The Thousand Character Classic, also known as the Thousand Character Text, is a Chinese poem that has been used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children from the sixth century onward. Four characters in sets of two lines, and seven columns of categories, no character is repeated. While it is no longer formally used in school, individuals continue to use it for personal brush skill and knowledge.development.
Painting on the outside of a building looking down Market Street towards the Embarcadero in San Francisco,
Patterns of light in a window made of glass blocks—light and glass, the same thing that makes a photograph. As you look at these images. of my photographs
Alameda Creek
There will always be some one better than some one else; there will always be some thing better than another thing.
Its not because there is no better or worse, its because the words were in the past and are today, created by human beings and words o may have different meanings to different peoples,
Most words do have enough common meanings, close to it anyway, such that a society can survive the business of everyday life, can get it on enough so that the critical level of functioning as a society is met and life continues.
“Best” and “worst“ results could be measured by the degree of harmony or lack of harmony in the society, or whether the society continues or ceases to exist.
While the “process” of socialization is the same, i.e. children’s interaction with various members of society as they grow results in learning language, and behaviors which give them a personality, at best each person’s experiences are slightly different, and at worst they can be very different.
Imagine if every time people had a conversation it resulted in an argument over the meaning of the words being used.. At some point the society could not have solidarity, it would be chaotic and disfunctional.
At one time—the beginning— in the evolutionary development of people there were no words and over time people created words. Some words lost their meanings while new words came into being. .
It is the process of culture, children interact with society, learning a language and behavior which builds a common meaning of words among the individuals in a group. Learning a language both enables communication as well as creates a more shared view of reality.
But still each person’s experiences are unique, for that person alone.
When the experiences of individuals become more differentiated, among individuals in the society. the meaning of the words in the language becomes more diverse. Words are arbitrary and need a sense of the shared meaning for a group, such as a society to enable society to function. .When individuals learn words as a language they also develop a shared sense of meaning, a shared sense of what is “reality.”
Our society is influenced by fashion, not just what walks down the runway, but trends in society and a common “understanding of reality..” “Popularity” of a thing can become a measurement of the quality of the thing rather than a measurement of the functionality or use of the thing.
EndPapers
“…I realized that I could never rightfully call a piece my own unless I had made all of it. The practice that I followed until then, of signing my name to pieces on which I merely add the surface decoration, came to seem less and less defensible. It was a shameful decoration: such pieces were collaborations , not my sole handiwork. Besides, the heart of a world of pottery is not its decoration, but how it is formed out of earth. To leave that essential process to an ingnorant artisan , and do only the finishing touches myself, was a perversion of the spirit of pottery making.”
Rosanjin, from UNCOMMON CLAY, The Life and Pottery of Rosanjin Sidney B. Cardozo/Masaaki Hirano
I met Tom one night at Rapson’s bar in Port Chester in 1964. He was in a heated discussion ina corner with some larger -than-he-was jocks about the war, we managed to flee before the heavy stuff started and have been friends ever since. He appeared at my door one day in South Dakota, stayed for awhile, met Nance and they returned to Connecticut , bought land and moved to Maine.
Stories long forgotten, yet retold in the weathered wood make a background.
Using gravity and a shoe box to sort the seeds from the stems, a skill I learned from Tom which later helped to ease my way out of a tense situation where I needed to actually show some “street creed” to legitimize myself.
The weathered facade of the house gave a feeling of their reason for being here in a more rural local of life.
Night grows late, I put poetry aside, breathe a long sigh.
By lamplight tears of old age dampen my white beard.
A scroll of old poems from twenty years ago—
of ten who wrote poems to match them, nine are no more.
Po Chu-i, Po Chu-i Selected Poems translated by BurtonWatson
For many years while walking along the Alameda Creek trail I might meet Charlene out raking the leaves. As our relationship grew, she increasingly suffered from Alzheimer’s. Her husband kept her at home for as long as possible until she passed in hospice at home last year.. My father suffered from it , and my mother also would not put him in a memory care facility, He died in hospice at home. Its a very special privilege to be chosen to care for someone while they are dying.
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
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