Our legacy

It's getting to be too much. There's bickering on all sides. Some champion just leaving it as is.

"It's not that bad"

They rest on the legacy of others in centrally heated houses and 200mph cars. They like it that way. Why would they want to change. Just close your eyes and march on.

"If there is anything wrong it's not my fault anyway"

Blame it on the corporations and the third world. The Chinese need to use cleaner fuel, and the Indians need to stay on their bikes. How dare they desire car ownership?

We need to stimulate the economy. Keep buying or our children will face the consequences.

Buy a prius, everything will be ok.

Others stand against this juggernaut of inertia. They look to the skies for intervention. Not a miracle from God but a rain of fiery comets like Gomorra of old.

All for destroying what we have. Decrying the very procreation of humanity. A simple hybrid is not enough. We must go full ahead with the destruction of all things human. Humanity is a stain, a weed on this sweet earth and we must be torn down from our high place.

Don't we have a place too? Can't we make positive changes in ourselves and the world? Is it wrong/right because a human does it?

Mad itchy feet

There's this lull. Just this little

One of those. Like the sound of wind rushing through a tunnel, or the vastness of the sky. A nothing begging for something, inaction begging for action. Like the beginning of a road trip to nowhere or everywhere.

Makes you feel like a kid again. Staring out of the classroom window waiting for spring to fully sprout so summer can take over. Summer break has so much potential. So much to (not)do and so little time.

But now there's no end, and even more to do. The potential is maximized along with the time. And now like a deer in the headlights any move is a good move.

A doctor, a painter, king of the world. All is within grasp if you believe your Mom, but only if you work hard if you trust your Dad.

But who is that man in the window of the corner store near your house. Didn't his parents tell him he could be anything? IS this what he wanted to be as a 4 year old in nursery school. Where did he go wrong? Where did he go right?

What gave him the strength to make a living out of something so small. Doesn't he want to love what he does? Doesn't he want to run?

How do you make the decision when there's an infinite amount of possibilities? What makes one better than the others? There's nothing to recomend one above the other.

And it's left me with itchy feet.

The resurrection of the author

I've been to the tomb & the body wasn't there. I saw the manifestos they tried to wrap her in folded neatly & stacked in piles. We have long been told that the author is dead. Didn't a crowd see him hanging there? Her body in the torchlight of the mob swinging from the limb of the tree. Didn't Joseph take him down and lay her in his very own tomb? The tomb they hermetically sealed so no one could get at him.

"He is finished," the mob cried, "we are free from her tyranny."

They reinterpreted the texts. Nothing was sacred. The swine had the pearls & they trampled them to see what they were made of. Teachers were running amok. Freud got in on the action too.

"It's all about sex with their mother," they cried. "She has an electra complex."

"It's not just a cigar."

Things were getting out of control. Literary criticism sprang up like weeds after a summer rain. They were drunk on possibility & power. Genius was within their grasp, all they had to do was take it. Nothing was sacred.

In the beginning it seemed like such a good idea. As egalitarian as pure democracy. The book is what you make/take from it. It was literary communism.

Somewhere along the way they lost the plot.

The thing is you can't learn if you're not listening. They trapped themselves in the cages of their own minds. It's ok if you think that but I think something different. Let's not fight about it. Let's agree to disagree. You're alright & I'm alright, can't we just get along?

But they weren't alright. I'm not alright & you're not alright. Shouldn't we do something about it. Let's fight it out, let's hug it out. Let's move from ourselves and occupy the minds of others. get into the mind of the author. See how it feels in there. Get comfortable, get uncomfortable. Tell the author where it hurts. Maybe she's wrong, maybe you should slap some sense into him. But you can't talk with a dead man.

You can't talk without entering into the ring and preparing to be mocked and hated. Not if it's worth a damn. Get in there raise hell. Show them what you can do. & if you come out beaten and bloody find out where you were wrong.

Are you ready to wrestle with her? Oil up for some greco-roman wrestling with socrates. Sharpen your épée for a bout with Baudelaire. Ready yourself in the (not so)martial arts. Be ready to defend your personae against malicious attacks. In short make yourself once again into the fit youngster you once were and make war with that vicious world cause if you're not ready to defend yourself and take offence against those that do wrong then you and all those around you will become stale and boring and will slowly become the straw men.

Go.

A bit of advice

If you go to a cafe, and who doesn't these days, there are things that can make both you, and your servers life a lot easier. If you are at a decent cafe listen to the person behind the counter, for the most part they know what they are doing. Today I had a women ask me for a 'medium shot' of espresso and a bit of hot water. I expressed my confusion as there is no such thing as a medium shot of espresso. All she did was repeat that she wanted a medium shot of espresso. I decided she wanted a long shot americano and made her one. Unfortunately she thought it tasted like the espresso from one of those pre-packaged espresso machine, like the tassimo. We don't use a machine like that, and I told her. She kept insisting that's what her americano tasted like. I offered to make her another americano and she assented as long as we make it from ground beens and not the pre-packaged espresso. With that I walked away and let the other person behind the bar make her drink. At this point in time we both felt like hitting her. She didn't no what she was talking about, yet she insisted on talking like she did. This isn't the first time I've run into people talking to you like you don't know what you are doing. I had another lady ask for a earl grey tea with steamed milk and vanilla (the ingredients in a London Fog). I offered her a london fog, and she said no. I offered her a earl grey tea misto with vanilla and she assented. I was mystified, it's the exact same drink. There is a lot of stupid lingo surrounding the coffee industry. I know that, it can be hard to figure out what is what. But if you don't know enquire, and then trust your server. If they're wrong you can always go back and ask them to exchange your drink.

Because I have to...

It was a dark and stormy night. And as was his habit he stayed at home. To combat the cold that came snaking through the cracks in his house was difficult. It was an old house in a moderate climate, and as such was not much at keeping the chill outside. A sweater was fetched from his room, but not before water was set to boil. Once he was properly attired he was back in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil. Once boiled tea bags were added to the water and left to steep. While the tea steeped he once again left for his room, this time coming out with a copy of Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days". Then he poured his tea, and retired to the living room where he placed his tea on the coffee table and reclined on the couch snuggled up in a blanket to read his book. And thus on this stormy night no one was murdered, no paranormal activity detected, and no mystery uncovered. The chill however was resoundingly beat.

is being a writer.

I am a writer. Which is only to say that I write. Many people write, some even more than me, but do not consider themselves writers in any sense. But it is my conceit that my writing is worthy of other people's attention. A banker is worthy of the title because a bank has put faith in him to bank, likewise an actor is worthy of the title because a director has cast her in a role and people watch. So now I'm looking to the internet for the edification that the banker gets from the bank and the actor gets from the director and the crowd. Descartes said I think therefore I am. So likewise some people say I write therefor I am a writer. But if a tree falls in a forest...