Powders, Potions and Pills
(Part One)
powders and potions
prescribed relief and release
it's the cunning of Anubis
a last resort perception
an elegy whistled in C minor
transcribed to a canary trance beat
tattooed and trumpeted ... chirped
from the spires of our prison oasis
gates keep the monsters out
shield those already inside
the mirage is an elevated foxhole
for fearful true-believers
still ... the whisper of liberation
moves iconoclasts and malcontents
to rub out binary walls
blur the holographic battlements
I came across the quote from Carl Sagan. Sagan to me epitomized the blend of scientists and philosopher.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson once lamented the loss of great minds to philosophy, suggesting they should have instead chosen science. Here is the thing, Neil-Baby.
If science was entirely harm free then you would be right; but since humans are not entirely harm-free; as such any science done by them is likewise: the atomic bomb, thalidomide, mustard gas. The science-bad list is long. We absolutely do need philosophers, psychologists, and bio-ethicists. Dare I offer, even Poets.
Thomas Kuhn, another great scientist/philosopher, understood that as great as science is; it's great; it is encased in the paradigm of the mind. The mind can be beautiful, loving, and it can be downright insane, hateful, and harmful.
So we created a system of controls for science to foster objectivity; the Scientific Method; a system that is being largely ignored in favor of marketing and narrative maintenance and mis-science.
We created ethical discourse to trouble shoot out any harm science might do; created charters and constitutions to protect us from those possible harms.
Now many, many who call themselves human rights supporters, are insisting those charters and right be ignored; the most fundamental one, bodily autonomy, and by extensive intellectual autonomy.
Powders, Potions, and Pills
(Part Two)
wake-up and shut up
free will is for the thoughtless
the speechless and wonder-bound
fears, anxieties, and hatreds
insistence, movements, and protests
keep All mouthy godlings in chains
the higher-ground, then ... find the higher ground
angels sprout wings and perch
avatars shed their code
silver-wired gilding ... cast off
in a millennium of fall-out flurries
until only
fluid, undulating string and particles
remain aloft but buried
in suspended gravity wells
still ... some never will
the noisy somnambulists
see only the staticky chaos of white noise
hear only the cacophony of radio decay
We continue to underestimate the power of fear; particularly the power it can have to basically obliterate our good intentions; to have us put our faith in any monster or monster hiding behind the facade of good will and science.
Greedy, greedy, monsters.
The truly terrified will believe any polished promise to deliver them from fear and believe long after observable phenomenon should have wisened them up, long after the less terrified have caught onto the con. When you are terrified, you have literally lost your senses, and if you lose the con; the mind is conditioned to believe you will lose everything. The mind believes it is fighting for its life.
Powders, Potions, and Pills
(Part Three)
I watch and reflect
my ruthless pen whetted
the chief judge
my gavel and score card
raised and on ready
the priest physician
with powders and potions
pickie dust and phials
and a practiced bedside manner
liberally meted and sprinkled about
in the other hand
sits my accomplice
the master redactor
a sharp, shiny knife
cutting my words
powders and potions
into pill-sized tablets
soon to be consumed
assimilated
by the ravenously afraid
you aren't no where
you've been here before
When you boil it down to its essence. We get lost in fear, blinded; desperately so; the scientific charlatans promise to deliver us from what most of us, especially us intellectual types, fear the most ... not knowing. Alas not knowing the path ahead comes with the territory of discovery and the practice of science.
Those of us who have done the work of truly facing our fears, know the only remedy to fear is embracing that not-knowing; it also come with the territory of forging ahead with science.
48 of 81
A cluttered mind is full
Piled upon, piled upon
Damned up, blocked
Only the recently thought
readily-available
Link to Spoken Word
Free of prejudice, opinion
The master sees the flow of all things
From all sides
Attached to no dam of thought, opinion
He does not struggle against the Tao
He will go far, learn much, and know nothing
Immersed in the ever-changing wisdom of the Tao
***
Words and Images are my own.
Powders, Potions, and Pills was first published on the HIVE blockchain.
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I love the new picture!
Ultimately, everything boils down to philosophy and art. Just as every decision is at it's base an economic decision (cost vs value), every academic study is a philosophy and we will never be able to fully use it until we fully understand it.
Scientific Revolutions are still revolutions that are led by people, and the scientific method itself may be a neutral instrument, but that instrument is used by people who ask very specific questions which, in and of themselves, are leading questions and effect the outcome.
Of course, you know this already.
Still good to reiterate it and often; some of those we consider 'expert' seem to have forgotten.
Thank you; yes the other photo was stern; I though it was time to lighten things up:)
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