Poem: A-Z: Blink and the English Alphabet

Blink is a term use to connote first impressions.  I thought I would turn it inward and summon up the first word that came to mind for each English alphabet.  Not a calculation, not logical (i.e. word choice between letters), not to force a thematic meaning, nor for that matter for poetic construction.  Just, what word pops when I summon it for each letter?

It has been a fun journey - hope you enjoy this composition and the notes at the end.

Give me an A
A is for Attitude
This is what you say
For these times and its mood
Be healthy, hearty and make hay!

Give me a B 

B is for blink

The word that got all this started 

Won't blame you if you think

This enterprise is quite #*tarded!

Give me a C
C is for camaraderie
Friendship is everywhere you can see
People invested in you and me
For here, selfishness is heresy

Give me a D

D is for democracy

The opportunity to live free

From Pericles on, equality, justice and mercy

Attracting all like the inexorable pull of gravity

Give me an E
E is for the Enlightenment
Where progress through reason is for eternity
A better tomorrow as a sacrament
The drive that propels humanity

Give me an F

F is for faith

The only way to break free

Reason keeps you inside the locked gate

Unable to see the upside down banyan tree(*)

Give me a G
G is for goal
For human affairs and modernity
Where is this journey's shoal?
With a compass for this network and externality

Give me an H

H is for Herculean

The effort needed for the test at hand

To help each last woman and man

0 is you, 1 is the other, together it makes Boolean 

Give me an I
I is for indefatigable
No matter the mountain so high
With grit redoubtable
Scale the summit and kiss the sky

Give me a J

J is for jammin'

Hope you like jammin' too

Easy clapping and gently swayin'

To your outside and inside be true

Give me a K
K is for Killer Instinct
That opportunity served up to you
Make the plunge distinct
Pounce, grab, skewer; they come but a few

Give me an L 

L is for luminous 

In a sea of darkness 

A beacon of knowledge to guide us 

Away from fear and towards fairness 

Give me an M
M is for Mentor
Maybe not a spouse, sibling, boss or friend
But just what the doctor sent for
Help's you decide, when you are at wit's end

Give me an N

N is for nuance

The older I get

There seems less of a winning chance

To take the 'I'm right, you're wrong' bet

Give me an O
O is for Oscillate
It all goes to and fro
That is how things regulate
Even as they decay or grow

Give me a P

P is for productive

Quarks to galaxies are dynamic

We alone have free will to be selective

Let's contribute to the cosmic music

Give me a Q

Q is for query

The relentless pursuit of knowledge

The what, where, when and why

To ensure we are real, and not a mirage

Give me an R

R is for ruminate

The 24X 7 din

Does constantly stimulate

Only quiet thinking can clue us in

Give me an S

S is for silence

Everywhere is the great void

Where you can feel a presence

If input from your senses you can avoid

Give me a T
T is for thingamajig
You know, that doohickey or doodad
That man has been trying to rig
Ever since the fire and the wheel of the nomad

Give me a U

U is for uncanny

That despite our ineptness and bungling

We are a thriving ecosystem for creatures many

In our organs, skin and every lining

Give me a V

V is for vector

On getting from here to there

One needs a connector

To find a way to goals we share

Give me a W
W is for wry
A useful lens to view
Those who achieve stations high
For we all have to live, grow and die too

Give me an X

X is for eXist

This entire show is but dry

Without there being one to insist

The subject, not the object, explains the why

Give me a Y
Y is for yearning
Things may seem 'easy' for the gifted
But only in the crucible of desire's burning
The secrets of the universe are entrusted

Give me a Z

Z is for zenith

As we scale Maslow's pyramid

And lift up from the rungs beneath

The discovery of our self makes us intrepid

Notes:

Although this was fun, I am glad the words stayed respectable!  Here are some notes and reflections on the words that popped.

Attitude:

Had ended this stanza originally with the line 'be healthy, happy and gay.'  Upon review felt it too Mayberry 50's.

Blink:

Popular book by Malcolm Gladwell on psychology and behavioral economics on the adaptive unconscious about mental processes that work rapidly and automatically from relatively little information.

Democracy:

Pericles Funeral Oration Speech is a must read!
Speech:http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/pericles-funeralspeech.asp
Analysis:http://www.bris.ac.uk/classics/thucydides/ttt/context/

Enlightenment:

The Sage of Monticello speaks for us all!
http://agingonthevine.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-sage-of-monticello.html

Faith:

Upside Down banyan tree is referred to in this Sanskrit couplet -

urdhva-mulam adhah-sakham asvattham prahur avyayam |
chandamsi yasya parnani yas tam veda sa veda-vit ||

Translation: Here is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower.

Goal:

I love the concept of externality we were taught in macro-economics.  The network operates within itself and with its set of rules.  Such as the world trading system or the international rules that govern foreign relations.  However a shock to the system is outside of these set of rules and players and by its nature unpredictable.  For example a physical threat by a dissatisfied group or a natural disaster such as tsunami.  So in as much as a compass helps navigate within the network, a black swan event exposes the limitation of the compass.

Herculean:

I also think of the Boolean 1 and 0 when I see the picture of Ying Yang.  Although Ying Yang makes one more Zen rather than Herculean.  Perhaps in this analogy Zen is 0 and Herculean is 1  ... !

Indefatigable:

One of my favorite outdoor activities is hiking. There is a suspense, payoff that happens when after climbing up a hill, the path shrouded by trees suddenly beaks open into a beautiful vista.

Jammin':

I love this song by Bob Marley. We're jammin'; I'd like to jam it with you; hope you like jammin' too . . . cool man! (similar to the song Don't worry, be happy...)

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=oFRbZJXjWIA http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=oFRbZJXjWIA

Killer Instinct:

Preparation meets opportunity; that seems to be a good formula.  When an opportunity comes by, that is not the time to prepare - because there will be others that get there first.  However, if you prepare hard (presentation skills, competitive sports, selling, deal making, engineering design, singing, writing - whatever), and the opportunity comes by - then magic happens.  Examples of this are Steve Jobs seeing the mouse/cursor at the Xerox PARC center and recognizing its potential.  Lincoln finding his voice after the Dredd-Scott decision that said that an African American is not 100% human.  Mahatma Gandhi realizing that non-violence will work as a strategy agains the British (he prepared in South Africa!)

Luminosity:

It is self-generated light - effulgent and shining. It can dispel the surrounding darkness. Out of darkness comes fear, possessiveness and violence. But knowledge and awareness can rid the shadows and gives us a better chance to share with each other.

Mentoring:

I believe more than even coaching, mentoring is a very tough role to play.  It is not defined, unlike coaching, where one is teaching a specific skill.  The first word that popped in my head, for the letter M was membership.  The feeling that was evoked was that we are social animals and we derive health from being connected - a sense of belonging.

But to take it from the general to the specific, I thought mentor was a more apt poetic choice.  We are all on individual journeys...and through this journey we make critical choices (which major to study, choosing a life partner, geography, avocation and so on).  These choices are not easy.  Indeed, sometimes we face tough choices.  All of our relationships that we have, that we trust and depend upon can help us in time of need.  But a mentor alone plays a disinterested (in the best sense of the term), perhaps better said, dispassionate role as one makes a big decision.  Very few are lucky to find and maintain such mentoring relationships.

Nuance:

My favorite definition of a diplomat is one who can ask another to go to hell in such a way that the latter looks forward to the trip!

Oscillate:

In the US politics, they say that the pendulum swings from the left to right every 10-12 years.  It surely is happening now in 2013!

During one of the corporate training sessions that I attended several years ago, one of the executives said that corporations go through centralization and decentralization every 4-5 years (eg. the marketing functions gets centralized and then later decentralized into the businesses).  The insight was that neither centralization nor decentralization is the right answer - but that change is!

Productive:

A fascinating undergraduate class (in retrospect) was thermodynamics.  We learned that entropy in the universe inexorably increases. Our creativity and productivity, mighty temporarily and locally, reverse entropy. i.e there is no stemming of the tide of entropy, as it were.

Also, I would have like to have used Cosmic Fugue (Carl Sagan's phrase) rather than Cosmic Music in this stanza.  However, I could not make the word fugue work!

Querey:

My ditty on this from 1987!

http://agingonthevine.blogspot.com/1987/10/poem-inquiry.html


Ruminate:

Among the words mull, chew, cogitate, think, meditate, ruminate, ponder, contemplate, reflect, stew, weigh, brood, figure, muse, rack, turn over, linger, examine, study, deliberate - I like the word ruminate the best.

There is a certain zen like quality to rumination. i.e. you have stuffed the brain with facts, figures, sensory input, impressions, memories and experiences - the act of rumination allows the brain to sort through that, without neglecting the 'I' that is still observing the act of sorting.

Whereas in the cogitate or chew or deliberate stance - the 'I' is a little more active - as in 'I am driving this bus'.

On the other hand in meditation, the 'I' is more passive, where the objective is to let the facts and figures that we have stuffed our brains with disappear, till only the 'I' remains.

Silence:

David Hume would heartily disagree with this stanza and its import, being the olympian empiricist he was.  There was a BBC radio show recently where 50 contemporary philosophers world-wide were asked who their favorite philosopher was.  Most, to my surprise, cited David Hume.  The usual suspects popped up of course - Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant etc.  But it was dramatic how man times Hume came up.  Perhaps, Hume's retort to Descartes would be, "I see, therefore I am"

On the other hand, the Eastern tradition is all about insisting upon not being fooled by sensory input.  The best description I have read, of this silent presence beyond sensory input  is the following from the Mandukya Upanishad (which upon first reading feels like there is no residual):

"It is not that which is conscious of the inner world, nor that which is conscious of the outer world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of consciousness. It is not simple consciousness nor is It unconsciousness. It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable and indescribable. The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self in the three states, It is the cessation of all phenomena; It is all peace, all bliss and nondual."

One of the most popular post on the blog is a guest post by my Dad, titled 'Silence'

http://agingonthevine.blogspot.com/2010/08/silence.html


Uncanny:

We carry an immense amount of organisms in our bodies.  Indeed, these days the conversation is about probiotics as much as it has been about antibiotics.

Each of the atoms of our bodies where made from exploding stars.  And each of the atoms we carry where parts of other beings elsewhere on the planet at another time.

Indeed, when I think of our bodies, I think of the barchan, the U-Shaped sand dune in the desert.  It travels for miles driven by the wind - and keeps its essential shape.  But sand particles are different as it traverses the desert.

Similarly, we are driven through time by all sorts of forces - we keep our essential shape and character - but atoms come and go, organisms inside our bodies come and go.

Vector:

Scalars and vectors in math class.  Scalars had magnitude but no direction. Vectors had both.  The whole concept of trajectory- for example getting to the moon - is based on vectors. More importantly, the trajectory of a golf ball!

I listened to exo-planet hunter Natalie Batalha.  She is an excellent speaker.  Passionate and convinced that we are going to find hospitable planets elsewhere in the galaxy.  She makes the following point -  When life moved from sea to land on earth, we evolved profoundly.  We are just beginnin to explore space.  What sort of evolution can we foresee once humanity makes space hospitable?!  What is the vector of humanity?  

Wry:

Perhaps the British do wry best.  There is a touch of the skeptical in wry that keeps one grounded.  Not overwrought in either belief or disbelief.  But rather an acute awareness of human foibles and thus not getting carried away by anyone or anything.

eXist:

It is indeed dangerous to slip into solipsism.  At the same time, where it not for 'you' making the observation and participating in this universe, the entire show feels rather dry.  Of course there are trillions of 'yous' on just planet earth. Therefore, by 'you' is meant the subjective experience.

Yearning:

Head, heart and guts is what business leaders say is needed for success.  It is easy to forget or ignore the heart.

Zenith:

My brother's hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2009:  http://agingonthevine.blogspot.com/2009/07/travelogue-by-kris-k-kilimanjaro-hike.html

We are in the eternal quest for meaning and purpose.  Romain Rolland's 'Man's search for meaning' is a classic work in this regard.  We are fine tuned to think about steady progress in all the realms we participate in.  While it is more than 70 years old, Maslow's Pyramid captures our contemporary sociological and psychological needs perfectly.

But the question remains, "What of it?  What of it, that we are self-actualized?"