A widespread virus called Mumbo Jumbo

I am about to spend a few words on a morbid, resilient and widespread virus called Mumbo Jumbo. In the last post I was pointing the finger to the copious outpouring of bad verse, which certainly contributes not a little to the ever increasing entropy of this world. Nevertheless, lame poetry is positively nothing in comparison to the foul mental marshes where Mumbo Jumbo grows and breeds. It has many exotic names, gobbledygook, abracadabra, gibberish, hocus pocus, to quote just a few, but one single meaning: total lack of sense. The scary thing is, almost no one seems to be completely immune from this hardy parasite: even scientists, particularly when they want to impress laymen with so-called popular science, all too often indulge in Mumbo Jumbo, and contribute to its dissemination.

So, why is Mumbo Jumbo so pervasive? There are many answers, but three stand first in my mind:

• the primary one is simply lack of mental clarity. Contrary to the general belief, real thinking is quite uncommon. Thinking is hard: it requires effort. Most of what we consider thought is really nothing more than mental parroting, repetition of hearsay. We are so crammed every day by thousands of pseudo-ideas that it becomes difficult to wake up and think.
• the second is power. Here is what the dictionary has to say: -Mumbo Jumbo. A term used to denote an object of senseless veneration, or a meaningless ceremony designed to overpower impressionable people- Yes, to use big words to intimidate the ignoramus is an old trick, but still very much in use.
• last is fear, sheer fear. Fear of what? Of acknowledging that we do not understand. It requires courage to confess it (even to ourselves). And yet, only by a candid avowal we can make progress on our journey to real knowledge. Till we do, Mumbo Jumbo will provide the veil that hides us from truth.

PS Still like Mumbo Jumbo? Then fear not. There are a few good resources for filling your writings and speeches with nonsense without a single drop of sweat: the dowloadable Nonsense (check its hilarious "stupid laws" demo) does the job for you. Gibberish generator uses markov chains to output nonsense when fed with real text. Here is my little experiment with my own post (I have set it to level 5, done a touch of orthographic cleanup and overall polishing afterwards):

-Jumbo Jumbo grows and breeds I am about to the...... nevertheless, lame poetry is not a little to the ever increasing of bad verse, which certainly contributes to the copious outpouring entropy of the bad virus called Mumbo Jumbo. Mumbo Jumbo, Jumbo Jumbo Jumbo it grows and spreads wide verses, which certainly contributes not a little to the foul mental marshes where is Mumbo. Jumbo Jumbo grows and breeds-

Not bad at all.

Poets, do you know your feet?

Poets, do you know your feet? I mean, of course, metric feet, i.e. iambs, trochees, anapests, dactyls, and their kins.
As you set out to navigate the slimy waters of the net, you are going to meet legions of wannabe poets. College boys and girls, housewives, corporate executives, scientists, loafers, millionaires, their vast nation knows no boundaries. Nothing wrong with that, make no mistake: the impulse that prompts us to engrave a fleeting moment, a searing emotion, a delicate mood, is innate and holy. It is healthy and noble to try one's hand at poetry, and share with friends and loved ones our newborn creatures. Nevertheless, if you aspire to write verses that stand a chance to last, it is imperative to remember the Horacian labor limae, the meticulous work of the mental chisel that polishes and repolishes our first attempts, till they truly shine.

So, how do you start? By learning how to march on your feet (it just occurred to me that metric feet are real feet indeed, to stand, walk and run). Poetry was born to be sung, aeds and bards were the first poets. They will be the last ones, too.

Rhythm is the soul of poetry, and rhythm is living arithmetic: one-TWO, one-TWO, one-TWO (a iamb), or ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three (a dactyl)....

Thus, here is how you begin: read out loud your verses, and listen. The sound will not betray you.

Sherlock Holmes on Decluttering

A few days ago an acquaintance of mine suggested a post on decluttering, after I had been extolling its broad benefits at all levels of the human ladder: physical, emotional, mental & spiritual. I shall candidly avow that by nature and by inured habits I tend to be a hoarder, so only quite recently I came to realize the importance, indeed the absolute necessity of letting go.

At the very moment when I decided to follow through with the cited suggestion, a chunk of memory emerged rather abruptly to the surface of my consciousness: it was none less than an entire passage from A study in Scarlet, first novel of the wildly successful Sherlock Holmes series.

To be sure, I could not recollect the exact words, only their gist and flavor, but a quick look up over the net came to rescue (I was away from home, where on my library's shelves loom large the two stately volumes of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes). Here is Doyle's text, in all its sparkling elegance and wit:

-His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
"To forget it!"
"You see," he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

As you can see, there is more to decluttering than getting rid of that nasty heap of junk mail on the couch. This often neglected activity must be quietly and persistently carried out across the board, day by day: everything that is not useful must be disposed of, not excluded bad habits, stale friendships, ill-digested information, and, of course, physical trash.

Decluttering is a large component of the subtle metabolism of life: let us thus boldly embrace it, and we shall feel healthier, lighter and smarter too, voire the inimitable and unforgettable Mr. Holmes.