Know bridge over ripples

Nihonbashi 日本橋

Nihon means Japan, Bashi means bridge.. Edo (now Tokyo) was, and Tokyo is, a city of rivers with roads connecting bridges over those rivers. Each bridge has a story to tell, a story often told on a plaque posted somewhere. Nihon means Japan and bashi means bridge—Japan bridge.

What does that mean?? Chinese characters do not use many parts of grammar used in phonetic languages, parts which are often used for more detailed information. That information is communicated in other ways.

If you have a Chinese or Japanese friend . . . and if you like poetry, . . . and if you have a book of Chinese or Japanese poetry with translation, ask your friend to sit with you and translate the poem—haiku works well because it is short—without looking at the book translation and then compare the two. My personal for Chinese poet would be Su Tung Po (1037–1101).

The differences and sames which will teach you about the poem, about the language and, most interesting, you will learn some insights into english words.

Do other people share a similar view of who I am? Am I different to different people? The former might be boring, the latter two faced.

Be diplomatic to initiate such an event, your friend might think you are “testing them” and be reluctant, but if can find a friend to do it, its a valuable experience. It has nothing to do with their English ability, its not about their proficiency with English, but the words that they select from their English vocabulary to fill in the details will give you insight into the English language.

Think of our paths, each uniquely winding around Earth, and how at the different places of intersections we look back at them and think —That’s not the real me!

Alameda Creek

Who am I to myself and compared to how others see me.

Its not really possible, there is no right or wrong answer. We cannot read the minds of others, and knowing our own mind is a difficult job in its own right.

I imagine that people who are successful in popular medium, especially as“personalities” have a disciplined approach to how they present themselves to others. Doing behavior “A” gets response “B” from others.

If a behavior “A” which always gets a behavior “B” from most others, and it fits a behavior used by popular media, some can become very popular.

On the other hand when you look at all the different people out there, popularity in popular media is not just about communicating with others, but with a lot of others, you need to find lowest common denominators, KISS—Keep it simple stupid.

Others are more concerned with their personal expression. The point is not to do any “some thing” to get popular but to do some “thing” which meets a standard —a professional standard, a skilled craft standard, the Scientific Method— basically a respected independent standard.

Can we do something which makes the world a better place and others do not appreciate it?

Or we do something which makes the world a worse place and become very popular . . .

The photograph is the unchanging gateway between the constantly changing past and future—the “reality” of the image is in the past but the hard copy image is in the present.

EndPapers

I can play this guitar, I can sing a few notes,
I’m old enough now in this country to vote
So I wrote me a song ’bout the white winged dove
And a toy gun for Christmas in place of love.
White Winged Dove Mark Spoelstra

In a public park, Maine about 1973, the grandson gets out the car and starts shooting his toy gun at people in the park.

Cynics would have us believe that altruism is rare. It seems possible, however, that the best of intentions are not nearly so rare as the wisdom that is necessary to implement them.

H.G. Creel Chinese Thought From Confucius to Mao-Tse-tung pub.1954

I picked my way over corpse after corpse in the gloom, until I heard one voice raised above the gentle undulating moaning. I found girl, she was a living skeleton, impossible to gauge her age for she had practically no hair left, and he face on a yellow parchment sheet with two holes in it for eyes . . . And beyond her down the passage and in the hut there were the convulsive movements of dying people too weak to raise themselves from the floor.

Richard Dimbleby, BBC reporter describing entering Belson concentration camp April 1945 THE EYE OF WAR Words and photographs from the Front Line

Feel, feel for your heart
Is it still beating
Or has it died
Dead in its shell
And is your blood wine . . .
Mark Spoelstra from the song Born to Die

Poster, Cambridge, MA , 1971

Drink, drink you war mongers,
Cut with your cold blade of fear.
But your power is dyin’
So let it be told.
Your blood and your bones
Will age with decay
and rot in your soul.
Mark Spoelstra from the song Born to Die