teach me to care and not to care

I have always been disastrous at selling myself. Mostly I have been disinterested. I have grasped my personal pleasures in poetry, music and learning and proceeded. But in the age of appearances, I am at best an enigma, an original which defies easy categorization.

Actually I think I share defying categorization with all humans. We are each of us unique.

But it is the reductivity with which we are sometimes prone to view each other these days that confuses me. We want to understand each other in a reality show typology or how we fit in to advertisingl understandings of gender, beauty and intelligence.

This seems to leave little room for an person like myself who attempts to lead with the lamentable idea that ability and knowledge has its own value and reward.

But I am susceptible when ignored to a bit of reflection. Hence, the dubious self obsessed nature of this blog.

More and more I find myself losing interest in those around me whose preoccupations seem so narrow and who do not communicate to me a sense of clarity or even honesty. Not that I see myself as able to be clear or even trust my own honesty. It’s just that I blunder in with attempts. This often makes it worse so I try to temper my behavior and appear as calm and unthreatening as possible.

I had to attend a church meeting last night. At the end of a day of trying to take it easy, it unfortunately jazzed up this introvert so much so that when I came home I was unable to relax and slept badly. The meeting went fine. I just am unable to stop my brain from buzzing.

Teach me to care and not to care.

This from “Ash Wednesday.” I have set these words in a little cantata I wrote long ago.

1. Rap Lyrics on Trial – NYTimes.com

it is easy to conflate these artists with their art. It becomes easier still when that art reinforces stereotypes about young men of color — who are almost exclusively the defendants in these cases — as violent, hypersexual and dangerous

2. The Flood Next Time – NYTimes.com

Archeological impact of meteors and other cool stuff on the East Coast of the USA.

3. This Is Not About Texting: A Story of Movies, Men and Violence | Criticwire

A self confessional look at why men are stupidly violent and why they probably shouldn’t have a gun in their pocket.

4. The Rumpus Review Of Inside Llewyn Davis – The Rumpus

I’m a sucker for any review that uses the ouroboros.