\t\t\t\tkknobody in the world. not a single human death occurred on the planet
\nyesterday.<\/p>\n
that’s what somebody told me in a dream last night. it was pretty weird. a
\nfriend who i hadn’t seen in a while came up to me, smiling, and he said
\n“Mark, nobody died yesterday.” he meant nobody in the world, though he
\ndidn’t say that. then he walked away, still smiling, as if he wanted me to
\nthink about *that*.<\/p>\n
i woke up thinking about it. what difference would it make if, for just
\none day, no one died. one day would probably be insignificant.<\/p>\n
according to seemingly reliable sources there are 8.7 deaths per 1,000
\npeople. that seems like a lot. in my circle of circles of friends i might
\nknow 1000 people, and it doesn’t seem like 8.7 of them every day. i know,
\nthe stats don’t work that way. it’s just something to think about as i
\nmake the rounds of my busy, busy day.<\/p>\n
far more people are born each day. births minus deaths amounts to roughly
\n200,000 new human beings added to the planet every single day, a
\nsurprisingly obvious number that seems to have prompted no credible
\nmovement toward population abatement. “population abatement.” that sounds
\ngenocidal when what i guess i really mean is population control. China
\ntakes it seriously, it seems, but why would other nations sacrifice their
\ntraditions of divorce and the unspoken unhappiness of parenthood when the
\nstigma of the singleton persists? parenthood is the path to respect, is it
\nnot? for some, at least.<\/p>\n
i’ve been thinking about my philosophy of life. i want to arrive at a
\nphiliosophy of limited responsibility, or lack of responsibility. that’s
\nnot to suggest that i advocate irresp[onsibility, which is doing stupid
\nthings that endanger yourself and others. that’s not what i mean. i mean
\nthat people needlessly assume responsibilities and duties in life that
\nprimarily serve the cultural institutions and the economies that develop
\naround them. having not explored the meticularities of things i imagine
\nthat the data are obvious in their damning of the institutions of
\nmarriage, parenthood, even church and state. but data, as with the obvious
\nnumbers demanding population abatement, are ignored by the softness of
\ncomplacency. of course i will soundly retract that admittedly bald\/bold
\npresumption on my own ingestion and interpretation of reliable information
\nabout these matters.<\/p>\n
…..<\/p>\n
in other news from my mental machinations, i’ve had a good spell of
\npracticing the last few weeks. it just started one day, the way things
\noften start, with the decision to sit down and play piano for 3 hours, or
\nfor as long as i needed to get tired. i’ve walked away from the piano
\ntired and even exhausted a few times. i took today off (to tend to other
\naffairs) but i’ve got something going on with some new repertoire and
\npiano projects. i’m starting to think i should have started this
\nparticular project a few years ago, but no need to dwell on the
\nunrecoverableness of time.<\/p>\n
i had a moment of clarity last week. i sat down to write what i thought
\nwould be a pretty simple web site application. it would start simple, at
\nleast, and i’d develop it from those fundamental foundations. that’s kind
\nof how i usually do web things, or so i delude myself.
\nbut this time i couldn’t get anything going. a connected to teh database
\nbut that was the only success of the day. not the simplest line of code
\ncould be executed, the passwords didn’t work, the obnoxious (and
\nnotoriously finnicky) platform on which i chose to attempt this project
\nwas opaque and unhelpful as could be.
\nafter about 2 hours of continuous failure at this i stood up and walked
\nacross the room and started playing whatever music was sitting there.
\nthis was the moment of clarity: i am a pianist. it’s the only thing i went
\nto school for, only discipline for which i have any training, and maybe
\neven the only place on earth where i feel like i have any control over
\nwhat i’m doing. computers are in control of any work i use them for. they
\nsay that computers only do what humans tell them to do, and what humans
\ninstruct them to do, and i believe that. but the performance and
\n“character” of a computing platform derives from the human beings who
\ncreated it, and i am not among that clique.
\nwith piano music i feel like am never alone. with computer code i am a
\nlone combatant. with music there is a dialogue between myself and the
\ncomposer, and with the imagined sior\u00e9e of like-minded searchers who mine
\nmusic for meaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
kknobody in the world. not a single human death occurred on the planet yesterday. that’s what somebody told me in a dream last night. it was pretty weird. a friend who i hadn’t seen in a while came up to me, smiling, and he said “Mark, nobody died yesterday.” he meant nobody in the world, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-3u5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}