are you trying to figure out what you should do with your friday evening?
i’ve found that better things happen when i don’t try so hard. DO stop thinking about tomorrow.
yes just like that. and look what happened:
a few great people will be showing some of their creations at the LemonDrop in Springfield from 7-11pm tomorrow.
also i’ll be there pouring Peaceful Bend wine.
come play.
now i understand why people write dialogue.
and by that you mean you started writing a dialogue and have figured out why you like it?
ach. you know me too well.
no such thing. so why do you like writing dialogue?
the fact that we’re having this conversation means you already know the answer to that question.
besides the point. you wouldn’t have even started this if you didn’t want to give me the answer to that question. now maybe we could have saved some time if you just told me the answer rather than bringing up the subject so i’d eventually ask, but we both know that’s not how this works. at least not yet.
alrightalright. writing dialogue is an acceptable means of allowing all these bits of me to communicate. happy?
now that’s a ridiculous question.
since when is ridiculous a problem?
since when is unacceptable a problem?
probably somewhere around middleschool.
i thought you were over that.
i am. you’re the one who brought it up. maybe you’re the problem.
ha! wouldn’t it be nice if there was a the problem.
the first step to fixing the problem is admitting that you are the problem.
i’m not sure that makes any sort of sense. there’s no problem until you decide to decide that one exists so you can fix it in order to feel like you’ve accomplished something. don’t make me your purpose.
don’t flatter yourself.
why not? it’s better than making problems.
but not better than fixing them.
and what’s your problem?
circles! we’ve been here before!
yes probably. so what’s the solution?
spirals.
from circles to spirals. sounds like a quick fix.
should be. but spirals are tricky. hard to figure which way to go.
just pick and go. i’m right behind you.
and i should trust that. why?
what else is there to do?
doubt?
you sound unsure.
well if you’re so sure then go. i’ll follow.
i made no claims to certainty. since you stuck us on this spiral i thought you’d like to lead. but you’re right. trust is work. to really trust me i’d have to agree not to hop off when this spiral starts making me dizzy. i can’t do that, but i will follow you for now. and if i get dizzy i’ll tell you and we could jump off together or turn around or maybe only i will turn around but i’ll at least tap you on the shoulder before i do.
why do we always seem to end up here?
circles will do that.
so this is how it ends?
if that’s what you want. i think it’s a nice place to start.
//true awakening will not fit into the world as you imagine it or the self you imagine yourself to be. reality is not something that you integrate into your personal view of things. reality is life without your distorting stories, ideas, and beliefs. it is perfect unity free of all reference points, with nowhere to stand and nothing to grab hold of. it has never been spoken, never been written, never been imagined. it is not hidden, but in plain view. cease to cherish opinions and it stands before your very eyes. \\–Adyashanti
//there was once a prisoner who yearned for freedom. one day, the prophet Mohammed appeared to him, and gave him a set of keys to his cell, saying ‘your piety has been rewarded. allah has set you free.’ so the prisoner took the set of keys, mounted them on the wall, and prayed to them five times a day.\\ — a Sufi tale
//but to the extent that we become captives of culturally defined role expectations and behaviors – stereotypes, not ourselves, — we block our capacity of self-actualization.\\ –elizabeth kubler-ross
‘eliminate the middle man,’ she explained. ‘eat the living. the more life in my food, the more life in me.’
he groaned in disgust, taking large swigs from a bottle of swamplike liquid.
she paused in her efforts and plopped down in his shadow.
‘and just what are you drinking’ she squinted up at him.
without hesitation he launched into his spiel: ‘nobody likes poop, right? it’s a smelly nuisance. it’s the stuff we don’t need. so why not take all of the extra stuff out before hand? this bottle contains -nothing- that my body will not use. nothing wasted. thus, no waste.’
she considered all of the terrible implications of his invention, namely the huge market he would have for such a product. ‘poo.no.more.’ she gave it a name and instantly regretted her contribution to this project. ‘i think you’re probably going to be rich.’
:::: :::: ::::
if this life came with an owner’s manual would you want to read it like reading the backs of books when the author doesn’t even know what words the publisher has chosen to put there?
‘What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory — meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion — is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes in the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storytelling to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.’
–william maxwell.
IF THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD
–malena mörling.
If there is another world,
I think you can take a cab there—
or ride your old bicycle
down Junction Blvd.
past the Paris Suites Hotel
with the Eiffel Tower on the roof
and past the blooming Magnolia and on—
to the corner of 168th Street.
And if you’re inclined to,
you can turn left there
and yield to the blind
as the sign urges us—
especially since it is a state law.
Especially since there is a kind of moth
here on earth
that feeds only on the tears of horses.
Sooner or later we will all cry
from inside our hearts.
Sooner or later even the concrete
will crumble and cry in silence
along with all the lost road signs.
Two days ago 300 televisions
washed up on a beach in Shiomachi, Japan,
after having fallen off a ship in a storm.
They looked like so many
oversized horseshoe crabs
with their screens turned down to the sand.
And if you’re inclined to, you can continue
in the weightless seesaw of the light
through a few more intersections
where people inside their cars
pass you by in space
and where you pass by them,
each car another thought—only heavier.
wikidefi: To immanentize the eschaton means trying to make the eschaton (the transcendent, uncreated, spiritual, or future; the end of days, to trigger the apocalypse, see eschatology) in the immanent (within the limits of possible experience) world.
REREADING FROST
–linda pastan.
Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?
At other times though,
I remember how one flower
in a meadow already full of flowers
somehow adds to the general fireworks effect
as you get to the top of a hill
in Colorado, say, in high summer
and just look down at all that brimming color.
I also try to convince myself
that the smallest note of the smallest
instrument in the band,
the triangle for instance,
is important to the conductor
who stands there, pointing his finger
in the direction of the percussions,
demanding that one silvery ping.
And I decide not to stop trying,
at least not for a while, though in truth
I’d rather just sit here reading
how someone else has been acquainted
with the night already, and perfectly.
