About That Press Conference...

... this morning. I tried, I really did. I tried listening to my late father's familiar injunction: Be charitable. That would be the Christian voice. I listened to Than Geoff's recommendation of goodwill, compassion or, failing that, at least equanimity. The Buddhist approach.

But the Bush voice--that indignant whine of one who believes that his questioner is incapable of understanding the full depth of his wisdom--and the Bush assumption of unassailable rectitude in all matters, great and small, and the Bush humor, with its waggish condescension, well... they all drive me to distraction. I watched this man this morning as he evaded and purposefully distorted questions, ducked responsibility and cheerfully laid blame on others, rambled on unintelligibly and smirked that aggravating smirk, and I frankly found it hard to wish him well. If I wished him true happiness and he found it, I suppose the world would be a better place, as Than Geoff suggests. In the meantime, though, I find it scarcely possible to forgive him for the harm he has done to this world, and continues to do, with apparent impunity. I guess I'm just not Buddhist enough yet. Maybe karma will catch up with him in a later life--or later in this one. But let's not hope for anything so dreadful... Let's stick to the wish for true happiness. Much nicer.

Last night, though, we did have a good session with one of our artists' groups. The most interesting part, for me, was to hear how each of us, in our various ways, delights in that sense of being in the flow. It's not something you can work to get, really: it's something that happens when you work. Ellie had brought in a wonderful quotation from an article on the video artist Bill Viola, in which he was quoted as recalling a thought from a 14th century Japanese treatise on acting:the artist's consciousness is a seagull and the outer chaos is the wind, and the right alignment of the two results in effortless flight. A much more profitable topic for reflection than all of Bush's tripe.