This folly goes out to no-one in particular

For someone with an awful lot to say, especially one such as I with a tendency for the allegorical, a fancy for the mixed metaphor and a partiality to the occasional verbal ramble and flight of fancy, I would say I don't use this here website nearly as often as I should do for venting of spleen or the recording of my muse. I intend for this to change, two followers be damned.

Innocenti

Just beautiful... and fitting for me today...

 To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons

Shudders hell thro' all its regions.

A dog starv'd at his master's gate

Predicts the ruin of the state.

 

A horse misused upon the road

Calls to heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare

A fibre from the brain does tear.

 

A skylark wounded in the wing,

A cherubim does cease to sing.

The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight

Does the rising sun affright.

 

 Every wolf's and lion's howl

Raises from hell a human soul.

 

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,

Keeps the human soul from care.

The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,

And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

 

The bat that flits at close of eve

Has left the brain that won't believe.

The owl that calls upon the night

Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

 

 He who shall hurt the little wren

 Shall never be belov'd by men.

 He who the ox to wrath has mov'd

Shall never be by woman lov'd.

 

 The wanton boy that kills the fly

Shall feel the spider's enmity.

He who torments the chafer's sprite

Weaves a bower in endless night.

 

The caterpillar on the leaf

Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly,

For the last judgement draweth nigh.

 

He who shall train the horse to war

Shall never pass the polar bar.

The beggar's dog and widow's cat,

Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

 

The gnat that sings his summer's song

Poison gets from slander's tongue.

The poison of the snake and newt

Is the sweat of envy's foot.

 

The poison of the honey bee

Is the artist's jealousy.

 

The prince's robes and beggar's rags

Are toadstools on the miser's bags.

A truth that's told with bad intent

Beats all the lies you can invent.

 

It is right it should be so;

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know,

Thro' the world we safely go.

 

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine.

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

 

The babe is more than swaddling bands;

Every farmer understands.

Every tear from every eye

Becomes a babe in eternity;

 

This is caught by females bright,

And return'd to its own delight.

The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,

Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

 

The babe that weeps the rod beneath

Writes revenge in realms of death.

The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,

Does to rags the heavens tear.

 

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,

Palsied strikes the summer's sun.

The poor man's farthing is worth more

Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

 

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands

Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;

Or, if protected from on high,

Does that whole nation sell and buy.

 

He who mocks the infant's faith

Shall be mock'd in age and death.

He who shall teach the child to doubt

The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

 

He who respects the infant's faith

Triumphs over hell and death.

The child's toys and the old man's reasons

Are the fruits of the two seasons.

 

The questioner, who sits so sly,

Shall never know how to reply.

He who replies to words of doubt

Doth put the light of knowledge out.

 

The strongest poison ever known

Came from Caesar's laurel crown.

Nought can deform the human race

Like to the armour's iron brace.

 

When gold and gems adorn the plow,

To peaceful arts shall envy bow.

A riddle, or the cricket's cry,

Is to doubt a fit reply.

 

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile

Make lame philosophy to smile.

He who doubts from what he sees

Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

 

If the sun and moon should doubt,

They'd immediately go out.

To be in a passion you good may do,

But no good if a passion is in you.

 

 The whore and gambler, by the state

Licensed, build that nation's fate.

The harlot's cry from street to street

Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

 

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,

Dance before dead England's hearse.

 

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born,

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight.

 

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie

When we see not thro' the eye,

 Which was born in a night to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light.

 

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in night;

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

 

Auguries of Innocence - William Blake

 

 

 

There is no other alternative

Trust.

What is this ideal? What are its properties, its boundaries and it's limitations? Can it be evaluated, and more importantly, tested? Wikipedia tells us:

'In a social context, trust has several connotations. Definitions of trust typically refer to a situation characterised by the following aspects: One party (trustor) is willing to rely on the actions of another party (trustee); the situation is directed to the future. In addition, the trustor (voluntarily or forcedly) abandons control over the actions performed by the trustee. As a consequence, the trustor is uncertain about the outcome of the other's actions; he can only develop and evaluate expectations. The uncertainty involves the risk of failure or harm to the trustor if the trustee will not behave as desired.'

Yet about the concept of 'Faith', it has to say the following:

'Faith is confidence or trust in a person or entity. In religion, faith is belief in God or gods or in the doctrines or teachings of the religion. Informal usage of faith can be quite broad, including trust or belief without proof, and "faith" is often used as a substitute for "hope", "trust" or "belief".'

Are the two concepts interchangable? Or, more pertinently, are they one and the same ideal under differing pseudonyms? Is faith a sobriquet for trust? The idea that in order to enjoy the benefits of whatever conceit with which we choose to use to insulate ourselves, that a blind emotional investment in undefinable and unquantifiable behaviours we cannot possibly be a party to is required. How far can one travel based on such ideologies? The belief that others will act in our best interests no matter what the circumstance?

When all has been said and done, social humans by nature, are all natural (and skilled) liars. Whether it is that we lie to ourselves that we are good, generous, kind hearted individuals, yet also people who pass on hurriedly by the average homeless individual with nothing but a mild feeling of awkwardness, muttering something about not having any change. Or whether we lie to our loved ones, that they look good in a certain garment of clothing or shoes, when they in fact appear patently otherwise, or further still even more serious and grave deceits, and so on and so on, ad infinitum. The world of politics, the governmental infrastructure that runs the society as we know it is built on smear, character assassination, claim, and counter claim. The western justice system operates on lying and deceit as a matter of prosecution and defense of our criminals, concerning matters that threaten some peoples very existence in the world. We depend on lies to make the system we live in work. We use a system of white and black lies to make not only our own lives, but the lives of those around us who we love and depend on, more managable. We use them every day, for better or for worse. But do we we live in harmony with them? When we know that they not just make everyone's world go around, but ours personally too? Is one to makes ones peace with the fact that you will be deceived to varying degrees by anybody and everybody at any time, in any place? What is the alternative?

Is trust based on good judgments? Do we have to assume that our sound appraisal and subsequent judgement in a person or an entity is the first block in the foundation that eventually builds the wall of trust? Or is trust just a feeling we have to say we feel in abundance, even when we feel otherwise. Should we be putting our faith in the good and honorable nature of the individual, even at those times when ones instincts are indicating there is something amiss, that internal alarm that blares, dull yet insistent, when something isn't quite right. Some detail omitted from an account, a grey area in a memory, a distant recollection of something skirted over and quickly hurried on from. Only when such situations occur does the trust card become the trump of the deck. See fit to call integrity into question, and the illusion of trust is quickly decimated and replaced with anything from confusion and bitterness to outright resentment, assuming of course that any accusations or mere suggestions made prove to be in fact, false.

A bond of trust is essentially developed based on assumptions, made through what can only be desribed as educated guesses. This guess work has to be worked out based on other, equally ambiguous conditions. The following questions may be asked of the trustee to help check or uncheck certain boxes:

1). Who/what is this person/entity and what is their relationship to me?

2). Have they proven themselves worthy of trust in the past?

3). What is it this person/entity aspires to, ie: what do they want?

4). Having answered this question, does what they have in their life currently fulfill this criteria?

5). Finally, has their trustworthiness been put to the test?

Until one defines the answers to the above questions, how can one really say with one hundred per-cent certainty that they can truly trust in someone or something else?Until it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a person/persons or organisation is incapable of lies, deceit or betrayal, how can one operate under such assumptions?

To quantify such an ambiguous term such as trust, test it thoroughly and become aware of its limitations, boundaries and weaknesses, is impossible without essentially annihilating it outright. A method known in manufacturing as 'test to destruction', if you will. The crossroads one reaches is whether to make that 'leap of faith' (there's that word again), to place in someone/something the faith that no matter what is put in front of them, no matter what temptations they happen across and no matter what offer is tabled, that person (or persons) concerned will do what is best by you, the trustor, under any circumstance.

What is the alternative?

Quote: 'Remember, it ain't about what you know, it's about what you can prove'