A freshness. I am thinking about Shadow in Gaiman's "Monarch of the Glen." To chase each apparent thing. I was also thinking about the irony of my daughter's English class, and about the emphasis placed upon literary analysis. English class seems, all in all, to be a game of hide and seek. In fact, a lot of such classes, including Religion. There is an element of human behavior or consciousness or activity that is "implicit," that is, it is supposed to be "self-evident," or blind to its own machinations. The blindness is necessary. The blindness demonstrates that, in some sense, it is truer, or closer to the "source" (define source how you will, as inspiration, as God, as id, etc.). And then there are whole fields devoted to unpacking the "first act" of art/religion. It attempts to analyze the symbols, determine stylistic elements, etc. And this is the entire game of much of academia, at least in the first two discipline fields (arts and humanities)...
So, the game implicit in writing is this... You are trying to say something while pretending that you are saying nothing at all. You are trying to move to a known destination, while pretending that you are completely blind, or at the very least, that the landscape you are traversing is being revealed to you moment by moment, as the reader discovers it. And the target that the writer tries to achieve is an effect of "not having been tried before," that is, something innovative and new. But the problem with this is that, over the accrued history, everything has been tried before. And the things that have not been tried before probably have not been tried because they are not functional, viable as a narrative experiment. For the very narrative structure imposes forms and rules upon its subject. Not everything can be told in a story, unfortunately... It is a game of the right hand not knowing not what the left hand is doing, and vice versa, but then somehow working together and accomplishing something...
The problem of writing has thus been framed, or more specifically, the problem of the "blockage" has been thus framed as one involving a too active editor (the analytical portion of our minds) that squelches the life out of the "first" or implicit...
Sunday, December 31, 2017
12/30/2017 (2)
my time is wasted by this incessant effort to rehash old things. These are not new questions. These are not new endeavors. It is always the same story, the same issue. I want to progress. I want to move beyond some of the issues of my past, of my lack of a theme.
***
I am not "fun." I have no patience for irrational decisions, or things which throw a wrench in things. And this is why I likely cannot write something interesting. I am always too fixated on "making things right." Perhaps this is why I only like the beginnings of things, because everything is easy and "knows itself." To go beyond that, to take too many footsteps, brings me into a foreign country where you lose your way, and your motivations become muddled. It all becomes "messy." And there is guilt in that. An ugliness. Perhaps this too is how I live my life. I do not proceed haphazardly, to just "find out what would happen." I sometimes wish that I had lived my life that way, particularly with regards to relationships. There is so much regret in me. Even my wife perceives this "mood" within me...
***
Chaos. Perhaps it is in that that one comes to know oneself. That there is a force within oneself. That you could possibly trust in it, in the inconsistencies and lies of it... [I hate the way my cursor keeps shifting.] How could you see that, if you never trust that? Why am I always reluctant to trust in that? Why am I reluctant to trust in myself, in the myself that walks blind? Because experience has determined that it only gets me lost... what is the value of getting lost? To learn to trust in myself, to trust in getting lost...
***
A hope for me lies in allowing myself to
***
I am not "fun." I have no patience for irrational decisions, or things which throw a wrench in things. And this is why I likely cannot write something interesting. I am always too fixated on "making things right." Perhaps this is why I only like the beginnings of things, because everything is easy and "knows itself." To go beyond that, to take too many footsteps, brings me into a foreign country where you lose your way, and your motivations become muddled. It all becomes "messy." And there is guilt in that. An ugliness. Perhaps this too is how I live my life. I do not proceed haphazardly, to just "find out what would happen." I sometimes wish that I had lived my life that way, particularly with regards to relationships. There is so much regret in me. Even my wife perceives this "mood" within me...
***
Chaos. Perhaps it is in that that one comes to know oneself. That there is a force within oneself. That you could possibly trust in it, in the inconsistencies and lies of it... [I hate the way my cursor keeps shifting.] How could you see that, if you never trust that? Why am I always reluctant to trust in that? Why am I reluctant to trust in myself, in the myself that walks blind? Because experience has determined that it only gets me lost... what is the value of getting lost? To learn to trust in myself, to trust in getting lost...
***
A hope for me lies in allowing myself to
Saturday, December 30, 2017
12/30/2017
What is the point of most of what we do? It is for the attention of others. There is very little that has an implicit value; that is, there is little that is an end in and of itself. What is the purpose of writing, for example? Is it that there is a message within that comes out fully formed, like a newborn child? I don't think so. Everything that is written is written for someone. But to whom? And why? And if it is written for someone else, doesn't that distort the meaning of it? That is, isn't there supposed to be a blindness, a sort of unselfconsciousness of art, of literature? I am struggling with this. There is nothing natural about conversations for me. To me, the other is still the other. And the issue of bridging to the other has still become one that is inscrutable to me...
***
There is a vibration within me, but it comes from outside, always from the outside. I cannot find the vibration that is me. The feeling that is me. The memory or the song that is me. There is nothing to bind to, reliably. There are only the bangings and clangings of the outside world, impinging upon me. And though I complain about those distractions, there is the sense, the fear, that without those outside impingements, there would be nothing. Not a silence that is still, but a silence that drowns, that obscures. That is my fear, that life is untethered, that it is not connected to the outside world, and therefore is meaningless and irrational and irrelevant, a drowning thing, swimming in directionless circles, getting more and more lost in solipsism. I want to hear my song, I want to hear it so I can return to it, and rest in the narratives that it sings...
***
Help me to find me. Help me to find my song. Then help me to find my voice. Things happen in that sequence. I am not to...
***
There is a vibration within me, but it comes from outside, always from the outside. I cannot find the vibration that is me. The feeling that is me. The memory or the song that is me. There is nothing to bind to, reliably. There are only the bangings and clangings of the outside world, impinging upon me. And though I complain about those distractions, there is the sense, the fear, that without those outside impingements, there would be nothing. Not a silence that is still, but a silence that drowns, that obscures. That is my fear, that life is untethered, that it is not connected to the outside world, and therefore is meaningless and irrational and irrelevant, a drowning thing, swimming in directionless circles, getting more and more lost in solipsism. I want to hear my song, I want to hear it so I can return to it, and rest in the narratives that it sings...
***
Help me to find me. Help me to find my song. Then help me to find my voice. Things happen in that sequence. I am not to...
Saturday, November 11, 2017
11/11/2017
LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
KAPPA-HEAD
“Let’s begin by talking about your brother.”
Dr. Cyprus’s voice is calm but firm. Randy feels his mind settle around the psychologist’s statement, like solute molecules upon the surface of a seed crystal. He feels his body settle into the yielding cushions of the couch. His eyes train on a corner of the ceiling, and follow the edges of its square motif gradually across the room.
“My brother,” Randy begins, but pauses at the croak of his voice, and the hollow silence it leaves. He clears the dry phlegm in his throat, and tries again. “My brother, well, where can I start? He’s always just been there. There’s- there’s no beginning to him, as far as I’m concerned.”
Dr. Cyprus is nodding, or at least that’s what Randy imagines from his vantage point on the couch. In past face-to-face consultations, Dr. Cyprus would always give a slight shake of his head whenever Randy spoke, perhaps as an acknowledgement that he was listening to, and responding to, what he was saying. It was always a slight shake, with no real change in the angle of the neck. It reminded him of the vibrations of a car antennae, disturbed into slight oscillation by the wind.
“Tell me the first memory that pops into your mind when you think about your brother,” he says, after a moment of silence.
At first Randy frowns and sighs at the seeming impossibility of the request. Wasn’t he clear that there were too many tangled memories to even begin? But without warning, images do begin to surface, and then out of those, one image floats to the top. And before he even realizes it, he is recounting a memory that has imposed itself upon his consciousness.
“I am at the beach,” he says, closing his eyes. “I must be two or three years old. There’s a wind blowing, and I can feel the sand sting my skin and sometimes go into my eyes. I look up, higher up on the shore, and I can see my parents and my brother sitting there. They are looking at me, with this- this happy, expectant look on their face- like they are waiting for the punchline to a joke. I think I am smiling too, in response to them- I’ve always been so stupid- so naive. Anyway, a wave suddenly comes crashing down on me, and for what seems like forever, I am tumbling over and over in a roaring darkness, with salt water in my eyes, my ears, my nose, my throat.”
Randy pauses. The memory of the ocean is real for him in that moment, and he feels disoriented, queasy even. He has to flutter his eyes open to train upon the ceiling in order to restore his equilibrium, and his sense of the present. After a few deep breaths, he closes his eyes and continues.
“When I come to- the world outside seems too bright and too loud. Beyond the sound of the air, the wind- I can see my parents, my brother, and they are laughing, laughing. I am on my hands and knees, and everything beneath me is soupy and white. And then, I see a couple of things at the same time, and it’s almost as though they are all in sync- my parents, my brother, with that same expectant look- and the soup beneath me starting to suck me backwards, like the sea is inhaling me in. I feel scared, I know what’s coming- and I reach a hand out towards my family, my brother on the shore.”
Randy again pauses. He can feel his heart racing. He almost expects a wall of water to crash down upon him, lying vulnerable upon the couch.
“So what happened next?” Dr. Cyprus’s voice maintains that strange equilibrium between disinterest and concern.
“Well, of course, I got pounded again. The wave fell, I felt myself tumbling over and over in the water. And I swallowed the sea.” Randy is about to stop talking, but there is a fragment of the memory that he did not expect. He finds himself stuttering out the next words, like someone tripping over things in the dark. “I was still in the water. Still in the darkness. And I called out- for help. For anyone to help. For anything to help. And- and that’s when-”
When Randy doesn’t proceed after a few seconds, Dr. Cyprus prompts him. “And that’s when what?”
Randy shakes his head, his hands out in front of him, fingers splayed like a fence. “No, that can’t be true,” he whispers, half to himself. “It can’t be.”
“What can’t be?”
“I-” Randy shakes his head again, this time with greater ferocity. “No.”
Dr. Cyprus inhales a long inhale. It sounds like the hiss before a gas explosion. Randy doesn’t hear the psychologist exhale. Instead, Dr. Cypress begins to speak, in that same measured voice. “You’re in a safe space,” he says. “You can tell me what happened.”
It’s clear that
Friday, May 19, 2017
Saturday, March 11, 2017
12. Greeting: Write a story or poem that starts with the word “hello”.
hello
person inside of me
wake up
i want to feel again
there must be a memory
or a song
that can rekindle sensation
and a care
there must be a story
that can engage my sympathy
and attention
for more than a passing glance
my eyes are dead
and see the world
as a flat thing
the textures pulled
down and stretched thin
by the knowledge
that all mountains fall
and all holes have a bottom
that there is no secret
that won't disappoint
so hello you
hello!
respond.
responde si vous plait.
give me a stretcher
and carry me
through this death.
person inside of me
wake up
i want to feel again
there must be a memory
or a song
that can rekindle sensation
and a care
there must be a story
that can engage my sympathy
and attention
for more than a passing glance
my eyes are dead
and see the world
as a flat thing
the textures pulled
down and stretched thin
by the knowledge
that all mountains fall
and all holes have a bottom
that there is no secret
that won't disappoint
so hello you
hello!
respond.
responde si vous plait.
give me a stretcher
and carry me
through this death.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
11. Dragon: Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.
i am a dragon. i live under the mountain. essentially, i AM the mountain. after all, i am its living beating heart. i am fire. i am iron. i am death.
i spend long centuries sleeping, dreaming. my dreams are of the shifting shapes of fire, and the attendant smoke. all reality, after all, is fire and smoke: both the fire that consumes and changes the world, and the smoke that obscures it. being the creator of fire is a lonely thing, for there is the inescapable knowledge that all things burn and flicker momentarily, and that the smoke and hubbub about it is just a precursor to settled ash. there is nothing in the world that escapes fire. the beings of the world, in fact, are all simply forms of captured flame, some burning faster than others. the smoke are the words or deeds of those beings, pretending eternity, but only obfuscating the inevitable. i too am fire, but a special long-lived flame, an ember burning at the contradiction of my own existence, that something that has mastered the secrets of fire and smoke still cannot make sense of what is an apparent emptiness and absurdity.
there is entertainment in the lives of little flames. the little sparks. so short-lived, they pretend to eternity. with vision so narrow and brief, they generate such hot billows of smoke, words that lay claim to what they deem to be the universe, and what they hope to be eternity. i laugh at them, chuckle at them in my deepest dreams, but secretly i envy them. they are beautiful in their simplicity, their surety. sincerity is a luxury sadly lacking in dragons.
to never stir to action. every movement or thought ponderous and heavy. the air around me is heavy with contradiction and ambiguity. there is nothing that does not bely a world of shadows. that is the lot of dragons, powerful though we may seem.
so small wonder that, when challenged by fool mortals, the longest lived of us do not immediately snuff them out. for it is refreshing to inspire fear, and to simultaneously inspire hope. and what harm, to expose a weakness or two?
perhaps, perhaps, a spark can extinguish a conflagration.
wouldn't that be a story?
i spend long centuries sleeping, dreaming. my dreams are of the shifting shapes of fire, and the attendant smoke. all reality, after all, is fire and smoke: both the fire that consumes and changes the world, and the smoke that obscures it. being the creator of fire is a lonely thing, for there is the inescapable knowledge that all things burn and flicker momentarily, and that the smoke and hubbub about it is just a precursor to settled ash. there is nothing in the world that escapes fire. the beings of the world, in fact, are all simply forms of captured flame, some burning faster than others. the smoke are the words or deeds of those beings, pretending eternity, but only obfuscating the inevitable. i too am fire, but a special long-lived flame, an ember burning at the contradiction of my own existence, that something that has mastered the secrets of fire and smoke still cannot make sense of what is an apparent emptiness and absurdity.
there is entertainment in the lives of little flames. the little sparks. so short-lived, they pretend to eternity. with vision so narrow and brief, they generate such hot billows of smoke, words that lay claim to what they deem to be the universe, and what they hope to be eternity. i laugh at them, chuckle at them in my deepest dreams, but secretly i envy them. they are beautiful in their simplicity, their surety. sincerity is a luxury sadly lacking in dragons.
to never stir to action. every movement or thought ponderous and heavy. the air around me is heavy with contradiction and ambiguity. there is nothing that does not bely a world of shadows. that is the lot of dragons, powerful though we may seem.
so small wonder that, when challenged by fool mortals, the longest lived of us do not immediately snuff them out. for it is refreshing to inspire fear, and to simultaneously inspire hope. and what harm, to expose a weakness or two?
perhaps, perhaps, a spark can extinguish a conflagration.
wouldn't that be a story?
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