I try to write at least 300 words a day, it's an exercise as part of my recovery as an artist called morning pages.
Last week was mostly spent sick with food poisoning or maybe E coli, so there’s no podcast script to share this week. Yesterday, I recorded the podcast and it was just me speaking my mind. All of my trees for Spring planted have arrived and will be planted after this week’s cold front. The weekend was a nice time with my girls.
King Cooper reveals the power of words through Shakespeare’s Sonnet Number Seven, explores the impactful lyrics of Busta Rhymes, and reflects on personal experiences and historical events. The conversation also touches on philosophical inquiries, particularly the concept of the experience machine, and concludes with a reading of Psalm Six, emphasizing themes of mercy and justice.
This morning the six new peach trees got planted this morning, I even did some shoveling with a baby in one hand, which is new for me. The rest of my Spring trees should be arriving today. Currently I’m short on hose, over the last year I lost a couple that had developed holes over the years and a couple weeks ago when we had snow I went to most one hose and it easily ripped in half. Yesterday I was charging the buggie at the location Grizzy moved it to and it looks like the batteries still have life. Next weeks script still needs a lot of work.
Wreck of the week: oil changes. I understand why engines need their oil changed and I don’t think electric motors are without problems. Both electric motors and engines are topics we should cover some time. Engine is short for ingenious machine. And electricity is produced by spinning magnets wrapped with copper in circles, wild world. But enough of that! it’s such a hassle for me to get my car in. The place I went to had a “sorry we’re closed” sign in the window and a “open” neon light turned off, so I thought they were closed. My queen convinced me to call them and my first thought was to ask, “are you open?” Which I think would be confusing as why would someone pick up the phone if they’re close?
Meditations 14
It starts off loving three things, family, truth, justice.
“Love of family” I’ve said before all we do is for the children and Shakespeare seems to agree with his countless sonnets about kids.
“Love of truth” we act this out in a couple different ways. God being the way, truth. Also philosophy, literally meaning love of wisdom in Greek and Latin.
“Love of justice” It would be important for the emperor to be just, but how do we define justice? Well it’s a good thing justice comes after truth, if we have truth or pursue truth, we will be closer to knowing justice.
“Understand Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dio, Brutus”
*Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus was a wealthy and well-respected member of the Stoic Opposition. Stoic opposition is the stoic philosophers opposing status quo. He criticized Nero’s tyrannical behavior and the collusion of the senate. He was executed by Nero in 66 AD. Nero is also significant in the Bible, he killed many Cristians often in brutal ways. There is an argument that the mark of the beast, 666 refers to the Roman Emperor Nero. Previously a viewer got annoyed at me reading the Bible. Even if you remove the religious aspect of the Bible, it is an important historical text. People in the past were being persecuted by a mad ruler and they created a code to speak out against him. The story is documented in the Bible.
*That was Thrasea, now Helvidius Priscus was Thrasea’s son-in-law and another member of the Stoic Opposition. He was executed by the tyrannical emperor Vespasian.
*Cato of Utica was a famous Stoic who opposed Julius Caesar.
He tried unsuccessfully to prevent Caesar from turning the Roman Republic into a dictatorship.
*Dio! may refer to Dio Chrysostom, a Stoic-influenced rhetorician and philosopher. Rhetoric is basically language arts. He was exiled by Emperor Domitian for allegedly conspiring against his rule. Which is why people needed codes to speak out against.
*Marcus Aurelius’ nephew, Brutus, was influenced by Stoicism and Platonism, the philosopher Plato. He was one of the assassins of Julius Caesar. As Shakespeare wrote in his play Julius Caesar,
Zimmy zam boomafoo! Shakespeare remember him?!
He said, “et tu Brutus?” Latin, but is the same spelling in modern French to say “and you Brutus?”
Brutus on the beat so it’s not nice! Why would a Roman Emperor want to understand people who opposed previous Roman Emperors? Friends close, enemies closer.
*Next, valuable ideas, “a balanced constitution, a commonwealth based on equality and freedom of speech, and a monarchy which values above all the liberty of the subject” Does any of that sound familiar, the American founding fathers certainly studied ancient rome. E pluribus unum, latin for out of many, one, it is written on the great seal of the United States.
*Continuing, “a constant and vigorous respect for philosophy; beneficence, unstinting generosity, optimism” We covered philosophy with truth. Beneficence is doing good, goes with generosity: kindness. Optimism would be seeing and believing in the good of the future.
“Confidence in the affection of his friends, frankness with those who met with his censure, and open likes and dislikes, so that his friends did not need to guess at his wishes.” I once told a therapist my wife is supportive, but she’s supposed to be and she reminded me that not all wives are. Don’t discount the good, people don’t have to be nice to you, so if they are have confidence in their affection. Frankness with those meeting his censure, censure is a formal disapproval we covered before with Shakespeare how being frank means being free, express yourself honestly with disagreement, don’t beat around the bush. Then people don’t have to guess what you feel, you said what you meant.
Last night the podcast recording went well, this morning I had to get the Queen’s car in for an oil change. The work took longer than I wanted, I had some other things done to it. The little princess was wonderful lasting over two hours without a nap, which is a lot when usually she goes down after one. My six peach trees were delivered today, I had to dig up the holes of the trees they’re replacing and tonight will spray for bugs. A lot of tree mulch mounds grow ants and I don’t want to be bitten by ants when planting new trees. There was also a carpenter bee on my steps so the whole house should be sprayed for bugs.
Rap: This weeks rap comes from Busta Rhymes(Busta Rhymes is in the building) his album Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God and song with the same title.
line up the subjects
I’m tired of injustice from the popes, politicians and judges
When you witness the abuse of power, sometimes it’s seductive
Then I question God, why create a creature that is so destructive?
Hold all your grudges and focus while you create expenses
Every man is free of choice, but no man is free of consequences
Hold your suggestions and listen closely, I study lessons
Causing rain, hail, snow and earthquake and travel dimensions
The ground’ll rattle, the Earth will rumble like a stampede of cattle
Eleven hundred twenty feet per second, faster than sound travel
Time to break down the bars
This rap has an aggressive sound, I did my best to impersonate BussaBus and when practicing, the sound would instantly bring my baby to tears. As such it touches on some topics I won’t go into detail on for fear of censure.
“Line up the subjects I’m tired of injustice” rhymes and makes me think he’d like to see these people on a firing line.
“I question God, why create a creature that is so destructive?” That is a question, I suppose the answer would be that man wasn’t so bad at creation but took actions that led to a fall because we were giving free will and the devil is a mighty temptation.
While “every man is free of choice, no man is free of consequences.” which leads us to the situation we find ourselves in.
“The ground’ll rattle, the Earth will rumble like a stampede of cattle” ground’ll rattle, earth will rumble is a nice alliteration. Rattle and cattle start and end the line with a rhyme.
“Eleven hundred twenty feet per second, faster than sound travel” 1,120 feet per second is said to be the speed of sound, but we don’t travel at feet per second, lets convert it to miles per hour.
I should have an image on the screen now to walk through the conversion. On the left we start with 1,120 feet for 1 second. Since we want miles per hour, miles will be on the top of the equation because when we have like terms on top and bottom they cancel out. We know that 1 mile is equal to 5,280 feet. Easy to remember because 5 times 2 is 10, 0, and 2 plus 8 is 10, 5280. Multiplying by 1 over 5,280 is the same as saying divid by 5,280 then we need to turn seconds into hours, so times 60 seconds in a minute and times 60 minutes in an hour. Giving us about 760 mph for the speed of sound. End image.
The speed of 5.56 bullet coming out of an m-4 is 2,900 feet per second or almost 2,000 mph. Since the object is traveling faster than the speed of sound, that means the sound waves moving forward bunch up creating what is called a sonic boom, or as Guile says, “Sonic boom.” Busta Rhymes himself will tell you he only became who he is by doing his mathematics.
The reason I wanted to cover this song in the first place is because of this next line.
“it’s been part of the plan, fool
They messed around and made the demasculinization of man cool”
This has been going on for the last couple decades, maybe all time as a tyrant would like subjects that can’t fight back. Now it’s important for strong men to stand up and know what’s right.
Trees are starting to arrive today, I’ll have a lot of work potting and planting them. I thought my order of six peach trees was going to arrive today, it’s not which is good because I’m not ready for that yet. Over the weekend some good work was accomplished clearing out the forest and I’ll spend what time I can getting ready for the future generations of trees coming.
Sonnet 7 compares human life to the rising and setting of the sun.
*”Lo! In the orient when the gracious light lifts up his burning head” Lo means look or see, like lo and behold. Orient refers to Asia, or the far east, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so he’s saying look to the east when the sun rises, or gracious light lifts up his burning head.
*”each under eye doth homage to his new-appearing sight” Each under eye are the observers, eyes under the sun, they do homage, homage meaning special honor or public respect. We are all happy to see a new day dawn. New appearing sight could also be birth, humans opening their eyes for the first time.
*”Serving with looks his sacred majesty” Serving with looks, the sun serves looks offering sight by light. Connecting to a human life, in the begging of life everyone wants to see the baby, also in youth is when we are most beauteous. A synonym for majesty is beauty, and sacred means connected with God. We are God’s children.
*”having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill” The sun is climbing, rising in the morning. There is word play with heavenly and sacred. We’ve seen heavenly hill multiple times in our study of the Psalms. Steep likely refers to the sharp angle of the sun’s movement and another definition to steep is a staircase or hill, so there is word play with steep hill.
*”Resembling strong youth in his middle age” Going back to the human life metaphor, middle age would be our strongest, still feeling young. The sun’s middle age would be it’s peak, high noon.
*”Mortal looks adore his beauty still” Mortal, human life. Humans adore both the beauty of a sunny day and of youth.
*”Attending on his golden pilgrimage” Golden being how we might describe the sun and it’s daily movement a pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is also a journey to a sacred place, continuing the Godly theme.
*”when from highmost pitch, with weary car” I mentioned high noon, pitch would refer to musical pitch, a sound wave would have a high point and low point. Weary means tired and car in the 1600’s wouldn’t be an automobile, rather shakespeare uses car here and elsewhere to reference Apollo, greek god of the sun, his chariot that carries the sun.
*From the top, “like feeble age, he reeleth from the day” The human is getting older, past midlife, he reeleth from the day. Reeleth is worn out by fatigue, he’s getting tired and going down.
*”The eyes, ‘fore dutetous, now converted are from his low tract, and look another way.” Before the sun and man had a job to do, duteous. Converted, changed, and look another way, it was going up, now down. Look another way, could also be how young people are looked on for their beauty, treating them with importance. With age people look away, ignoring the elderly.
*”Thyself outgoing in thy noon” the person is heading toward the end of life. Unlook’d, people don’t care about you anymore, “diest unless thou get a son”
Because he is so obsessed with the topic I had to look up if Shakespeare had kids. With his wife Anne they had three children. The eldest, Susanna and twins Judith and Hamnet. Shakespeare had four grandchildren who all died without heirs, so there is no direct descendant to Shakespeare today. A shame because those Royalties would be worth a lot.
Host King Cooper dissects the intersection of literature, music, philosophy, and personal growth. The conversation begins with a reflection on Shakespeare’s sonnets, particularly focusing on themes of procreation and legacy. Cooper draws parallels between Shakespeare’s language and modern rap, emphasizing the emotional depth in both forms of expression. The discussion transitions into personal anecdotes, life lessons from Marcus Aurelius, and historical insights about American involvement in WWII. The episode concludes with a reading of Psalm 5 and a philosophical exploration of emotivism, encouraging listeners to take control of their lives and embrace learning.
Got the girls to myself today, that means no extracurricular activities. The last couple of nights I’ve got some yard work done with the fading sun, mostly clearing out thorny vines. When I finished yesterday I couldn’t walk right away since my feet were rapped up with vines, a whole new path was cleared out and today I’ll get to walk through it. I’m excited for Spring and the warmer weather, walking outside this morning wasn’t painful. Podcast time, new episode tomorrow morning.
#15 The boo/hoorah theory
This book was written in 2007 before the first iphone was made, a more modern version would be the like/dislike theory, arguing that moral theory boils down to likes and dislikes, or boos and hoorahs, calling it emotivism. Claiming morals stem from our emotions. Notice this is binary way of thinking, it could just as easily be a 1 for good and 0 for bad attempting to cut out wasteful arguing.
Perhaps an umbrella to emotivism is subjectivism, that opinions on right and wrong are subjective based on a personality and culture. The Scottish philosopher David Hume said in his Treatise of Human Nature. 1 “feeling rather than reason provides the motive for our moral actions.”
As William Shakespeare said, does he sound familiar? “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” That thinking word is man’s doing, think something then make it so, not intrinsic to the object. This should serve as a warning for thinking God is wrong, thinking is an earthly deed and not to be trusted, thinking cannot produce fact.
“The most common criticism to emotivism is that it fails to capture the logic of ethical discourse – the characteristic patterns of reasoning and rational argument that underlie it.” To rectify this a school of thought branching from subjectivism is prescriptivism. That moral items prescribe how to feel, they tell us what to do or how to behave. In this way moral commands become universal and must be followed by everyone including the rule creator. There are no special circumstances or loop holes, that is to say not realistic. Nowadays it’s popular to think of things as a spectrum, spectrum implies no hard lines, no rules.
A simplistic description of emotivism is morals are not descriptions of the actions, but our feelings of the actions. When saying something is wrong it’s really saying is it feels wrong to the individual spouting the morals. Those arguing against say there isn’t enough ethic knowledge where the emotivist believes there is nothing ethical to know, we’re not making claims on ethical fact, rather expressing our feelings and feelings cannot be true or false. Since there is nothing to debate on actions, people are simply advertising their morals, or a more common phrase today, virtue signaling.
Into 2025 virtue signaling is back on the menu, possibly more than ever people are saying, “look at this thing, isn’t it bad” forcing you to agree with them or you are also bad. In reality they have gotten hooked on a storyline that brings with it a set of rules, don’t follow the rules and you can’t be apart of the story because people living happy moral lives outside of the rules means their story is a fiction. The reason I’ve been aggressive on a lot of topics is because I understand these people are trying to get their foot in the door then lead us to the next crazy idea. I am happy and I am good, no amount of earthly thinking and words will convince me to betray myself. Be gone satan!
Spring is in the air, I can taste it. There may still be some cold days in February, but the worst of Winter should be over. In preparing for Spring I’ve ordered some trees, attempting to plant citrus trees this year. We live in the coldest grow zone citrus trees can apparently grow and I want to try my luck. Now that the oil change is done I can make plans to go green house shopping, some plants like the Hass avocado I got to pollinated the cold hardy avocado have to be indoors over Winter. Now podcast.
Psalm 5 is a morning prayer by David that asks God for guidance and deliverance.
Bible: Psalm 5
1 ”Give ear to my words” an invocation of the muses, asking to be heard.
4 “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.” I come at this from the perspective that God is good by definition, the good. Saying the world is mind, believing our words and thoughts create the reality ahead of us, people will pray to the devil telling themselves some story about his beauty, but at the end of the day he rebelled against God. If the devil is their good, god must be their bad. Then the devil is themselves, they connect with that role of the fallen; understable. I don’t see myself in God, God is in me.
5 “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” Iniquity being immoral or a conscious decision to go against God’s will. God is the head, there is no debate, you’re either with or against. I couldn’t conceive of a more foolish act than to go against the creator of the universe. It says they shall not stand in God’s sight, there is shame felt with iniquity. That’s why people will dull their senses with substances and avoid looking at the light that reveals all.
6 “Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. Leasing here means lying. Someone will see God destroying as cruel, they have destroyed themselves. Turn into the light at anytime, freely, seek forgive and receive it.
7 ”multitude of thy mercy” is a nice rap and “in thy fear will I worship toward the holy temple” We covered in a previous psalm rejoice in fear and trembling. Note this worship is toward the holy temple, you’re not there yet and now is not the time to relax.
8 “make thy way straight before my face.” One interpretation could be asking God not to tempt him or asking to make things easy. This is also a good time to cover the acronym KISS, keep it simple stupid. Try not to over complicate and over burden yourself.
9 “For there is no faithfulness in their mouth” this is the mouths of the leasing liars. “Their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongues.” Sepulchre means a place of burial or tomb, they’re already dead. Flatter with their tongues would be in line with lying, not only would they try to flatter God to get into heaven when Jesus knows you not. They would also try to win through flattery of men. It was said to me recently the wisdom of men is in vain.
10 “Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels;” like I said they destroy themselves, God doesn’t have to bring down a hammer, as soon as they turn their backs, they’re doomed. Falling by their own counsels is hubris of man, thinking their reason or science can save them or led them to light. “Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.” Transgression means to go against God’s law, coming from the Latin verb transgredi, which means “to step across or beyond”. There are limits to man and when they rebel against God they have gone beyond that limit.
11 “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: Let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them:” Put your trust in the lord, have faith, and be forever joyful. Don’t confuse this with a type of material happiness, happy because of the lord, not because of what the lord gives you. There’s also mention that he defendest them, you are taken care of.
12 “For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.” I wanted to draw a connection between compass and when verse 8 asks to make the way straight, always asking for help and protection, to be shielded.
Finally got the oil changed in my minivan, it’s been past due, maybe 10,000 miles since my last change. Thankfully there’s a place down the street from my house and I was able to go after dropping the elder princess off at daycare. The little princess took a nap during the driving so I focused on comforting her at the mechanic. There was an ordeal where I pulled up and they have a sorry we’re closed sign and the “open” sign turned off, so I left. My queen offered to call, so I did and they were open. All that took about 10 minutes, which is significant when the baby only has an hour wake window. Here’s some podcast.
I live in the American south and no cap places shut down over the thought of snow. Daycare was closed and I had to spend a lot of time with my kid. We got to build a snowman for the first time which was nice, but we’re wrecking. It was below freezing for over a day. I ran out of sliced bread, next time they call for snow I’m running out to buy a dozen loaves of bread.
Meditations 13
“Not to spurn a friend’s criticism” Spurn rejecting with disdain, or a strong rejection. They are your friends for a reason, unless they shouldn’t be, when they criticize remember that they want what’s best for you. If they don’t want what’s best for you, then drop that sack of potatoes. It’s hard to realize when in that situation, criticism could have been a constant in your relationship to where it seems like a normal thing you’ve always done when in reality there are people that see the success of others, thinking they deserve more, then sabotage what they can.
“Even if it may be an unreasonable complaint, try to restore his usual feelings.” An unreasonable complaint would likely come from them not being able to understand the emperor’s situation, so they offer advice that doesn’t exactly fit the bill. Trying to restore their usual feelings is remembering they want what’s best, so look at the complaint from whatever angles you can trying to distill the essence of what they see, then attempt to fix it with your own judgement.
“Speak of one’s teachers with wholehearted gratitude.” You wouldn’t have the perspective on life you do without your teachers, they helped make you, be grateful for any advantage they’ve given. I said before if someone doesn’t explain a concept you’ve never encountered, there is so much information in the world that your brain won’t bother recognizing the foreign. Learning new things is hard, it makes you feel inadequate and that the new information isn’t necessary. You’ve gotten this far without it. Listen to the King, we’ve only just begun.
He mentions Domitius and Athenodotus, Domitius is likely Quintus Junius Rusticus Domitius and I couldn’t find anything on the name Athenodotus. They were both teachers of the Roman emperor and philosophers in their own right.
“A genuine love for children.” Through Shakespeare, the Bible, and elsewhere we’ve discussed how everything we do is for the children. Do your best to give them more. And the person who yells at kids playing or wants to “educate” them with adult ideas before they’re ready to grow up, that person should not be trusted.
This week in history: January 26 1942 the first American expeditionary force arrived in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Setting sail from Brooklyn, NY into the European theater of war, this officially marked the beginning of American involvement in World War 2. The first troops were part of the 34th Infantry Division, also known as the “Red Bull” Division, a national guard unit consisting of troops from Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Until then German U-boats were operating with impunity off the Atlantic coast of the United States.
The recording last night went well, there was more engagement in the chat than before and some old faces stopped by. Little princess had to get some shots at the doctor and the elder princess is developing a fun bedtime routine with me reading books and running fast. The fun is about to end though as we’re going to start brushing our teeth before bed.
Speaking of fast eminem earlier, for the rapping portion is a song I’ve learned because I like the message in the words. I trade the musical aspect for a motivational one as I repeat the song to myself like a montra. People should understand about art there are many ways to consume it, beyond the 5 senses. I see a lot with people recording themselves, thinking the audience will see what they saw, even eminem on mike tyson’s podcast mentioned how while performing at the Oscars his microphone pack was dangling and he thought that’s all people would notice. Stop trying to put yourself in someone else’s head.
Rap: This is the last verse on Eminem’s Offended
Now my dough’s amountin’ to a mountain
It’s rised too high to count it
Never asked to be rich, all I did was wish
I had a dime for every time that I was doubted
But then I think about it and I’m enraged
‘Cause I just figured out that if I was paid
For the time I spent to put the pen to the page
It’d be minimum wage
But it’s embedded in my head I never hunted for the bread and butter
What I wanted was to be the one that they was scared of but
I’m never gonna get the credit for the sweat and blood
I put up in the pen, and when I’m dead I wonder
Will they put me on a pedestal or forget I was ever this incredible
I guess I better go harder than ever ’cause
I’ll never get another mothaf’ opportunity again
To offend as many people with this I can simply because I can
Time to break down the bars
“my dough’s amountin’ to a mountain” dough is slang for money, amountin’ to a mountain is good word play, he has a pile of money.
“all I did was wish I had a dime for every time that I was doubted” He’s describing the struggle to become great, people will doubt you well after you’ve proven them wrong. There is a play on the expression, “If I had a nickel for every time… blank” Using dime to rhyme with time. There’s also a lot of money talk, dough, rich, dime. Coming up will be paid and minimum wage.
“I just figured out that if I was paid, For the time I spent to put the pen to the page,It’d be minimum wage.” Continuing the struggle to be great, if he were paid by the hour as a normal job is, despite being a multimillionaire he has spent so many hours working his craft that the dollars per hour are low.
“I never hunted for the bread and butter, What I wanted was to be the one that they was scared of” This was never about the money, being the top, tip of the spear is the point that cuts, that’s what people fear. He was bullied as a kid, made to feel weak, he made himself strong.
“I’m never gonna get the credit for the sweat and blood I put up in the pen” Even after all he’s accomplished some people don’t consider Eminem a top 5 rapper because of skin tone. Still he must keep pushing, a dime for every time he was doubted.
Also Bread and butter and credit were money terms adding to my list.
Chris' Morning Pages