. The comics, themselves, revolve around Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming lands where we each spend our nightly sojourns. And while it is the Domain of Morpheus, the Dreaming has its own force and motion that none may gainsay, although Morpheus may constrain. If he gets to know about it.... so no real rest for me since October or November of 2004. Sleep, yes. But not awaking rested and refreshed. Fatigue is a huge problem for me since then.

So when I say that "I stand my ground on Grayness and hold fast here." It is a statement of defending my grasp on reality and that light that comes from each of us who know the greater Light. The ground was not mine to choose, but is all mine now... as the saying goes, 'Many are called, but few are chosen.' So called I stand upon my ground of Gray at the intersection of Light and Dark, Dreaming and Waking.

Now, as to my tagline: A Jacksonian. I thank Mr. den Beste for doing such fine work on bringing that to the attention of many some years back. At some point I will give my personal experience of how I see it, but let me say that without Mr. den Beste I would still be trying to put my finger on exactly how I think and feel. While a part of my mind is in ruins, the part that is Jacksonian is extremely solid.

What I am *not* politically, is conservative, liberal nor any other damn thing. Some have thought that they could pin me down and say: "You believe X so you must believe Y, they are all part of the same thing." Mostly, I give those folks the Free Dumb Look.

A bit more aggravating are those that go on and on and on about some pet thing of theirs, be it religion or politics or rubber ducks, explaining something ad nauseum and then, seeing how I have been smiling and nodding my head will say: "Well I convinced you, right?" To those I politely say, "No" and give the Free Dumb Look. Now, some do get taken aback by that and actually take offense! No, really!! I just do not understand that...

The third in this series of people who believe something so deeply that they can go on about it at high blood pressure risk for hours are those that not only take offense but *want* to start an argument over it. Strangely enough, I do not like arguments. Even stranger is that I will decline them. Even when aspersions are cast upon me of cowardice, evil, etc. If so bothered continuously I may actually turn and in a flat tone of voice give the reply of The Prisoner. If you have never seen Patrick McGoohan's short series of that name, then you have missed out on some of the best and strangest hours of television. It deals with an attempt by a microcosm of society known as The Village to extract all that makes one single individual an individual and to have that person conform completely to society, in every way. To do so it must extract precious information from him that concerns his reasons for resigning from a spy agency. The Villagers have no names, only numbers, to help break them of the idea that they are special. His number is 6, with all that evokes. And as each leader of The Village, Number 2, tries different schemes to get him to submit to the will of the society, the response, in its many forms, all mean the same. And so, this is what those who wish to push and make me conform get:

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

And so it goes. I leave it at that and say no more. Some want to yell and rant at that. Some claim they are not doing any of those things. Some spew further invective and vituperation and generally raise their blood pressure even higher. If you cannot accept that someone may have different ways of thinking, of looking at things and of approaching life, then exactly what honor are you awarding yourself to continue on thusly?

One final note on such things: standing in the land of many Gray, from what I see one may claim to be doing the work of Light, but by their stance and attitude be seen as more than just a bit Dark. The more forceful the invective, the Darker your cast becomes in my eyes. I do my best to treat honorably and well to any I meet. I admit to many faults in my life and my thoughts. I speak up when speaking needs be done and in tight and controlled ways so I can try to get my point across. I am *not* trying to remake the world into my own view and I want no one to stand at the intersection I stand in. I do not seek the perfect, nor claim that things I speak of are even *good*. What I try to see is making things *better* for as many as possible. Perfection is a horror and an end to change... as a Citizen of the United States I take the founding concept of trying to make 'a more perfect Union' seriously. The work of a Republic is *never* done, and my only hope is to make it just a bit better so that what I think can be built upon.

How I used to think, I can only describe as a Systems Analyst in all parts of life. To me there was no such thing as an isolated problem. Instead there were a series of forces and changes and routines and vectors that all led to a problem arising, and if one did not understand the system that created the problem, then there was no way to properly address that problem to actually change the system so that it would not arise again. To do otherwise was to, possibly, make a problem cease, but cause a new and worse problem elsewhere. When I was asked to help solve a problem, I would usually start asking questions about things that were apparently and completely unrelated to that problem. In fact my mind was accessing my storehouse of knowledge and system types and fitting together the surrounding system... and parts were missing, things I did not know or comprehend about subsidiary things. It was how I lived, breathed and viewed the world.

The best explainer of this is James Burke and his Connections series. That one series made absolute and positive sense to me and was the first description anywhere that came close to how I think. Growing up with that series let me know that others could outline how I thought and give it a life that I never could. A problem is part of something larger and when you pull on part of that larger construct the entire construct shifts in response, and how it shifts is determined by each of its components and how it interacts with other parts, recursively outwards and inwards and in strange directions I cannot describe. When asked to solve a problem I did my best not to *just* fix it, but to address the entire system so the problem would not come back nor a new one arise from the change. Some part of my mind does so to this day, but the intermediary parts between it and my conscious direction are gone, so it works somewhat undirected and does as it will. So I can think strange thoughts and only feel them shift and move, but no longer know what they mean.

Lovely.

Part of the reason I love the Constitution so dearly is that it is a clearly described SYSTEM. It is so clearly described that I can actually keep the entirety of that structure in my head at one time and see how it works and how parts interact. It is a tiny system to me. But like a tiny diamond it glitters and sparkles with internal reflections and is impossible to *scratch*.

I grow overly fatigued, I may add here or in another posting at some future time. Just had to say a few things that needed to be said.