There have been 38 Godzilla movies since 1954. This monster is going so strong that the 2023 movie Godzilla Minus One is the best reviewed Godzilla movie yet.
Godzilla movies have a total box office of about $2.5 billion. Maybe there has been criticism of Godzilla as a psycho monster. If there has been criticism, it has not affected Godzilla’s popularity.
People love Godzilla. People love monsters. Don’t tell them they don’t.
© 2024 by Bob Schwartz
I could go on and on about the genius of the late James Marshall and his most beloved creation, the hippos George and Martha, two best friends.
You may think that these illustrated stories are for children, and you would be right, but far from completely right.
As an example, the very first of these 35 stories is Split Pea Soup.
Martha has cooked split pea soup for the two of them. George doesn’t like the soup, but doesn’t want to hurt Martha’s feelings, so he pours it into his shoes. Martha catches him in the act:
Martha said, “That’s silly. Friends should always tell each other the truth. I don’t like split pea soup very much myself. I only like to make it. From now on, you’ll never have to eat that awful soup again.”
“What a relief!” George sighed.
“Would you like some chocolate chip cookies instead?” asked Martha.
“Oh, that would be lovely,” said George.
“Then you shall have them,” said his friend.
If you think that the message is so saccharine and cliched that even a child, let alone a sophisticated grownup like you, would find it over sweet and oversimple, you have not met George and Martha.
When you do meet them—and you should by buying George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends—you, your own George or Martha, or any children in your life, will wonder how you got along without them.
When I searched today for appreciations of George and Martha, I found one from the New York Times in March 2018. The writer, Amy Bloom, explains how important George and Martha could be in those challenging times (you recognize why those times and these are similarly challenging):
“The Collected Stories of George and Martha: Two Best Friends” is all 35 George and Martha stories. I would recommend buying the book, with its glorious bright yellow-with-pink-flowers cover, and enjoying Sendak’s foreword. I would display it right where guests would see it even before they take off their coats. And I would hope that their exposure to George and Martha would act as lemon juice on scurvy, derailing some of the more predictable and dispiriting dinner party conversations of 2018.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which, and who is who?
Up and down
And in the end, it’s only round and round, and round
Pink Floyd, and especially Roger Waters, are at or near the top of iconoclastic (“icon smashing”) pop music. (Waters continues to swim outside the mainstream, getting him into trouble with certain constituencies, but from my perspective, his artistic contribution grants him a license.)
Take the issue of education. We know the schools are not working, if the mission is to cultivate citizens with solid basic skills and knowledge. Instead of, for example, schools that deliver many students to college who are deficient in elementary math and who can’t conscientiously research and coherently write without the assistance of AI. What some parents clamor for is education that inculcates their children with the “right” ideology.
More than forty years ago, this is what Waters wrote in Another Brick in the Wall:
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall
Back to post-election music. Two years after John Lennon—another iconoclast—released his anti-war track, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (1971), Pink Floyd featured Waters’ view about war on Dark Side of the Moon (1973). Us and Them is about war, but more broadly about the pointless and thoughtless identities that lead inevitably to pointless and thoughtless conflict.
Us and them
And after all, we’re only ordinary men
Me and you
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do
“Forward!” he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
The general sat, and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side
Black and blue
And who knows which is which, and who is who?
Up and down
And in the end, it’s only round and round, and round
“Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words?”
The poster bearer cried
“Listen, son,” said the man with the gun
“There’s room for you inside”
Down and out
It can’t be helped, but there’s a lot of it about
With, without
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?
Out of the way, it’s a busy day
I’ve got things on my mind
For want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died
This is now the sixth time I have posted this list of 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action by the late Gene Sharp (1928-2018) of the Albert Einstein Institution. The first time in April 2013, most recently in September 2020.
These methods were developed over decades as successful tools of change in resistance to authoritarian regimes. Which is to say: they have worked.
When I posted these in September 2020, I wrote at the time:
“As optimistic as I want to be about emerging sometime soon from dark governmental and political times, that day may not be tomorrow, or November, or January, or 2021.”
So it goes.
Please read this last thoroughly. Please consider which may be appropriate for you and for the current circumstances. Then please pass the list on and act.
These actions have worked before. And they can work again.
198 Methods of Nonviolent Action
Formal Statements
Communications with a Wider Audience
Symbolic Public Acts
Pressures on Individuals
Drama and Music
Processions
Honoring the Dead
Public Assemblies
Withdrawal and Renunciation
The Methods Of Social Noncooperation
Ostracism of Persons
Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: Economic Boycotts
Actions by Consumers
Action by Workers and Producers
Action by Middlemen
Action by Owners and Management
Action by Holders of Financial Resources
Action by Governments
The Methods Of Economic Noncooperation: The Strike
Symbolic Strikes
Agricultural Strikes
Strikes by Special Groups
Ordinary Industrial Strikes
Restricted Strikes
Multi-Industry Strikes
Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
The Methods Of Political Noncooperation
Rejection of Authority
Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
Action by Government Personnel
Domestic Governmental Action
International Governmental Action
The Methods Of Nonviolent Intervention
Psychological Intervention
Physical Intervention
Social Intervention
Economic Intervention
Political Intervention
Depending on your voting this election, you may not feel good about the results. You may think that those who have gained, regained or retained power will cause people to suffer and for things to get worse, not just in America but around the world. You may be right.
There are practical strategies available to counter some of that, strategies that will be discussed and executed in the days and months ahead.
This is something different. When people come to power who don’t have the best interests of other people in their hearts and minds, we can make up the difference and counterbalance the worst.
We can do that by doubling down on being better people. In the words of Michelle Obama, who knows something about what our fellow Americans are capable of, “When they go low, we go high.”
When they go lower, let us go higher. And better.
© 2024 by Bob Schwartz
“A mind can blow those clouds away”
All Things Must Pass
Sunrise doesn’t last all morning
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
It’s not always gonna be this gray
All things must pass
All things must pass away
Sunset doesn’t last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
It’s not always gonna be this gray
All things must pass
All things must pass away
Now the darkness only stays at nighttime
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It’s not always gonna be this gray
All things must pass
All things must pass away
George Harrison
This land was made for you and me.
“There are two aspects of watching, subjective and objective. Subjective watching deals with one’s self; it is to examine one’s inner motives. Objective watching deals with others; it is to watch others’ reactions to one’s conduct. The wisdom of watching is like looking at a mirror, checking one’s original intention and outward conduct.”
The I Ching/Yijing can’t predict the election.
The pollsters can’t predict the election.
The political experts can’t predict the election.
The difference is that the I Ching embodies centuries of human affairs and history. Which makes it wise, wiser than the pollsters, the political experts, and us.
Primary is its wisdom that everything changes. One line changing to its opposite. Hexagrams changing one to another. Randomly but not randomly. People choose and change what happens. It begins with Creation (Hexagram 1). It almost ends with After Completion (Hexagram 63). But it ends with Before Completion (Hexagram 64). As if it is going to start all over again. Which it always has and will.
Q: What will be the outcome of the 2024 U.S. election?
A: Hexagram 20
Guan • Watching
NAME AND STRUCTURE
Guan means watching, observing, examining, contemplating….
Sequence of the Gua: When things become great, they require careful attention. Thus, after Approaching, Watching follows.
In China a Taoist temple is termed Tao Guan; literally it is “a place for watching the Tao.” The esoteric secret of Taoist meditation is watching—watching the breath, or the flowing of energy, or nothing. The purpose of watching is keeping alert. While chanting or reciting scriptures both Buddhist and Taoist monks beat wooden fish rhythmically. Because fish never close their eyes, the wooden fish remind one to stay alert. The Chinese name for Avalokiteshvara (an incarnation of the Buddha) is Guan-yin. Guan-yin means watching (guan) the sound (yin). To the Chinese, contemplation is watching; contemplative watching is focusing on one point and being attentive. During meditation, the sect that worships Guan-yin watches the sound either inside or outside the body. Watching the sound but not getting caught up in it, one is totally detached from the world. This gua not only sheds light on meditation but also expounds the truth that people should always keep their eyes open, watching the virtue of a leader. Thus a leader should always be sensitive to morality and justice and manifest these qualities to his people….
SIGNIFICANCE
The theme of the gua is to demonstrate the wisdom of watching. There are two aspects of watching, subjective and objective. Subjective watching deals with one’s self; it is to examine one’s inner motives. Objective watching deals with others; it is to watch others’ reactions to one’s conduct. The wisdom of watching is like looking at a mirror, checking one’s original intention and outward conduct. The ancient sages believed that inner sincerity is always revealed through one’s conduct.
The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation by Taoist Master Alfred Huang
“From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”
A couple of days ago, I was thinking about ways to be in this fraught moment of Election 2024.
My typical search for just the right soundtrack ended with the perfect music: Christmas.
It is almost two months until Christmas. On the consumer front, Christmas has already begun. It used to be that shopping Christmas began at Thanksgiving. Now, the unofficial start is Halloween.
Commercial Christmas aside, no holiday more embodies good feeling—whether spiritual, peaceful, familial or just plain human. And that good feeling is embodied in the music.
What I have started to do, even though it is the first week in November, is to add Christmas music to my playlist. Lots of it, because I suspect that good feeling is going to be helpful in the days ahead.
You can choose the Christmas music you like. It comes in all flavors, and you likely have your favorites. Whatever that is, just listen as much as you need to keep things joyous and bright.
It’s hard to feature just one song from so many favorites. Here’s one, from an angel of song.
© 2024 by Bob Schwartz
These are the last few days before the election. Whatever happens, we can benefit from equanimity.
Lojong is a mind training practice in Tibetan Buddhism. It includes 59 slogans. Among them:
11
When the world is filled with evil,
Transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi [wakefulness].
Commentary on this by Chogyam Trungpa in his book Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness:
11
When the world is filled with evil,
Transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi.
That is to say, whatever occurs in your life—environmental problems, political problems, or psychological problems—should be transformed into a part of your wakefulness, or bodhi….
In other words, you do not blame the environment or the world political situation…. According to this slogan, when the world is filled with evil, or even when the world is not filled with evil, any mishaps that might occur should all be transformed into the path of bodhi, or wakefulness. That understanding comes from your sitting practice and your general awareness.
This slogan says practically everything about how we can practice generosity as well. In our ordinary life, our immediate surroundings or our once-removed surroundings are not necessarily hospitable. There are always problems and difficulties. There are difficulties even for those who proclaim that their lives are very successful, those who have become the president of their country, or the richest millionaires, or the most famous poets or movie stars or surfers or bullfighters. Even if our lives go right, according to our expectations, there are still difficulties. Obstacles always arise. That is something everybody experiences. And when obstacles happen, any mishaps connected with those obstacles—poverty mentality, fixating on loss and gain, or any kind of competitiveness—should be transformed into the path of bodhi.
That is a very powerful and direct message. It is connected with not feeling poverty stricken all the time. You might feel inadequate because you have a sick father and a crazy mother and you have to take care of them, or because you have a distorted life and money problems. For that matter, even if you have a successful life and everything is going all right, you might feel inadequate because you have to work constantly to maintain your business. A lot of those situations could be regarded as expressions of your own timidity and cowardice. They could all be regarded as expressions of your poverty mentality….
It is the sense of resourcefulness, that you can deal with whatever is available around you and not feel poverty stricken. Even if you are abandoned in the middle of a desert and you want a pillow, you can find a piece of rock with moss on it that is quite comfortable to put your head on. Then you can lie down and have a good sleep. Having such a sense of resourcefulness and richness seems to be the main point….
We have found that a lot of people complain that they are involved in intense domestic situations: they relate with everything in their lives purely on the level of pennies, tiny stitches, drops of water, grains of rice. But we do not have to do that—we can expand our vision by means of generosity. We can give something to others. We don’t always have to receive something first in order to give something away. Having connected with the notion of generosity, we begin to realize a sense of wealth automatically. The nature of generosity is to be free from desire, free from attachment, able to let go of anything.
Books about lojong:
Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa
The Practice of Lojong: Cultivating Compassion through Training the Mind by Traleg Kyabgon
The Compassion Book: Teachings for Awakening the Heart by Pema Chödrön
Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong by Norman Fischer
Bob Schwartz 