David August: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Good Labels Follow These Criteria

(from Four Dangerous Navigation Approaches that Can Increase Cognitive Strain).

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Wherefore I Know Not

"What a piece of work is a man,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action,
how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god!"

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

If the Turks didn't take Chios (an island in the Aegean Sea) from Genoa in 1566, then later Genoa may not have given up Corsica to France in 1768. And the loss of Corsica to France weakened the Grafton Ministry, the British government in the 1770s. Since the Grafton Ministry had supported reconciling with the American Colonies (instead of coercing them) perhaps their falling out of power lead the way to the American Revolution. Historical hindsight, and reading Wikipedia randomly, is fun.

Past, Future and Present

The past and the future are a mismatched pair of what has been and what might be. Their friction is the present.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Muse

I long, no yearn, for more. Indeed there is
no more to have when she is far away.
I wish, I beg to have the grace she gives.
My selfish drive to be the best is foiled.

I'd like to say she's fickle and untrue.
I'd like to call her whore, or tramp, or slut.
But I do not. She's true to me it seems.
In fact, it's me who turns my back on her.

My empty words are mine because I blind
myself to her and try to write alone.
I pull away and close my mind to her
because I'm scared to write what she would give.

It's not of failure that I'm scared. Success
is what my heart can't seem to take...or give?
A million writers cannot write at all,
a million more can write, but never well.

But I'm not scared to be inside those groups;
I'm scared to stand alone. Alone and sad.
To write something that others cannot write,
to feel what others cannot feel.

And so I do not let her guide my pen,
and risk success, and risk the status quo.
The way things are right now is pretty good.
And so I hesitate, and hold her back.

I'm making sure her power never sees
the light of day through me, or through my work.
I stifle her, I violate her will,
I keep whatever gifts she has locked up.

And all because I'm scared to let them out.
Because if I release those gifts they'll shine,
they'll light the world and lead me toward my dreams.
My dreams will become real and I'll succeed.

So my success I can create or ruin.
That choice is mine to make, and mine alone.

- completed 5pm August 24th 2002 Chicago