Louis Auguste Lepère: Modern Bucolic (1901)

My Still-Tolerable Fiction
I have become somewhat of a Pollyanna character in the current psychodrama because I remain hopeful and optimistic despite or because of the current troubles. I remain astounded by how so many seem so sure that they can see what's coming. Many seem to project from recent experience to confidently insist that we've already lost our sacred Democracy. And if we could reasonably project just from recent experience, their confidence might be well-placed. I don't understand what such confidence gets anyone besides discouragement when we seem to need more courage rather than less. I admit that I do not and most probably cannot know. This admission doesn't nudge my dread into complete remission, but it does seem to extend permission to believe remission still remains possible.

This NextWorld Series has helped me focus and perceive what has been unfolding before me, as much as I would have preferred to have been distracted and not paying such close attention. Change, Virginia Satir insisted, relies upon the full, albeit temporary, acknowledgment of the way things are rather than of the way things aren't or the way they used to be. This injunction amounts to a mixed blessing because not one of us can fully perceive how things are. We might see what we are more clearly than any 'out there,' we probably most frequently mistake how we are 'in here' for the ways "things" are 'out there.' None of us have ever proven to be all that omniscient. Most of us manage to thrive on a mix of largely fictional perceptions and projections. We concoct our dreams almost seamlessly. How we will be depends, though we probably retain more influence than we ordinarily suspect.

If I cannot know, I can watch. When my projecting's suspect, I can certainly pretend. Creating this NextWorld Series enabled me to straddle the unfolding confusing situation better. I found it enormously useful to note attributes as they came into focus, recognizing that I had been more familiar with them than I had remembered. Acknowledging that I'd previously seen the unfolding Stupidities, Certainties, Vanities, and Inanites helped me acknowledge their presence without feeling overwhelmed by my startle reflex. It was irksome to acknowledge just how Unserious all the machinations seemed, that the Blather and ImaginedEnemies amounted to just so much Nonsense in so many ways. Yes, those are my stories. I almost fully acknowledge the fictional basis of nearly each of my observations. Still, without better information, I'll rely upon observation and pattern recognition to support my still-tolerable fictions.

——

Weekly Writing Summary

This NextWorld Story decomposes one of our president's public pronouncements to attempt to translate the Blather found there. He seems to communicate exclusively in pontifications, forever Blathering on about something.

Edward Lear: from Book of Nonsense (1850s)
"Fishermen and golfers tend to be the most prodigious liars, masterful Blatherers."
—
This NextWorld Story describes my personal experience of living under this regime as living with a persistent HeadCold. Achoo!

Robert Dighton: Dev'lish Cold, from A Set of Heads (c. 1795)
"Achoo! [Bless You!] Bless us all!"
—
This NextWorld Story describes the most dangerous possible enemy for the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world: ImaginaryEnemies. If we have met our gravest enemy, it might still be us. Us or the Imaginary ones suddenly seemingly surrounding us.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Title Page from Imaginary Prisons (1749–50)
"I do not believe he can possibly succeed by so transparently misleading us with his ImaginaryEnemies."
—
This NextWorld Story speaks of Lawlessness and anarchy and how they have always sowed the seeds of their ultimate destruction.

Anti-slavery Almanac: Lawless " burning of men " by the many. (1840) (The American Anti-Slavery Society published the almanac yearly from 1836 to 1843.)
"We were not supposed to abandon all hope here."
—
This NextWorld Story would have been the final installment in this series, but I needed to more properly represent the Unresolved nature of this topic. The emerging might never fully emerge, experiencing an endlessly contingent existence. Consider this ninetieth story in this series to be more beginning than ending.

Constant Troyon: Unfinished Study of Sheep (c. 1850)
"If you think changing the world is difficult, try to keep it the same."
—
This NextWorld Story, Without, frames the end of this series. Combined with tomorrow's Weekly Writing Summary, this will allow me to safely leave NextWorld behind. Of course, this series will remain unfinished. What will I choose to produce next? Thanks for following along!

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen: Without a Cent (March 1894) printed by Edouard Kleinmann
" … patriotically doing Without!"
—
This final NextWorld Weekly Writing Summary arrived prematurely, for the NextWorld I anticipated when I began writing this series had not yet manifested, or maybe it has. The traditional fat lady has not yet begun her usual aria, and I remain uncertain how the unfolding plotline might resolve. I feel obligated to move on, though, even though I'm unsure where to move on to, given this irresolution. I have been wrestling with myself all week, a definitely unfair competition, for I'm destined to both win and lose whatever I do whenever I compete with myself. I could just decide since I might have just as much to gain as lose, destined to retain some semblance of my familiar status quo. I feel confident I'll continue writing, whatever the topic, and I'll arrive at some similar irresolution instead of finishing the next one, too. I exclusively produce Begendings.

I finished this series by adding Blather to the accumulating list of NextWorld attributes. I admitted to experiencing a HeadCold before realizing that I was manifesting another aspect of NextWorld: to be embedded within it leaves one feeling as if they were suffering a Headcold. My supposed one turned out to be a sinus infection. (I'm myself on steroids now, slowly recovering.) Of all the aspects of NextWorld, I feel most proud of noticing the many, many ImaginaryEnemies lurking there. These cannot be conventionally vanquished because they never did exist, but they sure reliably produce quarrels. The Lawlessness came to seem relentless. I end this series feeling Unresolved, a state I also acknowledge as an attribute of NextWorld: feature rather than bug. So I finish this series Without the usual sense of completion, realizing that NextWorld might be never-ending, forever in the process of manifesting and never done. Thank you for following along!

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz