The wisdom of age constitutes the ability to accept reality, which is the knowledge of certain death -- substantial, personal, individual extinction. It no longer seeks to disguise the fundamental cruelty and terror of life because it is too weary for further struggle. It is not the acceptance of destiny so much, as the succumbing to it... It's not pessimism but a joyous acceptance of life!
Dec 16, 2023·edited Dec 16, 2023Liked by Poetic Outlaws
Eric, if this comment goes against your guidelines, please delete it. I enjoy reading your posts.
There is technology today that can scan and digitize the text of a printed book and convert the result into a digital book that can be read with Kindle, Nook, on a laptop, tablet, smart phone, etc. The free internet library, archive.org. holds such books for the public to read.
When my older daughter birthed her first child, her husband asked me what I wanted my grandchildren to call me? I said, "Grandfossil". That, and Sloan, is what my 4 grandchildren call me today.
I’m 81, and lots of my body parts don't work as originally designed, or hoped. I tried many times to be a successful lawyer, capitalist, stock market investor, and writer, but it wasn't in the cards or stars, and I became a successful trust fund baby and homeless person, depending on when I had inherited money.
When I was young, I didn’t fret about the state of the world. I was too busy trying to do what I liked and dodge what I disliked. I hated school, viewed it as being sent to prison 5 days a week. I felt the same about Sunday church sermons. I didn’t reach puberty when the other kids did, and that really fucked me up. I was good at football, baseball and basketball, but no way would I go in a locker room and get undressed. I focused on golf, fishing and hunting. I watched a lot of TV. I was deranged, basically.
Reaching puberty changed everything. I no longer hated or was terrified of girls. But I had lost my locker room sports skills. I was left with golf, fishing and hunting. I went to college and then to law school.
My first child, a boy, died at 7 weeks of sudden infant death syndrome. I was deranged, again. My work and love life went into the shitter. I tried working for my father, which was a mistake. I tried practicing law, which suited me a lot better, but was not a longterm solution. I plunged into 4-wall handball, racketball, tennis, white water paddling, karate, tai chi, and rugby.
I spent years trying to find myself and trying to fit into molds other people and I had built for me to wear. Nothing worked. My son had seen to that. I was years from being ready to thank him for that, when in my 45th year, I asked God to help me and I offered my life to human service, which turned out to be one of those be careful what you ask for moments. What followed was awful, but the alternative probably would have been far more awful.
Today, the state of the world and America distresses me. Not being able to do any of the physical sports, diversions, and love affairs with women that once made me feel alive and wanting to keep getting up in the morning, I’m left with playing chess and duplicate bridge in social groups and online, watching TV news reports and sports, Netflx and Prime movies and serials, and surfing the Internet and shooting off my mouth in forums and on my blogs, which get converted into books and go into the free internet library.
A gifted angel-harassed tech friend about half my age and I produce The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast, which is uploaded to YouTube and into the Torrent system, whose audiences are far more interested in something different than are YouTube audiences. The podcast is free and has no advertising or soliciting. The free internet library has a Torrent platform, and all of the podcasts are viewable there, as well as at numerous private torrent platforms.
We were kicked off Spotify, when the podcast was only audio. We were rejected by Rumble. We were frequently flagged at YouTube by people whose feelings we had hurt. We were banned from Russia, Belarus, Red China and about half of India. However, national Big Brothers cannot prevent people who know how to use Torrent from using it. So far, the last three podcast episodes combined have 820,000 complete watches at Torrent.
My various non-fiction, fiction, verse and stranger than fiction books at the free internet library are getting a lot more reads than my three mainstream consumer protection books published by Simon & Sçhuster/Prentice-Hall in the mid-1980s got. My body eventually will give up the ghost, but YouTube, Torrent, and the free internet library will allow me to shoot off my mouth for a bit longer.
Yes when I heard that there was bad talk about me in this town it was the last straw of not giving two cents what people thought of me after chasing approval all of my life. Hell yes it is freedom for anyone and as a creative type it feels like one of those poor caged animals being let out of the pen into the free air.
What really was striking and relates directly to me, in this story, is that by living in Quebec, I get to hear all my wife's family, and the non stop bitching about the French and how they are attacking the English , and how the French are bitching non stop about Les Anglais. If it wasn't so sad....
We are invited to a party on the 28th and im sure I will be treated to a dose of anti francophone rhetoric. From a host who lives in a million dollar house, whose daughter teaches in an English school, yada yada yada
I took Henry Millers advice about a decade ago, and realised that you can't change people like that. Took to long for me to realize it. I don't have the time for it, or what time I have left is better spent Elsewhere, not to old to learn , not to old to explore life. Reading, Poetry, DEMOCRACY , loving life.
Interesting read and life ... your words and of course On Turning Eighty. I am having a problem finding it on archive.org. Any link or help is greatly appreciated.
T/hanks. Given how it ended up for Socrates, I consider you adventuresome :-)
I didn’t put anything specific about turning 80 on archive.org. I put there a number of my books, which give different glimpses of my truly strange life, different phases, challenges, and how I now interact with the world and other people, and also with politics, religions, supernatural beings, etc. Those books come up if you enter Sloan Bashinsky into the search space. The Amendment 14, Section 3 Law School Exam is at the internet archive. I understand its torrent has The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast. I have a blogspot, The Redneck Mystic Lawyer for President on the Unicorn ticket, a mock or spoof campaign, the issues assessed are graveyard serious however. Not much traffic tere. redneckmysticlawyerforpresident.blogspot.com. I have a substack newsletter, where I put what you read here and today I will put a sequel there. Not much traffic there. The traffic is on the podcast and the books and the 14/3 exam at the internet archive.
Loved it. I no longer try to convert people to my view of things, nor to heal them. Neither do I feel superior because they appear to be lacking in intelligence.
Still, only positive things can happen to big picture society if you would suggest contemplation of sterilization or even in some cases, self immolation...... sometimes to help the team, you gotta take one for the team.
Seriously, ignorance should be changed. Publicly, privately, had every opportunity. Good God man there’s no excuse.
Henry Miller espouses wisdom that is definitely worth tapping into!
I am a relatively healthy woman, pushing 82 years old. Next month I’m heading out on a jazz cruise with a friend, looking forward to hearing the best straightahead jazz!
From there we’re heading to the Grand Bahamas for a second relaxing week, planning lots of time in the beautiful Caribbean. Not bad.
Then February heralds the beginning of my 82nd year on this spinning planet.
Why we’ve haunted used book stores for decades and thrift shops that accept and sell used books. My first editions of T.S. Elliot and Dune. Like hitting gold. But lesser titles as well.
Exactly - I had a 1st of Dune and I still have original printings of Eliot's Four Quartets, each title issued separately in small booklets by Faber & Faber.
I used to visit many used bookstores when I lived in Los Angeles and environs but there is nothing within easy distance where I live now. I miss that. BTW, I also have a 1st of Eliot's Collected Poems 1909-1935, Very Good with light restoration to the dust jacket.
There are fewer here - and we don’t go into the city (Philadelphia) to roam anymore. When visiting Brooklyn now (the kids, friends) for these treasures it’s no fun anymore (Barnes & Noble ffs) since yuppie and hipster invasions. (Wow can I sound more like grandpa Simpson here?)
My town had a bookstore that closed a year after I moved here. Another opened but the selection is limited to best sellers and gift-type items (cards, bookmarks, coffee mugs). No Used books. Uggghh!
Thank you! This is just what I needed to read today, but then I am in my eighth decade. I think with some sadness of the innumerable times I read words like these when I was umpteen or so. Oh dear, six decades later I am still discovering how fucking stupid I was!
Thanks for introducing us to Henry Miller. So many interesting ideas to ponder for wherever we are. I love the perception that God is not “on” our side but “at” our side. And I hope, before I am 80, that I lose my illusions. Then I would really know the good by my side that surrounds and permeates always.
I have said many times that reading Henry Miller age 14 changed my life. I remember picking up a copy of Catcher in the Rye and thinking 'What's the big deal?' I had already been pleasantly contaminated by Miller, who was more profound, original, deeper - and funnier! Start off with Tropic of Cancer. I remember my original paperback had 'The Unexpurgated Version' on the cover. I dare say that it will change anyone at any age.
I read Henry Miller's above words several times. I recall his association with Anais Nin, and I do believe the two were primarily concerned with pleasure, which is a fleeting experience. I get a lot of pleasure eating apple pie, but as soon as it's gone so is the pleasure. That's why I keep frozen slices of apple pie in my freezer. I can repeat the experience, however, there is the "law of diminishing returns". I mustn't repeat the experience too often, as frequency diminishes the pleasure.
“It was only in my forties that I really began to feel young. By then I was ready for it.” Me too, Henry, me too. Miller is the only person I have ever admired.
Eric, if this comment goes against your guidelines, please delete it. I enjoy reading your posts.
There is technology today that can scan and digitize the text of a printed book and convert the result into a digital book that can be read with Kindle, Nook, on a laptop, tablet, smart phone, etc. The free internet library, archive.org. holds such books for the public to read.
When my older daughter birthed her first child, her husband asked me what I wanted my grandchildren to call me? I said, "Grandfossil". That, and Sloan, is what my 4 grandchildren call me today.
I’m 81, and lots of my body parts don't work as originally designed, or hoped. I tried many times to be a successful lawyer, capitalist, stock market investor, and writer, but it wasn't in the cards or stars, and I became a successful trust fund baby and homeless person, depending on when I had inherited money.
When I was young, I didn’t fret about the state of the world. I was too busy trying to do what I liked and dodge what I disliked. I hated school, viewed it as being sent to prison 5 days a week. I felt the same about Sunday church sermons. I didn’t reach puberty when the other kids did, and that really fucked me up. I was good at football, baseball and basketball, but no way would I go in a locker room and get undressed. I focused on golf, fishing and hunting. I watched a lot of TV. I was deranged, basically.
Reaching puberty changed everything. I no longer hated or was terrified of girls. But I had lost my locker room sports skills. I was left with golf, fishing and hunting. I went to college and then to law school.
My first child, a boy, died at 7 weeks of sudden infant death syndrome. I was deranged, again. My work and love life went into the shitter. I tried working for my father, which was a mistake. I tried practicing law, which suited me a lot better, but was not a longterm solution. I plunged into 4-wall handball, racketball, tennis, white water paddling, karate, tai chi, and rugby.
I spent years trying to find myself and trying to fit into molds other people and I had built for me to wear. Nothing worked. My son had seen to that. I was years from being ready to thank him for that, when in my 45th year, I asked God to help me and I offered my life to human service, which turned out to be one of those be careful what you ask for moments. What followed was awful, but the alternative probably would have been far more awful.
Today, the state of the world and America distresses me. Not being able to do any of the physical sports, diversions, and love affairs with women that once made me feel alive and wanting to keep getting up in the morning, I’m left with playing chess and duplicate bridge in social groups and online, watching TV news reports and sports, Netflx and Prime movies and serials, and surfing the Internet and shooting off my mouth in forums and on my blogs, which get converted into books and go into the free internet library.
A gifted angel-harassed tech friend about half my age and I produce The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast, which is uploaded to YouTube and into the Torrent system, whose audiences are far more interested in something different than are YouTube audiences. The podcast is free and has no advertising or soliciting. The free internet library has a Torrent platform, and all of the podcasts are viewable there, as well as at numerous private torrent platforms.
We were kicked off Spotify, when the podcast was only audio. We were rejected by Rumble. We were frequently flagged at YouTube by people whose feelings we had hurt. We were banned from Russia, Belarus, Red China and about half of India. However, national Big Brothers cannot prevent people who know how to use Torrent from using it. So far, the last three podcast episodes combined have 820,000 complete watches at Torrent.
My various non-fiction, fiction, verse and stranger than fiction books at the free internet library are getting a lot more reads than my three mainstream consumer protection books published by Simon & Sçhuster/Prentice-Hall in the mid-1980s got. My body eventually will give up the ghost, but YouTube, Torrent, and the free internet library will allow me to shoot off my mouth for a bit longer.
Why I read you
Be careful, you might get a reputation :-)
Too late…
:-), Years ago, I read or heard somewhere, When we destroy our reputation, we can be free.
Yes when I heard that there was bad talk about me in this town it was the last straw of not giving two cents what people thought of me after chasing approval all of my life. Hell yes it is freedom for anyone and as a creative type it feels like one of those poor caged animals being let out of the pen into the free air.
Grrrrrr :-)
What really was striking and relates directly to me, in this story, is that by living in Quebec, I get to hear all my wife's family, and the non stop bitching about the French and how they are attacking the English , and how the French are bitching non stop about Les Anglais. If it wasn't so sad....
We are invited to a party on the 28th and im sure I will be treated to a dose of anti francophone rhetoric. From a host who lives in a million dollar house, whose daughter teaches in an English school, yada yada yada
I took Henry Millers advice about a decade ago, and realised that you can't change people like that. Took to long for me to realize it. I don't have the time for it, or what time I have left is better spent Elsewhere, not to old to learn , not to old to explore life. Reading, Poetry, DEMOCRACY , loving life.
With you 💯.
Interesting read and life ... your words and of course On Turning Eighty. I am having a problem finding it on archive.org. Any link or help is greatly appreciated.
Here are some links:
law school exam question
https://archive.org/details/amendment-14-section-3-law-school-exam/page/n1/mode/2up
podcast for law exam question
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ool2d7q6hag
podcast for shutting up Trump in court
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRVIDLIQ8qc&t=37s
podcast for big brother doers not love you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrnZ0pyOK4U&t=4s
T/hanks. Given how it ended up for Socrates, I consider you adventuresome :-)
I didn’t put anything specific about turning 80 on archive.org. I put there a number of my books, which give different glimpses of my truly strange life, different phases, challenges, and how I now interact with the world and other people, and also with politics, religions, supernatural beings, etc. Those books come up if you enter Sloan Bashinsky into the search space. The Amendment 14, Section 3 Law School Exam is at the internet archive. I understand its torrent has The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast. I have a blogspot, The Redneck Mystic Lawyer for President on the Unicorn ticket, a mock or spoof campaign, the issues assessed are graveyard serious however. Not much traffic tere. redneckmysticlawyerforpresident.blogspot.com. I have a substack newsletter, where I put what you read here and today I will put a sequel there. Not much traffic there. The traffic is on the podcast and the books and the 14/3 exam at the internet archive.
Loved it. I no longer try to convert people to my view of things, nor to heal them. Neither do I feel superior because they appear to be lacking in intelligence.
Still, only positive things can happen to big picture society if you would suggest contemplation of sterilization or even in some cases, self immolation...... sometimes to help the team, you gotta take one for the team.
Seriously, ignorance should be changed. Publicly, privately, had every opportunity. Good God man there’s no excuse.
Like all of Henry Miller’s works, and his paintings, there’s a truth and relatability; wonderfully simple, concise, efficient even. Appreciated.
Henry Miller espouses wisdom that is definitely worth tapping into!
I am a relatively healthy woman, pushing 82 years old. Next month I’m heading out on a jazz cruise with a friend, looking forward to hearing the best straightahead jazz!
From there we’re heading to the Grand Bahamas for a second relaxing week, planning lots of time in the beautiful Caribbean. Not bad.
Then February heralds the beginning of my 82nd year on this spinning planet.
ENJOY!
Indubitably!
Oh so good! I’m laughing from my belly as I start to grow young again. Never to late as I scream “Fuck you Jack”! 🙏❤️
Found a copy of the Miller book on eBay at $305.00!
Why we’ve haunted used book stores for decades and thrift shops that accept and sell used books. My first editions of T.S. Elliot and Dune. Like hitting gold. But lesser titles as well.
Exactly - I had a 1st of Dune and I still have original printings of Eliot's Four Quartets, each title issued separately in small booklets by Faber & Faber.
It’s treasure hunting
I used to visit many used bookstores when I lived in Los Angeles and environs but there is nothing within easy distance where I live now. I miss that. BTW, I also have a 1st of Eliot's Collected Poems 1909-1935, Very Good with light restoration to the dust jacket.
There are fewer here - and we don’t go into the city (Philadelphia) to roam anymore. When visiting Brooklyn now (the kids, friends) for these treasures it’s no fun anymore (Barnes & Noble ffs) since yuppie and hipster invasions. (Wow can I sound more like grandpa Simpson here?)
My town had a bookstore that closed a year after I moved here. Another opened but the selection is limited to best sellers and gift-type items (cards, bookmarks, coffee mugs). No Used books. Uggghh!
Yes the same!
I found one for 400 on AbeBooks.
I used Abebooks as a source when I was collecting books.
I've never ordered through it but have browsed it many times.
What words!! After all, nothing like truly living your life while you are still alive 🙌🏻
Against stupidity one is helpless. So true. Thank you
Thank you! This is just what I needed to read today, but then I am in my eighth decade. I think with some sadness of the innumerable times I read words like these when I was umpteen or so. Oh dear, six decades later I am still discovering how fucking stupid I was!
Thanks for introducing us to Henry Miller. So many interesting ideas to ponder for wherever we are. I love the perception that God is not “on” our side but “at” our side. And I hope, before I am 80, that I lose my illusions. Then I would really know the good by my side that surrounds and permeates always.
I have said many times that reading Henry Miller age 14 changed my life. I remember picking up a copy of Catcher in the Rye and thinking 'What's the big deal?' I had already been pleasantly contaminated by Miller, who was more profound, original, deeper - and funnier! Start off with Tropic of Cancer. I remember my original paperback had 'The Unexpurgated Version' on the cover. I dare say that it will change anyone at any age.
I seem to remember a young Miller urging folks to get on their knees for an entirely different purpose
He usually didn't have to urge them. They came willingly.
god I adore this man!
I am 98, and I particularly remember Henry Miller's acquaintance with Anais Nin.
I read Henry Miller's above words several times. I recall his association with Anais Nin, and I do believe the two were primarily concerned with pleasure, which is a fleeting experience. I get a lot of pleasure eating apple pie, but as soon as it's gone so is the pleasure. That's why I keep frozen slices of apple pie in my freezer. I can repeat the experience, however, there is the "law of diminishing returns". I mustn't repeat the experience too often, as frequency diminishes the pleasure.
“It was only in my forties that I really began to feel young. By then I was ready for it.” Me too, Henry, me too. Miller is the only person I have ever admired.
"The. Air. Conditioned. Nightmare."
YES!!