Le Lapin

First-off, one of my Italian friends told me that title: a bad truth is better than a good lie. Secondly, always site your sources is a guide, or code-of-conduct that scares some folks. The question I often wonder is: why?

So let’s hang out with a foray into language for a few minutes today. Letting go of the emotional trigger valve the words “truth” and “lie” have in service of looking at a balloon expelling air while puttering around the room to land in a heap. A balloon absent of hot air looks like what it is: an inert, plasticky material. That’s the truth about a balloon and yet when it doesn’t have air in it….it just lies there. Aside from this banal look at a balloon having a bunch of other undeniable aspects about its existence, its origin, its potential to be inflated, to be popped.

So now we have a relatable mental object conjured by words, that balloon situates itself as a metaphor for beloved potential as a union of what something is and could be. And since things are mutable and changeable, perception and perspectives real aspects of human life to examine and weigh, this phrase my Italian friend said grabbed my attention. What it did was take the hot air out of situations I had allowed myself to get mental about. And when things get too ontologically mental, reality seems to lose its sense of realness. Avoiding the rhetorics love of antagonistic nihilism: debating the existence of reality itself, perhaps a balloon metaphor is a terrible choice of representative subject matter.

Which makes this statement about truth and lies sticky at times. The truth was, a balloon seemed like a great way to talk about something simultaneously complex and simple, and it ended up being a bit of garbage. Sorry about that.

There’s plenty of garbage on the internet. So perfect, now we accidentally landed cosily situated in a contemporary context. There is another thing everyone seems to be able to agree on today: the world has gone mad! As if it was not always that way?

Perhaps the tussle is that a being in the world involves carrying around a filtration system. This filtration system is most physically the diaphragm and the complexity of the nervous system which becomes processed in both the body and the brain. That filtration system is grossly misunderstood and mystifies many who attempt to study it. The filtration system is assumed to be consciousness, or the mind, but that dear friends is a story humans made up and believe. There is a gross breadth and depth we have yet to uncover when it comes to the filtration system, sometimes referred to as the immune system. The business of breathing and thought are noted for being entirely hamperable- and not in the sense of where you put your dirty clothes, but in the sense that it can be hampered with.

You see a fun thing of being not well is learning about things that is not common knowledge and figuring out how to make sense of it all. And in the making sense of knowledge, the well can form again. Great to be well! Much more fulfilling experience of life to be well than unwell. So when something doesn’t really make sense, things are a bit like a cubist painting, that does not really say much about how reality itself is, but more the way the perceiver makes it to be; or in the case of art, the way the artist makes it out to be. And in the case of reality, when reality seems like a schizoid image, then there really is something that is not quite lining up. Perhaps it could be something emerging into awareness, perhaps it could also be a distortion…or a manipulation of reality.

Interesting perspectives and perceptions and all, the aspects of being and becoming have deeply punctured the ideological realm and has now birthed realities littered with a growing numbers of camper vans on streets, people trying to kick other people out of libraries for stickers they don’t like on someone else’s property, and making assumptions about people they know nothing about their life based on conclusions drawn on appearance. Just to name a few. These kinds of things seemed impossible to happen; it’s almost as if parts of society have circled back into history and decided to a mass reenactment.

So when the way things are, and the way things go, do not add up to what is thought about them humans can do a few things: adjust, adapt, be wrong, change, (help me out here, probably a few more choices are available).

Onward and back to the bad ballon metaphor for a minute. (A subjective and not truthful statement there-for the record.) The thing about truth and lies are that people seem to get really confused about why discerning which-is-which matters. That part really befuddles me because we do live in material world (Thanks Madonna. The pointy cone bra wearing one, not the saintly looking one). Personally, when I take stock of history, I started to notice some patterns. Those patterns began to look like very few whoopsies and a lot more of on-purposeies. Water mammals aside, one of the aspects of what is described as human process, is that ideas and results can indeed be incongruent. Taking that into consideration, there still seems to be not so many accidents but instead a people doing things on purpose. So when it comes to figuring out who inflated a balloon, a bunch of finger pointing gets started and keeps going. I again wonder: why? Why is it so hard to be wrong? To own that and move along?

Since all that finger pointing doesn’t really help get to the truth. Not even in court. I would wager someone knows at least on person who was unjustly labelled, and people who get away with indiscretion. Maybe today we all get on with a great deal of bad judgement because we have so many comforts available to us.

I mean really, if you ever try to go on a fast for a week and function normally with whatever constitutes your life, be it family and work, the question of comfort becomes quickly notable.

So that we are permitted so many opportunities for bad judgement, this must mean we have a forgiving society. A body of compassionate and forgiving people. Perhaps that also means we have a body of people who lured young and naive minds into a trap as well. And could things like this be considered the truth?

Getting to the truth, which might also evolve and change throughout the course of life, or hell, a short newsletter blast, perhaps truth is so difficult because humans are incorrigibly prone to seek conformity. This was one of the most mind-bending, cognitive dissonant qualities of studying social psychology. And I had to double check the transcript because I kept accidentally lying and called the study sociology. The difference matters because when it comes to the truth and a lie, the truth is what persists even in the face of a lie.

The weird thing about lie, means to assume a horizontal position. Which seems like a great time to take a philosophical breather and gaze upon a horizontally oriented image. And for the record, you are not my only sunshine. That song always seemed a bit unbalanced to me.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

Some cookies ago (if you’re new here, cookie is the lingo for newsletter), there was mention of The Cookie Jar’s roots. Not to get all anthropogenically obsessed, but instead to tie (or untie) a knot and cast off. Since this cookie is geared to think about the ways the past remains in the present, the audio includes a pretty concise taste of the sort of observations you’ll find here.

There are a few social behaviours I’ve noticed lately; an aversion to vocabulary, a contortion of vocabulary usage, and so I’m just going to reach back to the past for a moment to invite you to hang out with ChicagoNow radio broadcast with Alex Quigley and Amy Guth. Because memory lane isn’t always about showing off or signalling virtue, but rather about getting to know each other and an opportunity to admit how wrong I was to have ever not realized how amazing every day and situation has been and is. Much in the way people have conversations with each other across continents is weird, maybe listening to an old radio broadcast is weird, but you know one thing The Cookie Jar can probably be promised to be- a bit weird :)

Two months ago now seems like last year, in the same sense the attached WGN recording from 11 years ago feels like yesterday. And maybe that’s because time and human development is not linear. (Rhetorically, do we need science to show us how time is not linear?)

I know; I get it. If you’re still here, I do consider myself lucky. Tossing out words that could require a dictionary used to signal intelligence, but today probably doesn’t mean that since there are apps for Etymology, Dictionaries, and Thesaurus’s (which should still probably be referred to as Thesaurai for joy’s posterity).

The last I checked in with folks, some are feeling pretty bummed out, and also pretty bossy. So I thought I would try my hand at some sass and get a bit cheeky on offering some sound bites on addressing the kind of society we live in and the sort of situations we may want to actually be living in.

That’s a broad invite, so let’s get a bit cosier here. Two folks settle in for a chat over some tea. Imagine whatever weather you like. When in a conversation, a word arises one person knows, doesn’t know or misuses. Some folks will nary bat an eyelash and look it up later. Some folks will halt the oration and ask. Some folks will roll their eyes. These are behavioural choices.

So that if someone wants to understand the speaker better, they usually ask a question. If that person is seeking approval in some fashion or rather play a pretend game, they may not ask or roll their eyes. These kind of social behaviours are invisible in that they do not actually have a tangible “thing” to point at, they are ghosts in that they exist in the realm of perception, or sense and cognition.

Sure, understanding the audience is important, but then I have to really wonder, do people want to be talked down to in small words? Or do people want to rise to the occasion to learn. I grew up with the notion learning was, bluntly put, good. A learning orientation is not so much of a mindset, but rather an outlook on life that affords greater creative choice. Other behaviours leave little room for choice and can quickly become victim-y.

The thing about writing The Cookie Jar that’s quite different than The Art of Advice is that I allowed doubt to join the mix; I welcomed not knowing (perhaps to an extent even I am not comfortable with) to mingle in with some certainty.

And while each Cookie sent out is a bit tricky because most subscribers are also coming along for an unknown ride, I send this trips down memory lane on good faith. As I am for freedom of speech, I am also for freedom of thought. And what was said, was said. And done. The past is present. Even today, in its recorded form. But the past doesn’t have to condemn the future, here on the Cookie Jar, or even broadly in society.

Individually, we all get to choose the behaviours we engage in, the ways we care about each other, what we watch, listen, read, dance, eat, whatever. Since I really do not want The Cookie Jar to become another Art of Advice, I solemnly swear this is the last audio blast from the past. From here we cast off acknowledging the past, not denying it nor trying to rewrite it. Ciao until next time!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

Work with all you have, from where you are, to create the most beauty of all you are.

This motto, I am not sure where it came from, but it is what fuels my personal connection to the creative circuit. Where the writing comes from, I could not really say, but that the first draft is sometimes the best one. Sometimes the last of the 1000th time is the best take. Here in this recording is the first full-take of recording this poem to a melody. Though this was first written and recorded in 2018, Oslo, Norway, I thought I would share it with you this week. A week of renewal and reflection. While tumult seems to drive the world, there’s a deeper, slower moving, and softer movement happening. My hope is this message will invite ears to that space of peace and levity.

The Dark Makes the Stars Go Mad

its the dark

that makes the

stars

shine bright

we light off crackers

into the night

drawing lines

in the sand

boxes

from where we stand

we hope

our lines last

a lifetime

(when we sleep)

the tide comes

and takes

those lines

away

round and round

we circle

hoping

the rest

can

play along

but boo

you’ve been good

ra ra

you’ve been bad

and it’s the dark

that makes the stars go mad

we will our lives

between these moments

of ritual

claiming sanity

in the sand

we sink our feet

and sea

we a see a sea

we count the stars

and run away

from all the dark

drawing lines of right

and rules for wrong

when we all know

what gives life

what takes

all along

its the dark

that makes the

stars

go mad

just as all musicians

for all times

have always sang

truth

a song

its only for a

short time

we hold it conscience

and call it consciousness

raising up celebrities

to wave some flags

but the truth

you hold in your heart

what makes it break

what leaves its scars

boo

you’ve been good

ra ra

you’ve been bad

its the dark

that makes the stars

go mad

to feel light

we counter

it's not here

to stay

but out there

to say

boo

you’ve been good

ra ra

you’ve been bad

and it is the stars

that make

the dark go mad.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

A summary just shy of two-minutes establishing two-decades of critical distance. Thank you for attuning to a fleeting fantasy of the creative tension between desire and excitement. The early 2000’s does not seem to long ago.

P.S. The warmth of seeing action to subscribe is fueling my bravery. Thank you. The paid-only posts are coming soon. They are perhaps even a bit more weird.

P.P.S. Questions and comments welcome.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

This is the first year on recall to be experiencing autumnal resistance. The harvest seasons of deepening colours past, crisp breezes free from summer’s bug swat punctuations could have never lasted long enough. But this year I find my cheek turning away from the inevitable change of seasons in the northern hemisphere, while ruminating on whether or not people change.

The futility of writing on a subject as inevitable as change mirrors the ongoing conversations in my life off-screen. Existing within social media and real life, viewers are presented with real challenges in discerning the value of screen based opinions.

Four years might as well read for years, because the subject of change has little regard for time. A week or a decade are allegedly known quantities to frame time with, but do little to convince me time past is enough proof to truly know whether or not change is possible. How someone is usually has more to do with the internal terrain and less with how one may appear. In a screen-based culture, when what appears begins to supplant what is, the media of story telling begins to replace what is. This ideal-reality conflict floats successfully between virtual and actual reality. Change then is not merely the passing of seasons, but an unfolding and coming to terms with the actual expressions of life as they are, not as they are imagined.

Could it be that Change is an impoverished choice of word? The sense of change amounts to a mode of transition in a method of learning. Change occurs not with more information, but with more understanding. I often wonder how much assuredness people seem to exhibit is what gives them the permission to assume knowing what is best for another. While I cannot seem to be able to tell myself, scarcely anyone else what conclusion should be drawn, maybe this points towards my own ineptness? or reticence to jump on the bandwagon. Therefore as I pull on the reigns of the inevitable changes of season, I send out this letter as a signal, an invitation to draw back the curtains, put a pause on beliefs, and supplant a bit of doubt to slow down the galloping horses of sureness.

Who exactly is coming along with you, within you? How many times have you accepted something that did not sit right with you? or did not speak up because those who question common belief with discerning inquisition incite violence? In the rise of cultural war, the choice to hate is one that can easily sweep up anyone and land them in a field of justified acceptance in group. The choice to remain still and within a space of love in such a conflicted time requires additional courage and bravery.

Since we are responsible not for what others do, but for what we do, then those actions reflect on the internal partnership within each individual. Within each person are who they are, which sometimes gets dollied up with who they think they are, or fogged up by a bank of opinions. And since people live in relationship with each other, who they think they are is not always who they really are.

These kinds of questions may incite momentary pause but this kind of pause may require a few trips around the sun to acquiesce to. The truth of what you are and what you are doing is more of an acquired tasted than a saccharine rush. Can you be alone, free from feeling lonely? Can you withhold head nodding long enough to not only listen? but hear what someone is saying?

There’s this hard to argue saying I had found myself nodding along to for awhile: Nothing new under the sun. This phrase offered a taste of certitude, an assurance to lean into during my discomfort with ambiguity. The phrase throws a broad stroke over an expansive horizon of nourishing detail and discernment. The magnitude of never ending newness often generating itself from loss made the practice of forming platitudes such as Nothing new under the sun made lending the dark corners of my mind to tidy falsehoods less alluring.

Another saying: love eventually wins, thorn scratched body and all, tastes a bit like another phrase about beauty having a longer incubation period. In what appears to some as choice paralysis, looks to others as dogma, and to others as ritualistic tribalism. These views of people and life are cognitive acrobatics made up of discomfort with ambiguity.

Within this menagerie of words is the invitation to allow yourself be, for a moment today or throughout these transitional weeks, a more slowly moving creature through a field of the unknown. By embracing resistance or acceptance and the myriad of felt experiences with curiosity, that field of unknowns offers all the richness that running through or leaping to conclusions kept you from. And no one can tug on those strings within you, without your permission. You are the chooser of who comes along within and with you. At the end of the day we remain not with who we like in the mirror or not, but with knowing our hands and what connect to the heart.

Piano melody composed during Autumn 2017 by Rachel Wolfe for an exhibition in Oslo, Norway.

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Listening as a sense and practice creates values, actualised tonal ranges in the realm of matter. While rarity tends to determine value, the listening sense has a richness to do with the way communication settles within the listener and the eventual ways in which those sounds form into the actions made with life.

Hearing becomes compromised in a damaged system. The human body is, a delightful and sometimes confounding, physiological system. Such a system can be compromised by pre-conception or mis-conception. These near misses, when examined deeply can become damn things drawing attention when there are other exquisite connections to be noticed all-around. Tunnel vision has cohort: tunnel hearing While listening to sounds through a tunnel can be reminiscent of play, tunnel hearing has to do with the refracted nature at which sounds are transmitted as measurable wavelengths and then as biological impulses in the human physiological system.

Little fun fact: the interiors of the cables connecting continents for communication actually have little refractors inside. Why fun-ni? The reality of that material is often congruous with the fractured (by time or understanding) experience of international communication. That gap can be regarded in so many ways, and as a matter of mind, up to the psyche doing the driving in the listening.

The matter of sound eventuates as a matter of mind and potentially as a matter in physical life. Potential often becomes conflated with actual. So, let’s take a breath and remember helium balloons eventually fall, so some potentials are predictable and known, and others may not happen at all. Sound heard has been prioritised as having the value, which often fails to recognise the sounds missed. How much sound is discerned affords what and how much can be done with the transmission.

The formation of clear thought has a well established responsibility of both the orator and the listener. Bad speakers are easier to spot than bad listeners because their sound gives them away. But a bad listener? Often a bad listener is considered so because they are a bad performer, or a bad order taker which is a whole other realm to deal with.

Within the subtle everyday, sometimes mundane, sometimes more important, what is heard has discongruity with what is thought to have been heard. That matter of mind, the land of pre-and-mis conception: A battle realm and not a generative one.

Clear oration often meets bad listening. Peculiarly enough bad listening often partners with blaming and we land back in the land of pre-and-mis conception. Such fuzz, a between channels cacophony, clearly solidifies more disharmony.

These days one doesn’t have to say much, doesn’t even have to disagree, but only pause before responding or ask a question to witness how willing and ready folks are for a fight. Doubt anyone is immune from having performed that behavior at least once, so let this not be a matter of handing medals out but a memory these matters of density are a matter of psyche and the sounds.

While the wonder of strange times is not that they are horrendous or wonderful at all, but why people keep performing the same bad listening expecting different tones and densities as a result. Colloquialisms can often be fun for people those paying attention, deep listening, and often quite annoying for the pre-and-mis conceived densities.

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Alright, this is happening; again, kinda, but in a different way. For years I kept hearing people making noise at me about publishing more about the adventures that came up along the timeline I’m riding, and stuff that comes out of my mouth in conversations with folks that could actually be recorded somewhere to be useful to someone else. And because I hear, usually ultra-well, that message got in. And now this motor is puttering into action.

For a lot of reasons that sound like excuses now, I published stuff here and there. Spreading out content in various platforms on the internet. It got exhausting. Folks kept asking me for stuff, that left me wondering where in the heck do the posts on the internet go to? It’s not entirely their fault for when asked about those posts I was already tired. As an avid over-thinker, the stuff I’m sorting out can wear me out, but because I have a Midwestern streak in me I cannot shake myself free from, I have to respond to each.and.every.person because I value human connection. Not as fluff, but truly. Actually, and I have things to say about that; I really do.

Things like, why do people assume if you said, honestly now, that you were not clarifying you might be near saying something that could offend them and you want to deliver a perspective that is true- at least at that time.

So here we are, an unceremonious start to getting it all together. As this newsletter starts, it might be a bit memory-laneish. You have been warned. What comes after will be a bit more from the intersection of the past and future, with occasional reaches in either direction.

So what does it mean to Get it together. For now it means I am pulling off content from the corners of the internet into this space. It means the journal entries page over > here < is going to become even more of a visual archive than this > timeline <. I feel better knowing I’m addressing these letters to real life people, several of whom have some > art < or > scarves < or been in some lengthy dialogue about death and life with, and perhaps some of you/their friends too.

True it is I started post-college work writing. True it is I did a lot of other jobs before writing, such as washing golfer’s dishes and account executive’s houses, house/pet sitting, and still do all kinds of > labor < creatively, technically, service and learning oriented as needed; it has been about a decade or so since publishing words on The Art of Advice for ChicagoNow. Slowing down a bit instead of skipping, more on that the next round.

You’ll get a bit of a hint of what’s to come, because I don’t like to scare people more than I already seem to, and you can also rest assured this will be nothing like advice, and a lot more like…you know, I don’t really know what. And that is kind of the point here, to not make sharp points. This is not a jousting arena or wrestling circle. So thank you for joining in this newfangled letter writing business without a shorter post-address. I’ll give my best to make this getting it together more worth your time than the spreading too thinly peanut butter, marmite, pesto, or whatever you put on your toast across social media. Cheers; and ciao for now!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe