Shape of my heart

He deals the cards as a meditation
and those he plays
never suspect

he doesn't play for the money he wins
he doesn't play for respect

he deals the cards to find the answer
a sacred geometry of chance
the hidden law of a probable outcome
the numbers need a dance

I know that the spades
are swords of the soldier
I know that clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds
mean money for this art
but that's not the shape of my heart

~Sting

December

I wrote this almost a decade ago and I'd like to dedicate it to my father. His life continues to remind me that spring follows winter.

* * *

Is this the end? he asks me soon
as we fade in the light of a waning moon
and in the dusk an ice wind blows
to chill the heart and splinter bones
a tired sky looks on

oh will I find immortal mirth
from grievous toil of forsaken birth?
forget me not with tired eyes
with forgetful foggy lullabies
I once had life

I once had heart and faith and trust
and spirit like bones that haven't been crushed
by heavy weight of love despised
by bitter tears, unanswered cries
lonely man with hollow eyes
walks alone through tired skies
is this the end? he asks me still

i have no heart to tell him no

We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men

My grandfather died today.

The only real impact it's had on me is hoping that my dad, uncles and Myrna are ok. I guess you could say we were never that close. Hell, half the time, he couldn't remember our names. It was something of a running joke that the only grandson he cared about was my sister's husband because he'd been in the military.

My dad was in a state of shock when I talked to him. I can only guess at how he must be feeling. All his life, all he wanted was for his father to say "I love you and I'm proud of you" but he knew it would never be.

I was telling a friend the other night that if you could find enough love in your own heart, you wouldn't need it from other people. I tell myself that lie all the time in the hopes that it will come true. Why are we cursed with this need for love? It hurts so much when it can't be reciprocated.


Straight talk, give me the straight talk
Tell me what's on your mind
if it ain't love
I'm not gonna beg you for nothing
I'm not gonna beg you for your love

~ Natalie Merchant

Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima

A long time ago, an English teacher told me that human beings were not motivated by their triumphs but by their struggles so any good story needed to revolve around some central conflict. Man against machine, man against some other man, man against himself, etc. I guess the struggle is important because the outcome isn't written yet. We still have time to choose.

I was recently reminded of T.S. Eliot's poem "The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock." In this story, our hero desperately wants to tell a woman about his feelings for her but is paralyzed by his fear of rejection.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

In the end, he gives in to his fears and his monologue goes from self-justification to self-abasement. In short, he fights himself and loses. Poor devil. The saddest thing about this poem is not that Prufrock is deeply conflicted because we all have our demons. The real tragedy here is that he'll never know what would have happened if he'd said something.

What if she said she liked him too? Would you be willing to risk a little embarrassment if it gave you a shot at the person you can't get out of your head?

I would.

And even if your affections weren't reciprocated, at least your heart will have the freedom to move on.


Ay, fight and you may die, run and you'll live.
At least a while.

And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom

~ William Wallace (Braveheart)

Everyday is a one-act play, without an ending

Noah benShea writes:

Because each of us is alone on our journey we sometimes pack our fears for company.

What's so bad about being alone? Recently, I resolved to walk alone for a time because my world was getting too confusing. Love is a curious thing. We all crave it but like Icarus, it burns us if we fly too close. I think I'm less afraid of being alone then I am about being involved with the wrong person... but I'm trying to get over that too.

I had breakfast this morning with some friends, two of whom are married. For the most part, it was a fantastic with the one exception of the little pot-shots the married couple were taking at each other. If this had been the first time, I probably wouldn't have noticed but it wasn't, so now I'm writing about it. Why do people do that? If you're not happy about your situation, why not just bring it up? (in private!) Is questioning the value of your marriage in front of a group of people really your best option?

Maybe I'm just a romantic. Maybe I still believe that if you're patient enough, you'll find the one you're looking for. I guess part of that is finding yourself first. All relationships are work but a successful one requires that you're both working towards the same thing. I used to think that dating was just a numbers game and maybe it is. But love is a different animal.

Some people get to make the news
Some people get to say what's true
Everybody's got to find their own way through
But if you love love, then love loves you too
(bruce cockburn)

I've been reading a book on Zen and it says that the way to control your sheep or cow is to give them a large, spacious meadow. I read that as: if you want a well behaved lover, child, employee, whatever, give them room to be the people they were made to be. Sting says that if you love someone, you set them free. Maybe this idea is what he was getting at. Maybe if we don't hold the ones we love so tight, they'll have room to breathe and be the people they were born to be. Maybe then, we too could then become the people we were destined to be.

Jung says that all our (men's) ideas about women are bound up in one archetype called the anima. All too often, men fall head over heels for their anima (or women for their animus) and miss entirely the person they've formed a relationship with. Perhaps if we let go of our preconceptions about what relationships could be and just let them be what they are, then our potential mates would always just be who they are instead of some fantasy that no one is capable of living up to.

Whatever the case, I'm giving the anima a larger field.


Ring the bells that still can ring
forget your perfect offering
there is a crack
a crack in everything
that's how the light gets in...

~Leonard Cohen

Beginner's Mind

As a computer scientist, I think in terms of generalizations. One of the fundamental rules of good code is not repeating yourself. This is often achieved by altering solutions that work only work in one case and expanding them to work in other scenarios. Training and practice allow me to spot these patterns quickly.

In life, I seek to understand what makes people behave the way they do. I observe the way people speak and behave and look for patterns. I then (though rarely consciously) form hypothesis' about how they will act in different scenarios and adjust my hypothesis accordingly. This habit helps me adapt to a variety of social situations rapidly.

In short, I have an expert mind.

The trouble is, expert's can be extremely short sighted. A false positive in science is when something resembles a pattern you were looking for but turns out to be something completely different. Expert minds are prone to false positives.

My friends have taken to surprising me with increasing regularity. It's not that they're behaving inconsistently with what they've always done but my understanding of such is continually augmented by a deeper understanding of what moves them. That understanding does not come about by scientific method but from simply asking them to tell me more.

In Zen, there is a concept of the beginner's mind. That is, a mind that doesn't approach with all the answers mapped out but instead, allows new information to fall like a fresh rain into an empty cistern. It is never so full of answers that it quits asking questions.

In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities
but in the expert's, there are few.

~Shunryu Suzuki