Heraclitus' Cold Feet

“Into a river you can’t step twice,”

Heraclitus declaimed his sage advice.

“You can stand on the land

And dance on the strand,

But 'NO WADING!'

unless it's on ice."

*Note:

"The river
Where you set
Your foot just now
Is gone---
Those waters
Giving way to this,
Now this."

Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, Translated by Brooks Haxton.

Patterns--What Could Be Simpler?

I read in a recent issue of New Scientist, that aging, which may bring with it memory loss, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and a boat load of other mental maladies does have one benefit: increased “pattern recognition.” Yep, as one gets older, a lot of things get dimmer and fade away, but apparently one of the few things that gets, or at least can get, stronger and brighter is pattern recognition, which Laura Spiney the author of the article “Golden Oldies”(New Scientist, August 13, 2005) says is a critical component of problem-solving skills. “Pattern recognition is useful for solving problems. It is the ability to see that the object or problem confronting you belongs to a group of similar objects, and is therefore likely to have similar properties. So you can solve the problem on the basis of prior experience, without knowing very much about it. So, you see, as we get older, we get more capable of solving problems. In our wizened years, we are able to see that a given problem, let us call it problem “X,” is quite like other problems that we’ve encountered, like say, problems “U, V, and W”. If, in the past, we solved “U, V and W” with strategy “A”, strategy “A” might be able to solve our current problem “X”. (Unless of course, problem “X” is a bit different and is really more like problem “Y”, in which case, given my increasingly powerful pattern recognition capabilities, I will note that problem “X” is more amenable to strategy “B”.) So in this case, where I might have used Strategy “A”, instead I will use strategy “B”. But wait a minute! What if strategy “B” has been better used with problems “R, S, and T?” Strategy “B” will not work with “U, V, and W”. Any ol’ fool can see that! No, “U, V, and W” will require a much more subtle strategic approach. It will require strategy “C”. So, in order to make the long story of pattern recognition, a short story, problem “X,”---which I originally thought looked like problems “U, V, and W,” but which in fact, looks much more like problems “R, S and T”--- will be solved, not by strategy “A,” or “B,” but by strategy “C”! I will solve problem “X” with strategy “C”! Voila! There you have it. The amazing story of how, as we get older, all problems are the same. And all we really need to do, is use the same solution for whatever problem we may encounter. From now on, you, like I, will benefit from solving all of our problems with the same solution. What could be simpler?

Told You Not to Wander 'Round in the Dark

It has been raining here for 7 or 8 days. It’s Biblical. Last night, I walked Stanley in the pouring rain and howling wind. The trees were heavy with rain, their leaves pulled down by a conspiracy of gravity and damp weariness. Stanley was happy, as he padded around looking for the right place to leave his doggy signature. I wore headphones and listened to the recent release of Cream Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2005). The streetlight at the corner had gone out, and as I rounded the bend with Stanley pulling at his leash, everything was ink black, sopping wet, and horror-movieish. The song "Badge" was on, a song originally written 35 years ago, or more, by Mr. Clapton and George Harrison. "I told you not to wander round in the dark. I told you about the swans that they live in the park. Then I told you about a kid, now he's married to Mabel." What does this mean? I don’t know. Shouldn't I be reciting Yeats instead? Jeez. The curse of the 60s. It’s my music, like it or not. The driving base, the searing lead guitar. The inane lyrics that seem, somehow, to speak to me—across the years--- with some poignant meaning, despite their inanity. The rain, the rain, the damn rain driving down. The dog looking for a place to poop, but he too, now growing weary of the rain. "I'm talking about a girl that looks quite like you. She didn’t have the time to wait in the queue. She cried away her life since she fell off the cradle." At least the trees are beautiful with the night all tangled up in them. An invisible beauty I need to imagine, because it is too damn black and windy for me see much, nor to linger here long. “You’d better pick yourself up off the ground, before they bring the curtain down.” Maybe this is a song about death? About the ineluctable fate that everyone must confront. Who cares if the 60s are 40 years in the past. Who cares that the past has passed. There is only a past for those who are living. For the dead there is nothing, not even nothing, because the deceased are no more. Auden: “What Happens to the living when we die?/Death is not understood by death; nor you, nor I.” Stanley, almost invisible in his poodle blackness, decides he’s had enough and tugs me in the direction of home. Which way is that, Stanley?