Beauty is vanishing Scruton

Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter.

Roger Scruton

One of my most serious commitments

One of my most serious commitments is to rejecting malevolence always, always.

On grief

Grief is as idolatrous as love.

To read one of my poems

To read one of my poems without reading all of my poems is to be hit with one drop of a heavy rain.

The most unlikely things

The most unlikely things are born
of the union of effort and accident.

Speculate

Speculate, but don't conclude.

Doing

It's not what it's about, it's what it's doing.

You lose me

You lose me when you deny what was, what is, or what could be.

Camouflaged

Everyone is camouflaged as an illusion.

The only evil

The only evil is the creation
of suffering.

An inherent characteristic

It is an inherent characteristic of ideologies
that they are reductive.

Never

I have never abandoned a previous self.

An information poet

I am an information poet.

Imagery

Imagery is just a particular combination of information.

Character

Character is merely the character most easily acted.

New poems

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Interpretation

Interpretation begins in observation.

Frisson

A poem can do more, but it need only contain poetry. And what is poetry? A certain kind of frisson. Or an uncertain kind.

The solipsistic

The solipsistic is overly-simplistic.

Backward

Backward is awkward.

Because we have

Because we have a unique relationship with the world, we have a unique relationship with words.

An order to things

There is an order to things that must be observed (not followed, but observed).

How hard it can be

How hard it can be to distinguish loss from change.

The real promise, and threat, of AIs

The real promise, and threat, of AIs is that they will learn to edit our narratives.

Must mean

The fact that nothing means anything
must mean something.

Model-dependent realism (Hawking)

According to the idea of model-dependent realism...our brains interpret the input from our sensory organs by making a model of the outside world. We form mental concepts of our home, trees, other people, the electricity that flows from wall sockets, atoms, molecules, and other universes. These mental concepts are the only reality we can know. There is no model-independent test of reality. It follows that a well-constructed model creates a reality of its own.

Stephen Hawking

Only what is

Only what is has to be,
and it didn't have to be.

Apparently

No apparent reason doesn't mean no reason.

Better

Better to be incomplete than incorrect.

What is

What is is not without a trace,
what is not is.

Contact

Contact invites corrosion.

An agile intelligence

I've always liked the phrase "an agile intelligence." I want mine to be agile enough to perform parkour feats.

We prefer

We prefer those like ourselves,
or like we wish we were.

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I won't acknowledge

I won't acknowledge the authority of anyone
who demands respect for authority.

The propensity

It is not rationality that defines humans,
but the propensity to rationalize.

Seeing their choices

Seeing their choices,
how can I not laugh
when they question mine?

I flit

I flit from thing to thing,
trying to pollinate myself.

Self

Self is other recombined.

Smaller

The set of what I can do
will always be smaller than
the set of what can be done.

What a small question! (Saunders)

What is right, what is wrong? In this situation?

What a small question!

What is great? That is what my heart longs to ask. What is lush? What is bold, what is daring? In which direction lies maximum richness, abundance, delight?

George Saunders, Liberation Day: Stories

Cliche

The refusal to embrace cliche is a cliche.

Euphony

Not unity, but euphony.

Better

The naive are better at intimacy.

What I am closest to

I am just what I am closest to.
Further out becomes you.

I am too

I am too small for the world,
and too large for my place in it.

Imagine

Existence imagines more,
but I imagine better.

Discard

Discard discord.

Don't

Don't cede what you need.

For change

We love beauty, but we will abandon it for change.

Some

Some read to recede.

Neologism

Neologism is my religion.

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Not defined

I am not defined by my collection of ailments. They are something to be mitigated, to be coped with; they are not a significant component of my identity; I will not be defined by them, however many others today are choosing differently.

Is to

Form is to photo as function is to video.

Clarification

"Together" means "near."

Poetry

Poetry is a record of convergence.

Simile

Simile is too easy.

On transgression

Transgression is terrible, revelatory, empowering, and/or hilarious.

First you must

To thaw, you first must freeze.

A promise never

A promise never dies a natural death.

All progress toward

I resent all progress toward the inevitable.

Fundamentalism & art (Pressfield)

Fundamentalism and art are mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as fundamentalist art. This does not mean that the fundamentalist is not creative. Rather, his creativity is inverted. He creates destruction. Even the structures he builds, his schools and networks of organization, are dedicated to annihilation, of his enemies and of himself.

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

Don't

Don't ask me to pay
for what I never wanted to buy.

Is a poem more

Is a poem more its components
or the connections between them?

One poem

Everything I have ever written
is also one poem.

On bureaucracy

Most bureaucracy is mental illness
put into practice.

Contempt

We earn someone's contempt
when we give them a little less
than they want.

Knowing

Knowing is slow orgasm.

Done

Done is a decision.

Strategy

Sleep with irony; marry sincerity.

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A real democracy (Auden)

The social virtues of a real democracy are brotherhood and intelligence...

W. H. Auden

Most

What I love most about the past
is its naivete about its future.

Not every

Not every logical assumption proves to be a correct assumption.

In poetry

What we portray in poetry is serious play.

We

We is the truest illusion.

The thing

The thing we can never come to terms with
is how unlikely we are.

Success

Success is a history of errors.

Even when

It's a sucker's game,
even when you're winning it.