Yoon Kwang-cho: Heart Sutra (2007)

About To Happen
What would you do if your dream came true? I engineered most of my life to cope with not achieving a dream-come-true state. An encroaching dream coming true feels genuinely threatening to my well-practiced status quos. I know precisely how to cope with disappointment but feel totally unprepared to accept success, however modest. I procrastinate, hastening extremely slowly into its grasp as if it were a trap. I wonder what its embrace might bring. I puzzle over the changes it might insist upon my sacred routines, however shopworn they seem. I sense the potential that I'll have to write a different story, one I only secretly ever intended to author. Stay tuned. Something interesting's about to happen here.

Weekly Writing Summary

I began my writing week talking to animals in DrDoolittle, the most popular posting this period. "Much animal conversation leans strongly toward the non-verbal, but even that seems eminently interpretable, especially since it's usually only me who needs to feel satisfied with the exchange. I'm easy. I figure it pays me to be easy."

Thomas Rowlandson:
Doctor Syntax drawing after nature (1812)

" … that conversation could also be pure projection."
—
I next began what turned into several days exploring different kinds of my internal dialogue, starting with TalkingThruMyHat. "When farting in church, it might be best to privately blame the resulting stench on the holy ghost while penitently sitting through to the end of the service praying quietly for forgiveness and that nobody around you will notice."

Amedeo Modigliani: Madam Pompadour (1915)

" … frantic iOlogue might appear."
—
Continuing my considerations of various forms of my internal dialogue, I investigated talking out of boths sides of my mouth in BothSides. "I draw my conclusions painstakingly with a pencil and plenty of erasures."

Joe E. Brown:
You Said a Mouthful, [Front cover, Pamplet] 1944

" … speak out of every side of every mouth …"
—
In yet another inquiry into the many forms my internal dialogue takes, I introduced TrashTalkingToMyself. "My monkey mind does not infect my rational one but enlivens it. It keeps me usefully distracted. It ensures I never take anything altogether too seriously here. It's always poking shit at me, belittling me, making fun, for until anything's fun, it's probably much better left undone."

Bothe, after Paul Friedrich Meyerheim:
Apen in een atelier [Apes in the studio] (1852 - 1915)

" … a great and enduring blessing in my life …"
—
I then presented a screed against perfection in all its forms and supporting the MorePerfect instead. "If I'm alive, I should probably remain grateful that I noticed that slight imperfection because it reassures me that I'm still headed in the right direction toward MorePerfect but not perfection; thank Heaven!"

Photograph of Lincoln Memorial Youth March for Integrated Schools.
Photograph/National Archives Catalog.
Department of the Interior. National Park Service.
National Capital Parks. (10/9/1933 - 1/22/1962).

" … toward MorePerfect but not perfection …"
—
I ended my writing week describing the most non-verbal internal dialogue I regularly engage in, Ruminating. "Ruminating does not seem like a linear experience but more like slipping sideways through scenarios. Maybe I'm just daydreaming, watching videos I produce for my edification. I follow threads that tend to follow dream logic, which means no apparent logical progression at all. They start anywhere or nowhere. They proceed to wherever they seem to choose."

Jacob van Ruisdael:
Landscape with Figure Resting Under Tree by Stream
(not dated)

" … I can start Ruminating onto a page instead …"
—

This writing week watched me talking to animals before exploring how I tend to talk to myself, ending with my least talkative form of internal dialogue, Rumination. I had no clue, as usual, just how well-suited iOlogue would prove to the hibernating season, for short of contemplating my navel, exploring my internal dialogues seems a supremely seasonal pursuit. This morning, as the outside temperatures slip toward single digits and fine snow sifts down upon the proceedings, I'm reminded that we're past Epiphany now and headed toward a Spring we cannot yet sense. These next few weeks will host the annual Valley Of The Shadow Of's visit. I'll be in my head, chattering myself through the worst of it. Thank you for following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz