Needing so much more time just to do nothing.
(Just like the Red Queen and Alice)

My life and work is a microcosm of the world. So full of ludicrous things to be done and being told to do them by people who have no real idea of what the things to do entail or why we need to do them. We have to do things for the sake of them. Now if these things were actions like climbing Mount Everest, I would be quite satisfied with the answer - "Because they are there" but just to say that you have to do something because you have to do it is obviously just a circular argument. It is exactly like the arguments your parents gave you when you were little. "BECAUSE YOU JUST DO. OK". I like to think that I at least give reasons for my daughter having to do things which actually mean something to her but I expect there are times when I just can't be bothered to explain to her.

We did a lot in college about reductionism and Taylorism and other such fractal divisions of actions. The one bit that really sticks in my mind is the bit about Ant Colonies but only because I was reading the relevant bit in Godel, Escher, Bach at the same time. It seems to me that the majority of the behaviour in society these days is simple ant colony behabiour where the individual participants blindly follow a set of local instructions without any thought on their part of why they do these actions or any thought into how they could make their actions more apt or more efficient. The attitude is that you are getting paid - just keep your head down and cash the cheques. Anyone who questions the actions at any level gets known as being bolshie. You can make things better.

Belknap

Around the time of SallyAngie,
I took a walk through Belknap house
amongst the sick and those who sought asylum.
I followed pipes along the walls,
marked 'Tea - Without' and 'Coffee With'
and Oxygen and ice above the line
which marked division of the two-tone walls
at the level of my eyes.
But the coldest pipe of all was silent,
the one marked 'electricity'.

A friend of mine became a politician
just a year after that pipe hit her hard.
(Look carefully and see the wire marks,
the etched teeth and the flash
as if the current still flows today).
I say 'a friend' but now I hate that
beaming smile, the illnesses that passed
through loveless kisses and left me
breathless and alone.

"fiat experimentum in corpore vili"

(This was simply at the bottom of the poem above but I am not sure if I meant it to relate to the verses or not. It is a bit vicious if I did and I can only use the excuse that I was very young when I wrote it.)

Something has just happened to make me feel very happy and I am afraid it is simple pandering to my mercenary side. It may affect the blog at a later date but I will let you know.