The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world.
-Vikram Chandra, novelist (b. 1961)

OK, Vikram, mon semblable, where are you going with this? I call you my familiar because we were born the same year. You haven’t wasted as much time as I, watching TV, have you?

I think I understand. We see the world as through a glass, darkly, and have to spatter the fleeting reality with droplets of the human, to prevent us seeing through the truth entirely.

Perhaps your observation is more literary than philosophical: the writer’s task to put the world into context. I don’t know, but it seems more shallow. In any case, I keep coming back to Wright:

I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

One more thing, Vikram: All glory is fleeting. Wright was only six years older than us when he died.

Your Monday thought for the day:

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
-George Santayana

I hate to admit it, but I can relate to this, even in my humdrum little life. When I have my druthers, drama comes in those little red envelopes from Netflix; all else you can set adrift on the channel and leave me out of it.

Have a peaceable week.

Picture yourself driving your car, pickup, vespa, hearse, ice cream truck, or whatever. Hopefully, you’re not doing it as you read this post.

You and your ride confront a long steep hill in harsh weather. You’re worried about reaching the top, but you finally do. So you reach out and give your trusty machine a pat of appreciation on the dashboard.

“Well,” you say, “We made it, ______.”

Does your vehicle have a name? Is it male or female? Why?

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.

-Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)

Ethologist. Now there’s a cool job, don’t you think?

That’s enough of politics for now, the sun still being up and all. As this is a literate – if not literary – blog, here’s something completely different but still apropos of the day.

Apropos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.S. Lawrence:

Let us prepare now for the death of our present “little” life, and the re-emergence in a bigger life, in touch with the moving cosmos.

It is a question, practically, of relationship. We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe. The way is through daily ritual, and the re-awakening. We must once more practice the ritual of dawn and noon and sunset, the ritual of the kindling fire and pouring water, the ritual of the first breath, and the last. This is an affair of the individual and the household, a ritual of day. The ritual of the moon in her phases, of the morning star and the evening star is for men and women separate. Then the ritual of the seasons, with the Drama and the Passion of the soul embodied in procession and dance, this is for the community, an act of men and women, a whole community, in togetherness.

And the ritual of the great events in the year of stars is for nations and whole peoples. To these rituals we must return: or we must evolve them to suit our needs. For the truth is, we are perishing for lack of fulfilment of our greater needs, we are cut off from the great sources of our inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally in the universe. Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.

It means a return to ancient forms. But we shall have to create these forms again, and it is more difficult than the preaching of an evangel. The Gospel came to tell us we were all saved. We look at the world today and realise that humanity, alas, instead of being saved from sin, whatever that may be, is almost completely lost, lost to life, and near to nullity and extermination.

Knowing what
Thou knowest not
Is in a sense
Omniscience.

— Piet Hein,
poet and scientist (1905-1996)

He who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know.

–Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

“He who thinks he knows does not know; he who knows he does not know knows.”

— Often Attributed to Joseph Campbell

After the promises have been kept, and the miles have been traveled, and the miles have been traveled, and the little horse has been brushed and put to bed in the barn, do you ever wonder what becomes of the speaker in Frost’s poem the next morning?

I have. I do.

Maybe he gets up a little later than usual, and looks out at the snow, and wanders into the kitchen – scratching himself and yawning – and his wife makes him pancakes.

Hmm, definitely a promising ponderable.

Anyway, I can’t think of any promises I kept well or faithfully over the Christmas days. We single uncle types need to fight the feeling of being a little more old and in the way, from year to year. So it goes. But we’re home from our yuletide expedition to the deep woods, and I’m back at the desk, back to the blog.

So how should I presume?

Oh that Eliot, he always cracks me up.

But seriously, any reader suggestions on a good topic from the many possibilities of reading and writing?

I was just sitting here, watching The Weather Channel with the sound off, contemplating writers’ block and watching this guy standing on the hood of his pickup, in the midst of a flood. He’s obviously waiting for rescue, and perilously close to being washed to his just desserts, truck and all, but the raging torrent.

A thought occurred: That would be a bad way to die.

A second thought: What’s a good way?

I used to think I could think of a few preferable ways to meet one’s demise. But over the years I’ve forgotten all but one, because I never actually heard of anyone going in those ways.

So I put it to you: What would be your end, if you could chose it? And have you ever known of anyone to depart in that manner?

My remaining druther, for the record: Having gone to bed in full possession of my faculties, of a painless cerebrovascular accident, in my sleep.