Jack Gould: Untitled [mother and daughter at table, writing] (c. 1948)

We Prefer Homemade
Our small city has been hosting Town Hall events featuring our absent congressional representative because we're worried, and he seems uninterested or unable to facilitate a gathering to reassure us. Though we try, we don't really reassure each other when we gather. We show up, by which I mean we bring our natural diversity, as if we intended to annoy each other by displaying it. Only in a cult, where everybody's too terrified of being identified as different, do we gather without fear of disturbing each other. The usual sensitivities always come, as if to highlight our shared dilemma. We ache to be community, but we dare not insist upon conformity. E Pluribus Unim, as I said somewhere this week, insists we're from different root stock, not similar. The miracle of our form of government was never its ability to engender anything even distantly resembling efficiency. Its stated purpose was to promote apparently inefficient diversities to surprisingly produce more than the sum of their components. This strategy has worked for approaching two hundred and fifty years. The efficiency experts lack the calculus to reduce this possibility into anything resembling a satisfying formula. As I also said somewhere this writing week, those who pay to play cannot understand those who would never pay for or play with any of the freedoms we enjoy. We're freeloaders where freedom's concerned. To purchase it defiles it. We prefer homemade.

——

Weekly Writing Summary

This CHope Story finds me considering MagicalThinking, that manner of imagining least tethered to any reality. Most of us think less imaginatively, for we've grown used to more often experiencing externalities than magic.

Master of the Die: Psyche, Thinking to Appear More Beautiful..., Opens the Fateful Box(1530–1540)
"We never were merely externalities …"
—
This CHope Story finds me considering my Wealth_.

Jan Luyken: Man met de wereld in zijn armen laat kostbaarheden vallen [Man with the world in his arms drops valuables] (1710)
"I will then settle in to become dirt myself."
—
This CHope Story, CopingTactics, finds me Coping by injecting a refreshing search into my afternoon, which might ultimately prove adequately distracting to keep me from doom-scrolling away my evening.

Ferdinand Olivier: Coping-stone (1823)
"I'd rather be crazy on my terms …"
—
This CHope Story, Contemptible, plumbs the absolute limits of my coping and hoping abilities. It describes a near future, and I sincerely hope and pray it happens that way, though I know for certain it won't unfold completely true to my greatest intentions. How it happens might matter less than that it does.

Jean Audran: Minachting [Contempt] (1727)
"Such behavior transcends explanation and excuse."
—
This CHope Story finds me reflecting on how society suddenly seems Crumbling around me. What was recently the world's envy has become a pariah in a hundred short days.

William Blake: Thy Sons and Daughters Were Eating and Drinking Wine (The Book of Job), Alternate Title: Job's Sons and Daughters Overwhelmed by Satan (1821)
"The incumbent will richly deserve his comeuppance."
—
This CHope Story reports on the obvious Desperation of the disloyal opposition. They seem to be in no condition to ever become serious contenders. Sure, they won the election, apparently so they could lose bigger than merely losing an election.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes: Fool’s Folly, from Disparates (1816–19, published 1877)
"He was never primed to contribute what success always requires."
—
I spent this writing week wandering in not altogether unpleasant wilderness. Each day brought new abominations, but I'd almost grown accustomed to the unanticipated insults. I have not (yet) started anticipating them, preferring to prolong my innocence rather than trade it in for any well-earned expectant cynicism. The clowns who believe they're in charge continued their desperate machinations. Finally, the courts started kicking in, but nobody knows how their intrusion might go. Counterbalancing the headlines, our ornamental crabapple trees reached full Easter bloom, filling with satisfied bees buzzing appreciatively. The backyard smells like my childhood Springs, reminding me how little the political affects what actually matters. I found respite digging in dirt, soil I'd amended into friable perfection. It always warmly welcomes my springtime incursion, rewarding me wordlessly after I've finished my daily writing writing ablution.

It has been springtime, so excuse me for meandering. I began this writing week acknowledging the MagicalThinking supporting our incumbent's curious assertions. Even in a perfect world, his plans couldn't possibly work. I lingered to consider my relationship to Wealth, and what I consider my primary asset: my soil I've amended since we acquired The Villa. I rejected the notion that we need coping strategies in favor of the more realistic expectation of CopingTactics. Most of us are not strategic, but just getting by. I considered Contemptibility as our incumbent toyed with inciting our courts into finding him in contempt. There's no better characterization of his underlying character. He's contemptible! I reported that, like you, I sense our society Crumbling. I ended my writing week acknowledging the deep-down Desperation our incumbent administration exhibits in every action. Thank you for following along as I meandered.


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Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz