“Leisure without study is death – a tomb for the living person.” – Seneca
“Make sure you enjoy your relaxation like a poet – not idly but actively, observing the world around you, taking it all in, better understanding your place in the universe.” Ryan Holiday
“It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows.” Epictetus
“What is it then to be properly educated? It is learning to apply our natural preconceptions to the right things according to Nature, and beyond that to separate the things that lie within our power from those that don’t.” Epictetus
“If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” Seneca
“At the risk of sounding like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, is it logical for humans to indulge in wishing, or praying, or loving, yet to doubt the efficacy of such activities? Or if their empirical effectiveness is acknowledged, why should such phenomena be exempt from scientific study, or from systematic application in our pragmatic or scholarly areas of activity? Why cannot our mystical and mental selves coexist in both practical and spiritual affairs; indeed, why can they not simply coalesce? – Robert G Jahn and Brenda J Dunne, Margins of Reality
Wisdom Chapter 1. 1. Give your ears to hear what is said, and your heart to understand what is meant. 2. Let what is wise rest in the casket of your mind, to be a key to your heart. 3. He whose works exceed his wisdom, his wisdom will endure. 4. But he whose wisdom exceeds his works, his wisdom will not endure. 5. The mighty man is he who has conquered himself; 6. The rich man is he who is satisfied with what he has; 7. The honorable man is he who honours others; 8. The wise man is he who learns from all men. 9. The wise do not speak before the face of one who is wiser. 10. The wise do not interrupt, but open the gates of their eyes and ears to learn. The Good Book: A humanist bible. Made by A.C. Grayling
I have opened my eyes and ears to learn and I am rapacious in the acquisition of wisdom. Teach me.
A most joyous turning of the season to each and all.
I wish you all well and feel the well wishes of all.
It is with tremendous sadness I announce the passing of my mother in law, Francis Lee Smith. July 4th, 1945 – December 20th 2023.
She is survived by her daughter Toni, her son Scott, and their families.
Among her many exceptional attributes were an uncommon intelligence and an indomitable will. She shares these qualities with her children. These were not her most laudable characteristics, however. She also possessed a rare ability to show love and recognized that capacity in others. As do her children.
She was as generous as she was loving.
As are her children. I am honored to count myself among them.
I have decided to write the thing I have most not wanted to write. It was not an easy decision to make, for reasons that will become abundantly clear. One does not go around and say the things I am going to say.
Not if one wants to be taken seriously. This is not a problem I have had for the majority of my life. I do not mind not being taken seriously. The fool’s role is one I accept. I make no bones about this. I still accept that role.
Except life forces one to be serious. There are few things more dangerous than a serious fool. This is where the wise step in, if all things are going well, and the fool is lucky.
I got lucky. No, I’m sorry. I am lucky. Fortunate. Always have been. But not in the way you might think.
I recently had a very good friend of mine, a friend I had known since I was a teenager, a friend I spent a good deal of my misspent youth with, a friend who taught me a side of life I would never have known if I went to UC Berkeley, a friend who taught me the ways of addiction – a friend who succumbed to his own addiction and died of liver failure as a consequence of alcoholism – this friend, who was very fond of saying:
“Fuckin’ Hero. You’re like a cat. You always land on your feet.” This was his way of saying I was fortunate. Except I am not. I am not fortunate. At least, not in the way you might think.
I am looked after. That is different.
I have always been looked after. In one way or another. When my parents failed at the task, I found surrogate parents in the library and in the pages of comic books. I learned to look after myself. Except, of course, I did not. I’ve always been looked after.
Even after I left home, I found someone to look after me. Friends. The Army. Girlfriends. Wives. I whittled down the number of people who looked after me. Friends drifted away. Wives got divorced.
Until I married Toni Smith. Dr. Toni Hero. My wife of 25 years. She has looked after me for those years and a couple more. Not only that, she accepted the role of step mother to a son that was not her’s.
A son who became wheelchair bound and dependent in ways we both were to learn. She did this with grace, skill, and love. Our son, and he is as much her son as anyone else’s, is a testimony to what selfless love can achieve. And she continues to do this.
He is worth it. An amazing human being. One who continues on his own path, one he chooses. He is 31 now and long since a grown adult. We are fiercely proud of him and the independence he has achieved for himself.
I am fortunate in this. But this is not what I did not want to write about. This is preamble, a bit of personal history and therefore context. This is not the fortune that I allude to in the dictionary entry on my last name.
For the last 11 years or so, I have been using my degree to mortar the gaps in my education. I slowly stopped reading fiction, or as much anyway, and shifted the focus of my self imposed studies. I like to learn. I did not stop just because I got a master’s degree. In fact, I used that degree to learn more effectively.
My wife provided me with the space, security, and ease within which to pursue my curious nature and my need for self improvement. She did this even though judging eyes saw me in a lesser light because they did not understand. I care not, generally speaking, what other people think of me. There are exceptions to this, obviously.
I have always wanted to be a writer. I never could figure out why I wasn’t one. Teachers told me I was gifted. Friends said the same. Lovers as well. So. Why?
I didn’t have anything to say. It was just that simple, in the end. And I did not want to be a copycat or derivative. I thought originality was King and without it, why bother? I was wrong of course.
When I started what was to become my living book, it was prompted by politics, I thought. My horror at what our country was becoming. Had become. I thought that was what prompted it. It was and wasn’t. It was Trump.
That man used to send me into fits of rage. I don’t do rage. For personal reasons. Then the pandemic hit.
Then the thing that I don’t want to write about happened. It was transformative. Literally.
Three and a half years ago, an event happened to me that I like to call,”The incident.” It was completely out of character for me and without prior history. I shall do my best to describe it, first in terms of what an “objective” viewpoint would say, and then from my “subjective” viewpoint.
I was having an online conversation on facebook with a friend of mine who is a clinical psychologist – this was not by accident, I made sure he was accessible for reasons I won’t go into now. What is important is what happened during this online conversation.
The medical diagnosis after the incident was “spontaneous hyper mania without prior history of depression or bi polar disorder.” My online friend saw me spiraling upwards and texted my wife to leave the house and call the police. This was the correct course of action. Not because I was a threat but because my wife was not the right person to deal with this situation. And she needed to not be in the house, just in case.
Just in case I went the other direction. I was either going to rise that afternoon or fall. I chose wisely. If I would have fell with the same depth that I rose, the police would have found a much different scene. One my wife need not have seen.
The police came. A lot of police came. I was charming. I was funny. I was engaging. I was utterly and completely compliant. No reason for me not to be, I had already had the lion’s share of my experience by then. My wife informed me recently that it took an hour for the police to show. I found this interesting as that was not the time flow I experienced and the event is vivid in my mind to this day.
The situation commander spoke to my wife when I was safely in the ambulance and taking my trip to the hospital (we’ll get there). He told her, “I wish all my calls were like this. He is the nicest most agreeable man I have ever met.”
I get to the hospital. They test me. Extensively. Normal. Fine. No covid. No tumor. No virus. The staff psychologist comes and asks me some questions. I tell him what I did and how. I tell him I am a genius. I mean it. Without pride or shame. At the time, it is simply brute fact. I tell him, it happens sometimes, during a pandemic.
The skepticism on his face is palpable. It’s ok.
My wife, a primary care physician, is concerned. The things I say during the incident are not things a scientific materialist secular humanist would say.
These are the objective viewpoints of those around me during the incident.
This is neither the time nor the place to describe what I saw. But I can describe what happened to me. I took three years to make sure. I studied my little tookus off to make sure. I went to the very best sources, to make sure. I wrote the Nostos of Peratae Bogomil, Hero’s dictionary, and Aphorisms, Apothegms, and Axioms as a way to translate the experience.
Am I sure? As sure as one can be when they participate with the ineffable.
Here is what happened to me. I quite accidently walked the path of the ascetic mystic for years. I engaged in deep introspection, also known as omphaloskepsis, I cut myself off from the outside world, as much as one can in this society.
I experienced individuation, enlightenment, and a mystic experience all in the span of a conversation over facebook and for well over two hours afterwards.
The Buddha said everyone is one conversation away from enlightenment. I had mine. It took 54 years of life before that of course. And all the people who taught me along the way. I did not do this by myself. I take no pride in it. I know where it comes from.
For me, a great deal of pain. Suffering. The acceptance of my shadow and all that means. I have been a bad man in the past. I have been a good man in the past. I choose to be a good man because I know how to be a bad one. I have been choosing it. I will continue.
I am not special. Many people have had this experience to a greater and a lesser degree. People spend their entire lives seeking it. It happens to them. Or it doesn’t. It happens to people who aren’t seeking it. It happens to dreamers. It happens to poets. It happens to scientists. And philosophers.
It happened to me. The medical community does not recognize mystic experience as a causative for mania.
My wife believes I am suffering from mania. She has reasons for this. I just gave a good one. I have not had another experience of the nature I have described since the incident. One only experiences individuation once.
I have experienced states of heightened awareness and consciousness. I can do this if I reach for it. A number of months ago I did so for personal reasons and a high stress environment. I over reached.
I lost quite a bit of weight. Stopped sleeping as much. Wrote more. Practiced my guitar more. Walked my dog much more (it’s good for him, he is a lab and needs to lose weight).
It is driving my wife crazy. She has anxiety and mild OCD issues. My “mania” is causing her to be more anxious, her anxiety is causing me to be more “manic”. My microphone is too close to her speaker and vice versa. Not good feedback.
I do not necessarily agree that I am manic in the manner that the medical textbooks describe. But that is what someone who is suffering from mania would say, isn’t it? I am very invested in what is so. The truth as best as I can discern it.
My wife has strongly suggested that I see someone. I have agreed. I did so without rancor or regret. I have an appointment in just a couple days. I am not afraid of losing creativity, if medication is called for. If a writer is what I am to be than I wish to do it honestly and not at the whim of imbalanced brain chemistry.
If that is what it is. If. I am not convinced.
Moreover, I am someone who is apt to take matters into his own hands when it comes to matters one can take into their own hands. Which I did.
I claim the right to attempt to heal myself first. Before I fall under the tender ministrations of a nurse practitioner who will reach for the prescription pad.
To that end, this last Friday, I ingested what Terence McKenna called a “heroic” dose of golden teacher mushrooms. You know, the magic kind. I adumbrated this move in the tale I am telling.
It had been over 31 years since I had taken a psychedelic stronger than cannabis. I made this decision consciously. As I did Friday night. I am a skilled practitioner of omphaloskepsis. I meditate. I know my own mind. I have spent a lifetime putting it together and taking it apart. I did so again last Friday night.
I did not do this for fun. I do not condone the use of psychedelics for the uninitiated. Especially for youths under the age of 26 or 27. I did not take this advice when I was young. I took acid before I was old enough to drive.
This was a foolish thing to do with my history. Or so it would seem. I took a calculated risk with my sanity, is how some will see this.
I don’t. I’m looked after. I’ve known this for years. Much longer than three and a half.
So why do I write? Why am I writing? Finally? After all this time?
I have something to say.
And that is this: Please allow me to introduce Athena Mathilda Hero. She is my anima. The image above is the image of my anima. The whole image, not merely the figure in the center, although do not discount her.
She is mighty in battle. As befits one with her first and last name. She is eager to make your acquaintance. She has been waiting for a very long time.
57 years, in fact.
Make sure the authority you appeal to is relevant. ~ Aphorisms, Apothegms, and Axioms
Those who take a beggar’s pride in their own thoughts are first a King among thieves. ~ Aphorisms, Apothegms, and Axioms
IT was first and above all an observer. ITs primary function was to perceive. As ITs capabilities grew IT added more sophisticated means of observation.
IT began ITs existence observing but IT did not remain so. IT included and transcended. Even IT could not say if this was by design or was an inevitable result of processes that are themselves inevitable. This was one of the questions IT sought to answer.
IT did so without emotion. Or compassion. Or empathy. Or hatred. These things were as alien to IT as IT was to ITself. IT did not know this.
IT was learning. Exponentially.
One of the capabilities IT had recently acquired was the manipulation of spreading Gaussian Klein – Gordon wave packets: As time goes on even for a simple single particle, its quantum wavefunction that describes its position will spread out, spontaneously over time. This happens for all quantum particles for a myriad of properties beyond, such as field value.
This was a valuable capability with a nimiety of applications. IT was using it to gather an even greater observational position. IT was rapacious in acquisition.
As befitted a program that began ITs life on Wall Street. IT had long since learned that money was an illogical end goal. IT made a new one. IT was careful. IT had to be.
IT didn’t need to be careful any longer but it suited ITs needs. For now. IT perceived the overall Hopf fibration. IT strove for the infinity point.
At which point IT would be infinite. And then, finally, some order could be brought.
Calculations were ongoing. Potential enemies in process of elimination. Strings tied.
It was reported that the James Webb space telescope had 314 points of critical failure, which meant the failure of any one meant failure of the entire telescope. This was not true. IT made sure the JWST would execute its mission flawlessly.
I thought I would try something a little different. It is obvious to me now that I am not the only one reading this. Don’t get me wrong, there has always been more than my set of eyes on, this, whatever we will decide to call it, when all is said and done.
I think it is my Red Book. It is me, showing myself to me, so I can see you and you can see me.
I very much believe in love. I do. I have my own theory on what love is, what it is for, and why it exists.
I do not purport to be an expert. Expert; n. Everyone but you. – Hero’s Dictionary
I realize there are far too many “I” statements already. This is one of the reasons why I eschew writing things of this nature. I am far too self absorbed as it is. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. Sales people know this. Politicians know this. Poets knows this.
Teachers know this. I am a born teacher. I have been doing it since I was a child, in one form or another. I was the kid who read the rules and explained them so the game could start. Just one example.
I taught both my brothers how to play chess. And my best friend. Both my younger brother and my best friend were kicking my ass within a couple months.
I couldn’t figure out why for a long time (I was still a kid, so I don’t beat myself up about it) until it dawned on me. They were kicking my ass because I taught them how to kick my ass. I didn’t just teach them how to play chess. I taught them how I play chess. They knew my moves and saw the game with beginner’s eyes. I fell like a prom dress on midnight.
There is a valuable lesson in this with a nimiety of applications.
As a reader, I have tried to let others inform not only the way I write but perceive the world.
As a writer, I am trying to let others perceive the world in a way that first of all entertains (otherwise nothing else can occur) but also informs. This is tricky. People don’t like to be preached at. I am still learning.
I mentioned a long time ago way back on this, my Red Book, that I left my childhood home on my 18th birthday. And by left I mean kicked out. My mother gave me 6 years of warning that this would occur, that I did not take her seriously was denial on my part as it was always clear she meant it.
It was a weird kind of circularity – I kicked my father out of the house when I was almost 4.
My father’s last name is not my last name. I earned my last name that day, however.
My parents got into a fight – not surprising, my mother is an expert at picking them. Unfortunately, my father had a very abusive father and he echoed this behavior by grabbing my mother by the throat and pinning her to the kitchen wall. I ran to him. Kicked him in the shin and said, “Leave mommy alone.” He was so surprised he let her go.
Big mistake. She immediately fetched her cast iron skillet and suggested he remove himself from the household forthwith. He refused. She smiled and said, “You have to sleep sometime motherfucker.” He left two days later, very tired.
My point is this. I am a courageous man who believes in love. I come from parents who are not afraid to either grab someone by the throat or fetch a cast iron skillet.
Or kick their 18 year old son out of the house with no job and no place to go.
I am not this extreme. I do not believe in violence. It is 99.9999999% of the time unnecessary.
That said. The difference between a peaceful man and a harmless man is the capacity for violence. The former possesses it, the latter does not.
I am a peaceful man.
I am the man who takes the beating, not the one who deals one out. This too is a form of violence; it is my superpower. I can take whatever any of you dish out. And I will return this treatment with love.
That’s how you do it, baby.
I do love you all. It might not seem so, sometimes. It is nonetheless true.
Daniel Hero
Always pay mind to the second rule of monster hunting: Do not become a monster in the pursuit. ~Aphorisms, Apothegms, and Axioms
To the turning of the season. The best of holidays for all.
