I don't care if it was Satchel Paige or a girl named Paige who said that. The point is that the struggle to shed my timid boy's rags and don the mantle of the hero-savage-noble of my dreams, who runs naked through people's backyards with the name of a woman on his lips, being chased by molten lava flow, this battle is ongoing.
So here Sunday night is nearly gone, and in the morning I have to shoehorn myself into a blandified persona for the benefit of my bank account, just as I have done nearly every week of my so-called adult life. I told myself that if becoming a stooge was part of adulthood, I wanted no part of it, but I have so long lived a joke and charade, that having a pie thrown in my face or getting poked in my eyes would be an improvement.
Not that I "undervalue" my hours in the saltmines, sport fans. It's all about the people, and I honestly like the people I work with. We occasionally crack a joke, but it's often something noone outside of our world would comprehend much less think funny.
And I do want to scream sometimes. Not like go postal, but just alert people to the fact that there's this thing going on all around them called their life, and they're spending it believing in things that make the Toothfairy and the Easter Bunny look quite profound. Hours, days, years, centuries, millenia go by, and the human race is more concerned about who uses hand sanitizer than who is actually using their brain. Our brothers and sisters who killed Mastodons used their brains as much as the average person does nowadays. OK, this is starting to sound bitter, so let's move it along. Nothing to see here. Thank you.
I don't know where I'm going with this. If you see me walking by, with a teardrop in my eye, look away, baby, look away. All I can tell you, human subjects, is that this caveman is gonna do more than carve stick figures into deer antlers. Somehow or other I am gonna don that mantle.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Master of Lists
A. Do Laundry
B. Read "Dead Until Dark"
C. Stretch
D. Balance checkbook
E. Compose new blog entry
F. Trim fingernails
Hmmm, this list is a rather typical one for me, I would say, but it lacks something. There's just not enough fun in there. Unless you consider stretching fun. I find it satisfying, but not exactly fun. No, the fun is the reading and writing the new blog entry (yes, that's what I'm doing right now...). Well, if I stick in there "Watch movie on AMC while eating dinner" which is what I did, I guess that evens things out.
So yes, I keep lists. How long have I been doing it? I have no idea. I remember making lists of things in college back in the 1980s. But those were lists of favorite Kansas songs, possible titles for poems (I wrote a ton of poems during high school and college), snacks I wanted to buy to restock the tiny refrigerator I shared with my dorm roommate. And then during the summer when I had a job in a warehouse packing summer lunches for the public parks, my lists would be of what rock albums I wanted to buy, what novels I should read that I had drooled at during the school year when I saw them at my work-study job in the library.
Some time in the 90s, in one of my law-firm jobs, I discovered that Microsoft Word included among its many little quirky symbols two kinds of boxes that you can put a check in - one you can actually check, and the other you can put an "x" in. That x box revolutionized my list-building. Suddenly, I could make tables of lists: one column in outline form listing my proposed tasks, and another column to the left of it filled with x boxes that I could check off once I started finishing these tasks. Oh, the sense of accomplishment I received when I could check off something. It might be "eat breakfast". Or it might be "iron shirts for the week." But large or small, simple or complicated, mundane or profound, pleasurable or arduous, putting an x in a box was a marvelous thing.
I had not really traveled much, but several years ago when I started to take traveling more seriously, I discovered a whole new use for my lists: planning my vacations, building itineraries. I would study travel guides, look up details on the Internet, and slowly a plan would emerge. All the steps taking me from packing in my room to checking into the airport to checking into my hotel halfway around the world, and then the same thing reversed at the end of the trip. It gives me a feeling of security, to have an idea of what comes next. And I don't have to ask anyone else, "what comes next?" In fact, when there is someone else with me, I'm the one they ask "what comes next?" and I know the answer, and if I don't remember the answer, I just look at my itinerary. I look at my list. I go down the list to the next unchecked box scan across, and that is what is next.
Getting to this level of fastidious list-building may sound rather anal-retentive, or at least unimaginative. But in recent times I have discovered another beautiful thing about lists. Once I have gathered all the things that could possibly happen, I am free to toss all those things aside and do something completely different. Or maybe just do one thing, or two things, out of 5 or 10 on the list. The list gives me all the information I need at my disposal, just in case I can't think of what to do at that moment. It's a safety net. But when I do have the presence of mind to make something up on the spot, I can forgo my safety net. My boxes, at day's end, may remain woefully unchecked. And I will still have a feeling of accomplishment, of having lived a richly satisfying day.
B. Read "Dead Until Dark"
C. Stretch
D. Balance checkbook
E. Compose new blog entry
F. Trim fingernails
Hmmm, this list is a rather typical one for me, I would say, but it lacks something. There's just not enough fun in there. Unless you consider stretching fun. I find it satisfying, but not exactly fun. No, the fun is the reading and writing the new blog entry (yes, that's what I'm doing right now...). Well, if I stick in there "Watch movie on AMC while eating dinner" which is what I did, I guess that evens things out.
So yes, I keep lists. How long have I been doing it? I have no idea. I remember making lists of things in college back in the 1980s. But those were lists of favorite Kansas songs, possible titles for poems (I wrote a ton of poems during high school and college), snacks I wanted to buy to restock the tiny refrigerator I shared with my dorm roommate. And then during the summer when I had a job in a warehouse packing summer lunches for the public parks, my lists would be of what rock albums I wanted to buy, what novels I should read that I had drooled at during the school year when I saw them at my work-study job in the library.
Some time in the 90s, in one of my law-firm jobs, I discovered that Microsoft Word included among its many little quirky symbols two kinds of boxes that you can put a check in - one you can actually check, and the other you can put an "x" in. That x box revolutionized my list-building. Suddenly, I could make tables of lists: one column in outline form listing my proposed tasks, and another column to the left of it filled with x boxes that I could check off once I started finishing these tasks. Oh, the sense of accomplishment I received when I could check off something. It might be "eat breakfast". Or it might be "iron shirts for the week." But large or small, simple or complicated, mundane or profound, pleasurable or arduous, putting an x in a box was a marvelous thing.
I had not really traveled much, but several years ago when I started to take traveling more seriously, I discovered a whole new use for my lists: planning my vacations, building itineraries. I would study travel guides, look up details on the Internet, and slowly a plan would emerge. All the steps taking me from packing in my room to checking into the airport to checking into my hotel halfway around the world, and then the same thing reversed at the end of the trip. It gives me a feeling of security, to have an idea of what comes next. And I don't have to ask anyone else, "what comes next?" In fact, when there is someone else with me, I'm the one they ask "what comes next?" and I know the answer, and if I don't remember the answer, I just look at my itinerary. I look at my list. I go down the list to the next unchecked box scan across, and that is what is next.
Getting to this level of fastidious list-building may sound rather anal-retentive, or at least unimaginative. But in recent times I have discovered another beautiful thing about lists. Once I have gathered all the things that could possibly happen, I am free to toss all those things aside and do something completely different. Or maybe just do one thing, or two things, out of 5 or 10 on the list. The list gives me all the information I need at my disposal, just in case I can't think of what to do at that moment. It's a safety net. But when I do have the presence of mind to make something up on the spot, I can forgo my safety net. My boxes, at day's end, may remain woefully unchecked. And I will still have a feeling of accomplishment, of having lived a richly satisfying day.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Molding my dreams
Often with the last dream of the night, when the dream is over and I slip into semi-consciousness, if there was something intriguing going on in the dream, I will deliberately continue the dream and coax it into a direction I'd like it to go in. In that half-dreaming, half-awake state, my imagination is absolutely fluid, and I can see clearly in the dream whatever it is that I construct for myself.
For example, this morning my last dream was about travelling in an exotic European town, where a notorious criminal was going to be executed. I was hoping to do some shopping, but I was also curious to learn more about the execution. I was also a little nervous about my travel plans, and wanted to make sure I made it to the train station on time to get to my next destination.
In a souvenir shop in the train station, I met an Englishman and we started talking. He convinced me that I should fly with him back to England, leaving earlier than I had intended to. He wanted to introduce me to his girlfriend. I said I would and we agreed to meet later that day to head to the airport together.
Then I took the viewpoint of a third person, and I witnessed one of the two other men - I'm not sure whether it was me or the Englishman - changing his mind and not wanting to travel to England together. Returning to myself in the dream, as the time approached to meet the Englishman I wandered around near the train station, anxious as to whether he was going to show up. I saw a plastic bag being blown around on the breeze, which I surmised must be him, and I chased the plastic bag as it blew high beyond my grasp. Finally I was able to grab it, and I felt sure I would convince him to honor his commitment to travel with me. But how could I communicate with a plastic bag? How could I make him turn back into a person? That was the end of the dream.
In the after-dream, I decided to explore the question of why the Englishman wanted me to travel with him. I didn't like the idea of spending time alone with him and his girlfriend - there have been many times of late when I have spent times with couples, and grow tired of being the odd man out. So I decided that his girlfriend must have a girlfriend that they wanted to fix me up with. I imagined what she would look like, how old she would be, and what sort of personality she would have. I imagined how magical it would be to meet her when we arrived at the airport in England.
And then I woke up finally, feeling very happy.
For example, this morning my last dream was about travelling in an exotic European town, where a notorious criminal was going to be executed. I was hoping to do some shopping, but I was also curious to learn more about the execution. I was also a little nervous about my travel plans, and wanted to make sure I made it to the train station on time to get to my next destination.
In a souvenir shop in the train station, I met an Englishman and we started talking. He convinced me that I should fly with him back to England, leaving earlier than I had intended to. He wanted to introduce me to his girlfriend. I said I would and we agreed to meet later that day to head to the airport together.
Then I took the viewpoint of a third person, and I witnessed one of the two other men - I'm not sure whether it was me or the Englishman - changing his mind and not wanting to travel to England together. Returning to myself in the dream, as the time approached to meet the Englishman I wandered around near the train station, anxious as to whether he was going to show up. I saw a plastic bag being blown around on the breeze, which I surmised must be him, and I chased the plastic bag as it blew high beyond my grasp. Finally I was able to grab it, and I felt sure I would convince him to honor his commitment to travel with me. But how could I communicate with a plastic bag? How could I make him turn back into a person? That was the end of the dream.
In the after-dream, I decided to explore the question of why the Englishman wanted me to travel with him. I didn't like the idea of spending time alone with him and his girlfriend - there have been many times of late when I have spent times with couples, and grow tired of being the odd man out. So I decided that his girlfriend must have a girlfriend that they wanted to fix me up with. I imagined what she would look like, how old she would be, and what sort of personality she would have. I imagined how magical it would be to meet her when we arrived at the airport in England.
And then I woke up finally, feeling very happy.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
We begin in the middle...
There's no good place to start but the middle. That's where we are anyway, right? We've all been around x number of years already, so many things have happened, there's nothing to do but just jump in.
So who am I and why am I writing and why is my blog called "spaghettification"? Well, it's something about the fleeting nature of life. It will all I'm sure develop as I go. Very few, if any, creatures will ever experience the horror of having the matter of their existence torn in every direction at a monumental speed by the very force of the universe itself. But many of us will experience the pain and confusion and shock of having essential elements of our lives change irrevocably instantaneously.
Years ago, someone told me that these kinds of experiences produce contrition. Faced with our helplessness to prevent these monumental changes from taking place, we feel in a very real sense how small we are. And it's humbling. Some people don't want to experience contrition of that sort, because it is just too disturbing. It means letting go of the myth that we are the center of any universe, and questioning whether anything that happens to any of us means anything in the grand scheme of things.
But my friends, I know it's Saturday night, in the middle of the summer, and nobody should get too bummed out about anything at such a time. It's a good night for a romantic comedy, or an action movie. Not a good time for examining my place in the universe. Maybe there's never a really good time for that. But I'll cut to the chase and tell you that in the macrocosm, on the big stage, I feel pretty secure. I'm not always good on the small stage, dealing with people, handling my feelings for the people who mean something to me. But put me in front of the Grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls, and I feel pretty good. We live in a beautiful country, even with whatever has gone wrong or continues to go wrong around us. Events are unfolding just as they are supposed to.
There's a block party on my block here in Brooklyn, and luckily my bedroom is in the back of my building, because the party is loud! I'm at that crucial moment of the evening where facing me is the decision: do I stay in and have a quiet evening, or get ready and go out somewhere for dinner, etc. (maybe see a movie or what have you). It's warm and sticky out, but my room has air conditioning. Anything could happen.
So here I am, in the middle of summer, the middle of my life, the middle of a thought. Happy to meet you.
So who am I and why am I writing and why is my blog called "spaghettification"? Well, it's something about the fleeting nature of life. It will all I'm sure develop as I go. Very few, if any, creatures will ever experience the horror of having the matter of their existence torn in every direction at a monumental speed by the very force of the universe itself. But many of us will experience the pain and confusion and shock of having essential elements of our lives change irrevocably instantaneously.
Years ago, someone told me that these kinds of experiences produce contrition. Faced with our helplessness to prevent these monumental changes from taking place, we feel in a very real sense how small we are. And it's humbling. Some people don't want to experience contrition of that sort, because it is just too disturbing. It means letting go of the myth that we are the center of any universe, and questioning whether anything that happens to any of us means anything in the grand scheme of things.
But my friends, I know it's Saturday night, in the middle of the summer, and nobody should get too bummed out about anything at such a time. It's a good night for a romantic comedy, or an action movie. Not a good time for examining my place in the universe. Maybe there's never a really good time for that. But I'll cut to the chase and tell you that in the macrocosm, on the big stage, I feel pretty secure. I'm not always good on the small stage, dealing with people, handling my feelings for the people who mean something to me. But put me in front of the Grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls, and I feel pretty good. We live in a beautiful country, even with whatever has gone wrong or continues to go wrong around us. Events are unfolding just as they are supposed to.
There's a block party on my block here in Brooklyn, and luckily my bedroom is in the back of my building, because the party is loud! I'm at that crucial moment of the evening where facing me is the decision: do I stay in and have a quiet evening, or get ready and go out somewhere for dinner, etc. (maybe see a movie or what have you). It's warm and sticky out, but my room has air conditioning. Anything could happen.
So here I am, in the middle of summer, the middle of my life, the middle of a thought. Happy to meet you.
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