A micro philosophy on self-knowing

For a great most of us who occupy a small space of this world at one time or another, we justify it wholly acceptable yet restlessly unsatisfying to continue living just as we do. At least, this is a valid question of self-meaning that emerges at some bold moment during our lives, and for some, throughout our lives. This is because we, at least I, have lived a life of half-intentions, unrequited dreams and part-way glances, meeting the selves of others halfway and my self nearly not at all, at least, the deep parts of me that matter. We find discomfort in too long gazes and too short looks but stare just enough into others to run a mental algorithm, after a few exchanges, or even fewer encounters, to decide where on the value scale they fall in reference to our own, or to our family's, or to our morality's, and so forth. And therefore, treat them as such, as though appearance, preclusion of traits, occupation, accent, inherited wealth, or poverty, or all other habits of things that become formulations of value to us; we offer our own selves capable in that instance to determine what comparative relation we have with them, and they to us, which of our vectors align, or intersect, or run opposite, at least the ones we care to measure and discriminate, and that this becomes the conditional nature of how our human relationships take form. Or never do.

The in-between of too short and too long is a mechanical protective narration we follow; to never fully stay too long or go too deep for fear of what will be revealed. We find impermeable unchallenge to the habit of socially constructed human transaction - to manage superflous introductions or conversations as a polite follow-up to our pre-determinations, or in hopes that the person will do something, say something, that leans them more favorably to our judgment, and as well, leans us towards theirs. It is difficult for any one of us to just be, and this I think is true for some if not most. But not for all, however, because there are those rare humble earthstones who deliver only what they have to offer, typically a small open box with not much inside. They arrive on the doorstep of every conversation saying,"Hey, it's all free, and I don't mind if you don't take a thing." Many more of us claim this category than who should. In fact, the paradox of humility almost prevents such knowing.

That we may never completely know if others say what they mean or do as they believe, if their beliefs are deeply rooted or an accident of erosion; we do not know, but in any case, we find easily our gavel of judgment. We know about this judgment thing well, very well, in fact, because we are secretly guilty of the exact incrimination we graft upon the world.

Greater than the laws of science and experiment, it is necessary to place ourselves under the microscope of our own barrage of questions to carve a meticulous form of self-fact from the rigorous exercises of deduction and discovery and devices of all things inward. This is a type of necessary absolution, that is, to meet our eye with as much whole courage as we have wholly lacked, and finds no respite invitation in our social discourse, because eh, yes, the discourse means we talk less about each other and only of ourselves. What an awful, obscene proposition; to require those of us who hover stealth opinions about everything unrelated to our own deep selves to produce a handful of self-facts and some genuine vulnerability to prove it. Many of us have no ill intention by it; others, yes, but ill intended or not, the unknowing is quite the same.

For this I have no answers. Why is it that we are unafraid to wield analysis to all outer extremities - of governance, of community, of enemies, of lovers, and friends, and even complete strangers, of which we have exact and often extreme opinions. But to the facts of ourselves, we find we have very few, and even of those we would rather not be tested. Why is this? Why are we so afraid to know better the only inner creature we are given, to become more than merely acquainted with ourselves, to offer that peculiar stranger within more than small conversation during infrequent quiet moments, or retort with continuous doubt at her attempts of expression. This is what I do not understand, either of myself or of anyone guilty of the same charge. That is, we misuse the same incomplete application of algorithm against our self as we do against others, and by consequence, our self-knowing joins the army of our inaccuracy that predominates how we understand and participate in this world; indeed, not as wildly and fully as we should.

The entire lesson is God; He does not give the lesson but rather is The Lesson. This I believe. I also believe God plants seeds of wisdom where we can reach them, and perhaps, with which to feed our souls. One simple lesson, then, might arise as wisdom from the infant generation. This is the distinctive charm of children: they find no fear or haste in staring into us for long periods of time - listening, observing, absorbing the ordinary magic we have to offer. Children make us feel magical - they beckon to the surface those childish qualities of ours, and emerging with their permission are those parts of us that are unpolished and unfascinating and nonsensical; the parts of us that wish had a place in this world to belong. Perhaps we must, as they do, ask simpler questions and accept simpler answers. Of ourselves and of each other. We may find that we have far fewer answers than we claim to know, about others and the world, and of course, about ourselves. We may find fluidity in our self nature. Within this fluidity is time, space, courage, and openness to learn new things without feeling threatened or chained to something former or too stubborn to become something untried. Outside of this fluidity is where we, satisfied or not, reside. Children, thankfully, live inside this fluidity. Children accept. They emit joy when it's in them, they listen, or they don't listen and ask another question, then another, and yet another; they cry when they must and dance when their hearts sing; they move, they do not dwell. And in that freedom lives their natural forgiveness of all things, and their inability to judge us because - they have not yet learned what it is to judge themselves, as least not yet.

Therein is the absolution, the magical overture, of how we may lay aside the complicated persona and simply become the person.

Life Observation # 5

One privilege of privilege is bitching about it.

My Problem

I have no problem with
self-condemnation, except
how often I have to hear it.

Brilliant!

"Not I said the fly."
"Not I said the fly."

How ridiculously stupid is that.
I could have written the same folksy forays

little jiggity jigs making

millions of children laugh
the whole world over
through the decades.

Although,
I tried to delight
just two today and

failed miserably.
Neither one of them laughing
nor I, for that matter.

So I settled with

"Not I said the fly."
"Not I said the fly."

Then laughed hysterically
at the satire.

who opens a dictionary

plain words are too close a symbol to
a feeling we aren't sure
we want to say

yet

or just
in that way

so we strip it and
redress it in

faster
language

full of art

less
defined

we use:

unclear
after
ambiguous

word

stretch--

example
after
example

like,
this here,
for example,

expecting only

one-fifth an ear
four-fifths a nod

to our
cogent repertoire
that inflicts
at most--

a short grimace, hmm
- cogent,

of lazy uncertainty

because,

who opens a dictionary
cross-checks a thesaurus
or questions anything
while being lectured by
metaphors

since

halfway to three minutes
seven minutes entirely she has lost her

first meaning anyway

Returning to the Mystic

It was back in late February when the last tiny islands of ice were still dancing on the Mystic that the old man first returned to face the river. From Jeremiah’s sidewalk view above, he looked like a loon, hunched in a thick worn coat and brown knit hat. Jeremiah watched as the old man buckled downward, clawed a single rock from the earth and then raised it, mechanically, to within an inch of his eyes. Across its face he ran his arthritic fingers, over and over, until finally, he threw it into the blank waters. For eight months, this became the harmless spectacle Jeremiah would pass by on his morning walk to the Sullivan T-station, three stops from the glossy teak desk he’d break from at nine, sometimes 10 o'clock at night. He performed logarithmic magic for a downtown Boston marketing firm, creating for it, and for himself, quite a pile of profit. He was only 29, but the heavy crystals of his watch, the quick-easy of his walk, indicated that he had outpaced even his own expectations.

Every morning before eight, the man would be there, collecting pebbles and drowning them in the river. Jeremiah didn’t know where he appeared from, or at what hour he left, because always, the riverbank was empty by the time his dress shoes met moonlight on his dark walk home.

But on this autumn morning, the sun rose colder. In his grey suit--his darkest one--Jeremiah headed out early, not to his teak desk, but to the airport. He hadn’t seen Uncle Sal in eight years. But by lunchtime, he would hover over him, breathless, his two thick familiar hands across his chest that would be holding only themselves. There were two reasons why Jeremiah would go home. After today, there would be just one.

On his way to the airport, inside the rusted loneliness of the Sullivan station, he heard the morning's first inbound train screeching, stopping. The doors creaked open, two footsteps echoed faintly. Jeremiah raised his eyes, and there he hobbled: the old man with nothing in his hands but time. Suddenly, Jeremiah’s throat burned as he met his pale eyes – their sagging kindness, the two long crow’s feet that ran from them as if he had spent most of his years wincing in pain.

Pausing, he waited for Jeremiah’s question. But after a long silence, the old man turned towards the stairs that would once again bring him closer to – the rocks. Those beautiful rocks, each one a memory of Mr. Eddy, the man who almost became his father. He, who, for one long season, freed him for hours before the orphanage lights shut off and brought him, a young boy, to the calm banks of the Mystic. Mr. Eddy taught him how rocks were the hard seeds of life and how holding just the right one could turn him smooth. Look, he’d say, picking one up from the shore. Pounded in here is the weight of a thousand stories you can only feel inside your fingers. Go on, now, hold one. It’ll tell you where it’s been. So he took it from his hands, felt the rough grooves of its stories, then asked it silently to lead him home. Once, he picked up a rock, opened his pocket to put it in. But Mr. Eddy put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and with his other pointed somewhere beyond and said: Don't forget to throw it back in the river, son, because the earth only cuts what the waters will heal.

When the next train arrived, Jeremiah stepped inside, alone. And as the doors closed to take him on a journey between two far places, he felt the shape of the question aching in his palms and the longing in the old man’s eyes. There were a quarter million reasons to come back to this place, but now only one would return him to the banks of these waiting waters.

The Cat and the Paper Girl

There once was a girl made of paper. She wrote all of her tiny dreams inside, then folded herself, over and over, until she looked just like a bird.

A cat strolling by noticed her. He was about to eat her for breakfast when, strangely, something changed his mind. So he began, instead, to unfold her. First by her wings, then by what little was left.

That is when the cat realized that she was not a bird but in fact, a paper girl.

Looking over what covered her inside, the cat stood, puzzled. "Why have you scribbled all over yourself?"

"Because there was no place else for me to write," said the girl.

"Oh, I see," said the cat. But he did not, really.

"And why did you fold yourself into a bird?" asked the cat. "I nearly ate you alive, you know."

"Yes, that is the dream I wrote about here," said the girl quietly, pointing to her heart.

"What!" cried the cat. "To be eaten?"

"No," she whispered. "To be noticed."

From then on, the cat never ate another bird, because they reminded him too much of the paper girl who risked her life dreaming to be noticed.