Jan Saenredam: Spring (1601)

Mastery Was Always Illusory
I swear that I used to understand how this world works, though I probably never did. It might be that none of us ever understood or could understand. We get by almost exclusively via lucky guesses and collaborations. Without either, we'd be sunk. I over-rely upon The Muse, who understands more than I ever knew needed to be understood. She relies upon me, too, though. Nobody is self-reliant anymore, and never was. I feel increasingly vulnerable. I'm finally arriving at the age where I can no longer deny that I've been aging. My doctor concluded that I'm still street-worthy after my annual physical last week, just before I managed to wretch out my back again. Then I caught a common cold, a not-so-common experience anymore. I used to be able to set up a Zoom call, but the application has become user-hostile as it's claimed to contain more intelligence. I miss the dumber version that reliably remembered me from one session to the next. Now, I have to invoke a Pastword remembering app in order to access my account, and the smarter new version seems to assign a unique account number to each session, so regulars cannot use their familiar logins. Neither can I. I'd ask why if I didn't already know the answer. Entropy rules here and always has. Mastery was always illusory.

——

Weekly Writing Summary

Rather than attempt to interpret what our incumbent said, I submit this small analysis of what he always says: WordSalad. He seems to exclusively speak in utterly unparsable utterances. They aren't supposed to make sense, but rather serve as a backdrop upon which his audience can project their interpretations, as if they were his own. Not everyone recognizes the difference.

Georges Hugnet: Au pied de la Lettre/Word for word — Series/Book Title: The Guaranteed Surrealist Postcard Series (1937)
"He does not want to be accurately understood."
—
This CHope Story finds me reassuring myself about the dubious. Our devious incumbent relies upon Dubiety to succeed. This turns out to provide the flimsiest foundation upon which to build anything lasting. Wise kings never build their castles upon sand.

Heinrich Hoerle: Worker (Self-Portrait in Front of Trees and Chimneys) Arbeiter (Selbstbildnis vor Bäumen und Schornsteinen) (1931)
"Justice, like freedom, stands on firmer premises than the dubious."
—
This CHope Story finds me finally agreeing that our incumbent exhibits the symptoms of someone suffering from advancing Dementia. I'm most concerned about the top-down effect as his Dementia trickles down to infect his followers. Fish and political movements tend to rot from the head down.

Unknown Artist: ‘Crazy Quilt’ Parlor Throw (1887/88) Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, United States
"They were neither patriotism nor loyalty, but the effects of top-down Dementia."
—
This CHope Story might sound hopeless because it confesses deep distress at the current mess we find ourselves in. May this story describe what austerity creates: never any prosperity we seek, but Prosterity instead.

Prosper-Alphonse Isaac: Wrak van roeiboot op strand in Cancale [Wreck of rowing boat on beach in Cancale] (c. 1912)
"I pray that we might come to understand one day."
—
This CHope story, DoubleBounding, finds a reason for hope in the hopelessly conflicted chaos within our incumbent's legislative proposals. He's dangerously close to disqualifying himself in the only opinion poll that matters, the one where disgruntled voters exercise their democratic franchise.

Will Hicock Low: Pale Grew Her Immortality, For Woe of All These Lovers (1885)
"It was already plenty great enough …"
—
This CHope Story focuses forward, rather than trying to make anything great again. Again seems too done, un-Americanly done, for we are a Futuristic people, less interested in recreating any past and continuously focused upon alluring futures, instead. Making anything great again is the recipe for death.

Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita): let the sun shine (1968) Inscriptions and Marks: Signed: l.r.: Corita Printed text reads: LET THE SUN SHINE IN the creative revolution—to take a chunk of the imagined future and put it into the present— to follow the law of the future and live it in the present. Waskow inscription: l.l., in graphite: 68-69-E
"Let's focus, as we almost always have, on Making America Great Like Never Before."
—
I found this writing week curiously reassuring. I was only telling my truths, which some might interpret as my useful fictions explicitly intended to garner my hope. This tenuous premise must sometimes serve as plenty and enough, and the satisfaction I might find there could even prove communicable under the right and proper circumstances, like now. I am not hopeless yet, though some friends and colleagues have confided that they wish they could feel as hopeful as I sometimes seem to feel. I am whistling in the darkness, too, perhaps more easily satisfied than my harder-to-soothe colleagues. I will take hope in any flavor, even the deeply delusional, because I consider hope to offer a far superior quality of experience than any of its alternatives.

I confided that our incumbent seems to exclusively speak in unparsable WordSalad, an obvious truth from my perspective. I then resurrected an ancient term, long out of use, Dubiety, to classify the dubious nature of most of our incumbent’s undertakings. I finally accepted the obvious by admitting that our incumbent does, indeed, often come across as someone suffering from advancing Dimentia. I named the state austerity creates: Prosterity, pretty much the opposite of the advertised prosperity. I found some solace when I realized that our democracy features a relatively hidden secret safeguard, a DoubleBounding agent built within its structure. This guarantees against any incumbent becoming too offensive for too awfully long. I concluded this writing week with an optimistic essay, “Futuristic,” in which I explicitly recounted the fundamental founding nature of our country. We are an overwhelmingly future-oriented people, and always have been. Any attempt to recreate any past greatness over again seems destined to fail within this founding and persistent framework. We are a month away from finishing this CHope series. Thank you for following along!

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Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz