Garden Of Blog

This weekend I spent some time clearing away ambitious saplings from my blackberries. I have a large pruning tool which is perfect for the job, good for anything up to two thumbs thick. This year, I chose the right time for this task… before the snow cover melted off… which made the saplings easily visible as they poked straight up through the crusty blanket alongside my bowed, thorny brambles. Last year I waited longer to battle my berries’ competition, and in the spring undergrowth I picked up a good case of poison ivy.

I think the berries have been spreading the last few years, all around the utility pole that guards our driveway, and up and down one side of the drive. I haven’t measured our berry output yet. We also have a smaller number of raspberries and strawberries volunteering every year, which I take as an excellent reason to put off mowing at least until the strawberries are past.

• It becomes possible
• It becomes easy
• It becomes foolproof
• It disappears

Correspondingly:

• feature added
• feature enhanced
• bugs fixed
• fully automated

The title of this article says it all: “Study Finds The Pious Fight Death Hardest“.

I am fascinated.

… is writing about me again.

I have been following this trend for some time, and the only thing that surprises me is that it’s not happening faster. The “please tell me what to think and do” days belong to another millennium.

I am a little worried, however, that we’ll be just as willing mental slaves in a more secular culture, if the dynamics of power-wielding haven’t changed so much as the metaphors we use to describe them. Instead of “saints and sinners” we’ll just have “high performers and low performers“… all of which are words that tell us how happy our authorities are with us at any given moment. I don’t feel like anyone will be truly “saved” until there is nobody left to please but ourselves.

It’s weird… in the past, apathy was my best defense against the insurmountable. Lately I seem to have switched to playing offense both at work and home, with a passion I can’t figure the source of.

Same as the apathy, I find passion to have both its benefits and its price. Caring how things go down takes a lot of energy, and may impinge on the comfort zones of others. I suspect I’ll get the best results in the middle ground between apathy and passion, but my talent for temperance has always been wanting.

A typical weekend day this winter includes a fire in the wood stove, and the Boston Celtics on the tube. Nothing fancy but I am enjoying it.