BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?

Subject: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 06:38 PM

Do you really care if there's a tomorrow... a new song, a new friend, a new day....... a fresh start.... what makes you tick... what really sets the new day off for you? What do you really want from life????

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 06:47 PM

Not to spend more time than I have to staring at the roots of the grass.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 07:34 PM

-and pushing up the daisies.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 07:41 PM

Your timing on asking this is quite curious...

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: olddude
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 07:55 PM

anytime I wake up on the right side of the dirt is a good day

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 07:57 PM

Some time ago I realized that if the end - my end - should come tomorrow that would be all right. When the time does come obviously I will fight to stay alive- it is the nature of the beast - but cerebrally it is all right.

And I don't think I'll be staring at the roots. OK?

In the meantime there are many things that make life worth living: people, music, new things, old things, the very air.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 08:08 PM

For me, it's the amazing surprises that feel like magic, and simply make me happy. A friend contacts me unexpectedly, cars in traffic form a pact to block people from zooming past and cutting in (you know: the trucker ahead of you moves over into the ending lane to the right and trusts you not to pass him on the left, then you look around, and other vehicles have joined in), and it's seeing the whole "pay it forward" thing happen.

We have commercials in the US--for an insurance company, I think. A person does something nice for someone, and someone else sees, then that witness remembers when they have an opportunity to help someone else, and another witness sees and goes on to do something nice for someone else later on, and it just keeps going on. It really DOES work like that...at least it does for me. It's so powerful, and it's so simple. It's also listening unwillingly to department store piped-in music, and a great* song comes on. You start singing along quietly until you hear a woman in the next aisle singing. You get louder, she gets a little louder, and you're singing together. Never managed to get a third person involved, but it's something to strive for.

I figure this all may sound silly to some of you, but these unexpected delights, these notable occurrences, this magic shows me that humans aren't as dismal as they sometimes seem.

*: "Great" in this case means one you like a lot, and it's probably going to be a pop song, so those who hate piped-in music: this is not for you. To be perfectly honest, I mostly hate piped-in music. If I can sing along, it's usually just self-defense. Every once in a while, I'm enjoying myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 08:16 PM

SImple: joy. Not too hard to find, although it comes in a variety of grades, types and kinds.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: gnu
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 08:23 PM

No. Life sucks and then you die.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 08:45 PM

If I wake up dead, so what? I won't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 09:21 PM

I had some close calls in my life.

Quite a few haven't made it to the age I have. I have had a full, happy, life to date, and I have had good experiences and have fulfilled most of my interests. I have had little pain, and stresses and few unfortunate situations in life, so far. I consider myself fortunate.

Possibly all the bad stuff could come in the remainder.

Regardless,the extra days I have, to death, are really a bonus. And, I will continue to live them to the fullest and am thankful.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 10:33 PM

"What do you really want from life????"

A complete appreciation of how wonderful and precious life is. To feel that in every moment. Enlightenment, in other words.

That's what I want. It's expressed poetically in some religious texts as "the peace that surpasseth all understanding". It's also called ecstasy, love, joy, and various other words, but the words themselves can't contain it or fully define it. They can only point toward it.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 10:52 PM

GS - I think everyone cares...if you look deep enough into them. They certainly started out caring when they were small children, but then some things happened. If they now act like they don't care, it's a defense mechanism they're using to mask their own pain or to supposedly minimize it...or to justify their anger. That doesn't prove they don't care, it just proves how much pain they've been in, I think, maybe to the point where they lost hope or they lost the capacity to empathize with other people. It can result in them acting like they don't care, mind you...

Consider a case like Baby Face Nelson. An uncommonly brutal and violent man, he began terrorizing other children in adolescence and went on to a life of violent crime. He was an extremely angry man. He definitely acted like he didn't care. He probably believed he didn't care. That indicates to me that he cared a lot...but it all got turned negatively into anger, lashing out, primitive and very unintelligent raw survival skills that finally led to him dying with 14 bullet wounds after killing two pursuing federal agents in a machine gun shootout.

I think the man cared intensely about something...that's what drove him to such extreme violence...but he had absolutely no clue about how to care in a healthy way...so his caring turned to vengeance, basically, against the whole rest of the human race.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 10:53 PM

Yesterday, our folk society had its annual Mid-Winter 'minifestival'... I was tired and it was rainy and cold, and I had to help unload & set up stuff and I was prepared to suffer thru a tedious day.... then, like Jeri says, nice things happened, and the day went quite well, and I even managed to contribute to both the logistics of the day...and the music too! Amazing.... then it was cold and wet RE-loading stuff & going home...but somehow it was all worth it.
   This was about 32 of these since I have been here, and I've never missed one and I was even organizer of a couple of them. People come and sing & play and greet old friends...and make new friends... and there are lots of hugs & smiles and refreshing of positive energy and reminding ourselves that people really DO care about traditional music old ...and with new variations.

How many more will I manage to attend? *shrug*... It doesn't matter. *I* have been a small part of the success of them for over 30 years... and it helps me go on and feel like things are worth doing.

It's what you DO that makes the difference, whether you win medals or not. Satisfaction comes from knowing that you made a difference and made friends.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 11:03 PM

Good stuff, Bill. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Janie
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 11:14 PM

Ask me again when the days get longer.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Beer
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 11:22 PM

Bill D., I love what you wrote.
ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 11:52 PM

I am amazed to still be here - and healthy. Each day is a gift. And each day I do my best to be a gift. Some days I am not. But I do my best. Pay it forward is good! So many good people. I do not look forward to leaving them. But I foresee a time when death will come as a friend. It may be tomorrow or in 20 years...

I care about everything and everybody, including myself and my own energy and how I lead my life. I am grateful for those others who give me support and give me the opportunity to offer support, and those who are just there doing the best they can.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: J-boy
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 11:56 PM

What did Sisyphus want? It doesn't matter. Our only job is to keep pushing that fucking boulder uphill. As long as we can. That is not only the human condition but the condition of all living creatures.It's nature's plan and we can only accept it.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Darowyn
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:33 AM

"and when I meet my death I'm sure,
I'm going to ask for just a little more
Lifetime. But if I don't get it I don't mind."

Melanie Safka, "Bon Appetit"

"If you don't like it, what have you done about it?"
Jim Joseph, Band leader and a great inspiration to me.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:54 AM

It is difficult to say, how I feel today might be different next week, next month or next year.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 07:00 AM

I wake up every day itching to get to grips with some more music. There's never enough time. Today I've been (so far) dipping into my Complete Library of Congress Jelly Roll Morton recordings, seeing what key on the guitar really suits a fingerstyle version of "Love For Sale" and brushing up on two music-hall songs: "Grandma's Old armchair" and "'Arry, 'Arry. 'Arry". After the briefest of lunches and a quick vacuum of a room or two, there's violin practice to do - and you can never spend too much time on that elusive instrument.

Then there's Mudcat to read, my own discussion board to check out, email to read and write, YouTube fan mail/questions and queries to answer (typical request from Friday: "Can you tab out Brownie McGhee's 'Blues From The Lowland' for me?" Answer: "Yes" and I did it Saturday).

Dinner? Sleep? Very nice too - with a little music in between...

The only questions is - however did I manage a day job as well before I retired?

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 08:07 AM

I do find a loud burst of much-loved and cheering music brings me out of the Doldrums. This morning I found, on Youtube, Hook Eagle Morris at the Rochester Sweeps Festival, dancing to Ricketts Hornpipe, and singing "What a luvvly day, oh, what a luvvly day..." while bashing eachothers sticks in a very phallic position. Morris always cheers me up. So my small piece of advice is.. maintain a sense of humour if poss, and enjoy a small moment no matter how short. Life is, after all, made up of tiny moments.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 02:52 PM

I want my younger daughter Hilary to be well.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: maeve
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 02:56 PM

So do we. Tam.

I care about every moment I'm here.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 03:38 PM

"I want to love every moment I live and live every moment I love" Or is it the other way around. Don't always manage it but goals are good.

What if we each held Hilary in the Light for a time each day?

Only those interested in the Light or whatever else one wishes to translate it to.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: DMcG
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 05:38 PM

Well, J-boy, just because that's what nature dictates doesn't mean we have to do it. Some years ago I did a quite detailed study of my lifestyle and what the effects of perfect diet (avoiding some of my favourite foods etc), lots of exercise (which I've always loathed) and so on. The net effect was to extend my expected life by about 7 years (or between 20 and 25% of what I've probably got left). In addition, it reduces the chances of a quick death and increases the chances of a lingering one with dementia and so on. So I took the concious and deliberate decision not to change. So it shortens my life? What the heck?

(As I say, I am almost through my three score, but not the other ten. So its not the decision of youth where the future can appear infinite.

Some may feel this a depressing approach to life. Be assured I am not in the least depressed and thoroughly enjoy myself

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 06:06 PM

Sheet fire, GS...

I mean, just knowin' that I have one more day to pester my friends here in the Mud Pit makes every day a wonderful occasion...

Also, being married to the P-Vine...

No, I ain't near ready to go but...

...when He calls, I'm a comin'... Just hope that call don't come too soon... I gotta lot of things left on my "to-do" list...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 06:36 PM

And when She calls? What then? ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 07:20 PM

What the hail, LH... No matter who calls, ya' gotta go when ya' gotta go... If it's She, then so be it... Just gonna mean an eternity of being asked if you really planned to out out wearin' *that* shirt 'er being told that you can't go out to play until this list of dumb stuff gets done...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 08:10 PM

I have just celebrated my 70th birthday, and I do mean celebrated.

I've spent 70 inspiring, hard working, rewarding, at times sorrowful, and at times ecstatic years growing old without ever regretting the effort.

Last Saturday more than sixty people came to celebrate with me, and they gave me the two greatest gifts I've ever received, their friendship and their music. Those of my good friends who couldn't attend sent their best wishes.

I am blessed beyond anything I deserve by the friends I have acquired in a long lifetime, and I plan to spend the next 70 years doing more of whatever I did right to acquire those friends, providing I can figure out what it was.

Yes, I care! How could I not.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 08:18 PM

I keep meaning to post to this thread, but who cares. Nobody'll read it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 08:55 PM

"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."

—Charles Bukowskim, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998

"The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go."

-Charles Bukowskim, Ham on Rye, 1982



"This is a world where everybody's gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that . . . Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't wanna do. All the things that I don't wanna be. Places I don't wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don't understand that . . ."

—Charles Bukowskim, Barfly, 1987

"This is a world where everybody's gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that . . . Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't wanna do. All the things that I don't wanna be. Places I don't wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don't understand that . . ."

—Charles Bukowskim,Barfly, 1987


"Nothing is worse than to finish a good shit, then reach over and find the toilet paper container empty. Even the most horrible human being on earth deserves to wipe his ass."

—Charles Bukowskim, Factotum, 1975

"That's the problem with drinking, I thought as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen."

—Charles Bukowskim,Women, 1978

"We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."

—Charles Bukowskim, Attributed


On a more positive note, If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. -- Flip Wilson ...

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: J-boy
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 11:54 PM

I love Bukowski. He was a brilliant and wife-beating prick. Just like Robert Frost.

Subject: RE: BS: Who cares anyway?? what the heck?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 02:15 AM

Years ago I worked for Tom H, who ran a team of about 20 people. One day he was offered promotion to run the entire site: 200 odd people, lots more money and perks. As part of this he was given a questionnaire to identify what additional training he would need. So he took that form and worked out which answers were 'perfect' so he wouldn't have needed any training and then asked himself "is that the person I want to be?". Having decided the answer was no, he declined the promotion.

To me, that's life affirming