I am probably avoiding chores.
That sums up the history of writing.
Writing is a leisure activity. It's a bonus. Icing on the life cake.
So is stand-up comedy. So is acting.
Even if writing is more than that for an individual, it remains that for the whole. For the species. For the planet.
Written laws are a pretty silly idea, if even one person doesn't have to follow them. They become a story, like a fairytale. Harry Potter and the Equal Justice for All.
But just like fairytales, they can be written beautifully. They can inspire is to imitate what is written, and aim for that reality. For every little child dreaming of 3 wishes, there is an adult dreaming of equal education and pursuits of happiness.
These are lofty goals, except that they are not at all. We may simply need to abandon the Narcissus Pond that is writing.
No tree is waiting to "settle the score" with another tree. Because the score is something to be written down. It is pulling the past with us into the present.
I have heard "those who do not remember the past are destined to repeat it."
I believe in some form of the opposite. Whichever part of the past you choose to remember, you will repeat.
"The past" includes everything that has ever happened. The idea of "repeating it" is cute, but has never been a real concern.
We are destined to do what we think about and focus on. There has been kindness and collaboration and symbiosis throughout history. If we focus on those points of history, we will "repeat" something similar.
_____
Right. So how does this change the tennis show you're enjoying, or the politics you're angry about. !
I don't know. I will only live one hundred years, so the source of these ideas is a tree, born and rooted in one spot, trying to describe
the other side of mountains.
Maybe that is what writing is. A chance for trees to say hello. To reminisce about leaves falling, and winter winds.
One day I hope to have the courage to stop writing. I trust the trees more than I trust the men who wrote about how great their silence was.
I never thought I'd write this, but Ralph Waldo Emerson can kiss my ass. If he really loved trees, he would have kept their secrets.
And here I am, seven generations later -- writing. Destined to repeat. Designed to repeat, by one man's ego. Any writer is invested in the continuation of writing.
I am a writer. I identify as one. I don't quite know how to remove that from my own self- definition.
_____
I remember ideas of Buddhism, learned while my parents paid for me to attend a 4-year stay away camp called college.
Let go of the need to define yourself. Each thing you define yourself as, is a desire. Desire is suffering.
Maybe a small seed has sprouted. A desire to be known is suffering. A desire to be remembered is eternal suffering.
_____
Almost 7 a.m.
Time to do the dishes and feed the pets and get milk and oatmeal and take out trash and recycling and be thankful for my place in this giant forest.
Dear God, help me to start being more like Johnny Appleseed.
Amen
That sums up the history of writing.
Writing is a leisure activity. It's a bonus. Icing on the life cake.
So is stand-up comedy. So is acting.
Even if writing is more than that for an individual, it remains that for the whole. For the species. For the planet.
Written laws are a pretty silly idea, if even one person doesn't have to follow them. They become a story, like a fairytale. Harry Potter and the Equal Justice for All.
But just like fairytales, they can be written beautifully. They can inspire is to imitate what is written, and aim for that reality. For every little child dreaming of 3 wishes, there is an adult dreaming of equal education and pursuits of happiness.
These are lofty goals, except that they are not at all. We may simply need to abandon the Narcissus Pond that is writing.
No tree is waiting to "settle the score" with another tree. Because the score is something to be written down. It is pulling the past with us into the present.
I have heard "those who do not remember the past are destined to repeat it."
I believe in some form of the opposite. Whichever part of the past you choose to remember, you will repeat.
"The past" includes everything that has ever happened. The idea of "repeating it" is cute, but has never been a real concern.
We are destined to do what we think about and focus on. There has been kindness and collaboration and symbiosis throughout history. If we focus on those points of history, we will "repeat" something similar.
_____
Right. So how does this change the tennis show you're enjoying, or the politics you're angry about. !
I don't know. I will only live one hundred years, so the source of these ideas is a tree, born and rooted in one spot, trying to describe
the other side of mountains.
Maybe that is what writing is. A chance for trees to say hello. To reminisce about leaves falling, and winter winds.
One day I hope to have the courage to stop writing. I trust the trees more than I trust the men who wrote about how great their silence was.
I never thought I'd write this, but Ralph Waldo Emerson can kiss my ass. If he really loved trees, he would have kept their secrets.
And here I am, seven generations later -- writing. Destined to repeat. Designed to repeat, by one man's ego. Any writer is invested in the continuation of writing.
I am a writer. I identify as one. I don't quite know how to remove that from my own self- definition.
_____
I remember ideas of Buddhism, learned while my parents paid for me to attend a 4-year stay away camp called college.
Let go of the need to define yourself. Each thing you define yourself as, is a desire. Desire is suffering.
Maybe a small seed has sprouted. A desire to be known is suffering. A desire to be remembered is eternal suffering.
_____
Almost 7 a.m.
Time to do the dishes and feed the pets and get milk and oatmeal and take out trash and recycling and be thankful for my place in this giant forest.
Dear God, help me to start being more like Johnny Appleseed.
Amen
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