Pomp and Circumstance:
"An ostentatious display of ceremonial grandeur."
"Histrionics, blatancy, fuss, ostentation, formality, bravado, bravura, showmanship, grandiosity, flamboyance, boastfulness, dramatics, flourish, flashiness, splendor, parade, swaggar, splashiness, garishness, dash, opulence, gaudiness, pomposity, pomp, flagrancy, pageantry, showiness, affectedness, grandiloquence, shamelessness, jauntiness, sensationalism, snazziness, exhibitionism, ornateness, vanity, rakishness."
The definitions above are (respectively) from www.phrases.org.uk and www.synonymfor.com. The quoted definition below, (with some liberties) is from www.dictionary.com.
Magic:
"Allurement, augury, bewitchment, conjury, enchantment, fascination, illusion, magnetism, power, sleight of hand, sorcery, sortilege, trickery, artifice, deceit, distraction, duplicity, pretense, treachery."
Superficial:
Lacking depth; lacking substance; lacking follow-through; ignorant; frivolous; out of touch with reality; cheap.
Cheap Magic:
Pomp and Circumstance.
The relevant irrelevance above, (though irrelevant), is relevant to today's newsmakers and their headlines. Our leaders today apear to care more for news-grabbing action than they do for carefully considered progress. We need more think and less do. We need more verbalogistic conversation and less rapid-fire verbowellistic horseshit.
These last few weeks I have had less time to think because I have had more to do. It has shown in my written thought. I believe thinking is at least as important as doing and maybe, (depending upon the circumstance), somewhat more important. I also believe that there must be some balance. Looking around, it appears we have lost our balance. There are some days in which this loss of balance feels less like an unsteady, slightly drunken stagger and more like out-of-control merry-go-round-inducing vertiginous bouts of eye-popping nausea. However, I would contend that we have always suffered splashy, showy, shameless tyrants, but it is only of late that some of the worst of these pompous know-it-alls have risen (temporarily) to greater heights thus gaining a (temporary) modicum of legitimacy.
As further evidence for my contention that tyrannical showmanship is fairly commonplace, today, sitting in a coffee shop, I was subjected to a nearby young woman's blatherings about the (self) important influence she is exercising at a new job, while (for an hour) her table mate barely spoke. Today I was subjected to a large garish pickup truck with very loud mufflers accelarating unneccesarily for a period of 5 to 7 seconds and 10 to 20 yards. Today I blatantly boasted to a colleague; I won't say about what, because that would only compound the bravado. These are all minor and relatively harmless histrionics; but examples of dramatic swaggar, nonetheless.
I believe, (though my wandering words profess otherwise), that there is a connective thread. It begins with choice of action as described below.
Level 1 Action: Pomp and Circumstance.
Level 2 Action: preceded by verbalogistic conversation and resulting in beneficial productivity.
I believe "verbalogistic" (though not a word) is self explanatory.
In these last few weeks, I have found that in "less-think-more-do" mode some Pomp and Circumstance is unavoidable; and I have (re)discovered that I enjoy some amount of flourish. But, ostentatious ceremony is nowhere near the same zip code as reality. Reality is (at best) relatively unexciting and (at worst) involves pain, whereas flamboyant grandeur is an anesthetic upper. I understand the allure but I believe---(I very, very strongly believe)---that a sense of reality is far, far more important than the sense of entitlement that often encourages and then reinforces Level 1 Action.
This week circumstance has begun to settle and I am working to resituate thinking and doing back into a more advantageous balance; (at least advantageous in terms of verbalogistic reality). And if I take nothing more from this week's written thought than this concept of verbalogistics, I am much better off than before.