Most polar dichotomies seem useful as blunt instruments, but when a hammer is not needed (and how often do nails need to get pounded in) they are mechanisms for confusing the “truth”. The “truth” (can’t use that word without the quotes) is that when people talk about complex stuff and then try to pound that stuff into one form or another, it’s just another example of personality typing, of “introverting vs. extroverting”. And yet, there’s the full-time job of philosophers and psychologists: “Life and the human brain are so complicated that it should be our full time jobs to study them, but we’re going to make sense of the complexity and make it simple for all the rest of you.” Completely silly. Not that I haven’t appreciated many of the things written by people of these two professions. The examination of life and the “mind” are worthwhile pursuits. The relentless pursuit of podcastable insights, on the other hand. It pays to be a little podcastable (everyone has to eat and pay rent). But the production process is where the value is at, not that which is produced. And that’s a bit harder to share. One’s personal, contextual, subjective journey to see one’s life from every angle and life from every angle, the pursuit of the panopticon: this is the beautiful path and the awful destination. So don’t read this to exploit or find insights. And don’t read to explore. And certainly don’t read anything to find the “truth” (unless you went to school somewhere vaguely in Boston, then I’m sure you can’t help it). Also, never listen to “don’t” recommendations. When it’s morning in June and the sun didn’t set long before it rose again, coffee is an unnecessary pleasure that leads one to advise others after sleeping too little. So here I am. Watching one tiny tree on my deck table grow and the other wither away. I keep watering the witherer, in the hopes that it might find the spark of life. But this brood looks like it will have at best a 50% survival rate. As spiders crawl all over each and all over me, I think about the squirrels and the birds. And about how domestic dogs have polar dichotomies as a pathology. Humans are not good teachers.
There are many people running by this morning. I’m on my perch above the tree-lined street, where the sun has already risen to many hands above the horizon. Little green mosquito-lookalikes are floating in front of me. I think about the main character in A Confederacy of Dunces sometimes. Ignatius is a little alive in me, as I find academics guilty of silliness and try to eat more and more food. A Wikipedia rabbit hutch stemming from Myrna Minkoff and leading on to the beatnik conception of Bartleby the Scrivener is a thread to follow. Rejecting vs. embracing is another hard dichotomy though. It’s here that language runs out of steam: definitions are the essence of language, the word-milieu’s foundation, and yet definitions try to anchor things in an ocean with no floor; a ship may seem to stop, but only because the wind is not blowing and the current is calm. So what are we doing here, in this reading and writing project we’re undertaking together? Opening our eyes a little wider, looking for more ways to see the blurry curves.
Roman Ryan 