Carlo Marchionni or Pier Leone Ghezzi:
Caricature of Man Writing (n.d.)

A Familiar Place I Should Feel More Accustomed To
I might have finally run out of time. I'd felt a certain draining of my resources as if mice had invisibly invaded my pantry and begun quietly consuming my commodities. I hadn't noticed any particular shortages, though. The flour, sugar, and other stores seemed unviolated, yet I continued feeling shorted. This sense might have been pre-emptive, a feeling intended to prepare myself for a future loss, just as if such preemption were possible. I engage in many just-as-ifs these days. My days absolutely depend upon just this sort of speculation. I am predominantly a faith-based initiative. I move forward on rumors more often than facts. I never feel very confident about anything, even in retrospect. I do know, though, that the sun's arriving later every morning and leaving inexorably earlier every evening, leaving me in the dark, a familiar place I should feel more accustomed to than I seem.

Weekly Writing Summary

I began this writing week with an OffDay. "Some days come and go without anyone noticing. Leave them be. They require no scrutiny, just the most passive acceptance. Let's just say that they slip away unnoticed. They were gone before they began. They ended without leaving footprints."


Abraham Raimbach: Cut Finger (19th century)

" … gone before they began."
—
I next reported on the surprising benefits found in RandomWalking. "It's much better for me to rely on my own sense of misdirection. I might get lost, but that's how I come to discover orientation. Discovery better imprints than simple direction ever does."


Giovanni Fattori: Wooded Walk with Figure (n.d.)

"Discovery better imprints than simple direction ever does."
—
I attended an unintended evening ending in some unwanted BibleStudy, by far and away the most popular posting this period! "There's no better way to chase anyone away than by sharing a little too much of your personal interests."

Rembrandt van Rijn: Woman Reading (1634)

"Please have mercy on the rest of us first!"
—
I noticed how The Muse's campaign has begun operating like a well-oiled MightyMachine. Not so much by design but by evolution. "Stick with anything long enough, and you're very likely to succeed."

Robert Bénard: Goldsmiths' Cast Machine (1771)

"It was always destined to become a one-and-done contraption."
—
Every year I find myself here, anticipating the upcoming winter well before it's scheduled to arrive,
Foreboding. "An errant cloud swept across an eclipse, leaving the light diminished but without disclosing who or what was causing this. Autumn brings absence in ever-growing measures."

François Bonvin: Woman at the Spinet (1860)

" … before conceding that I would not succeed."
—
I wrote about one of the things we do for love in Laming. "We become experts at swallowing certain feelings but not others. What we do for love rarely takes more than an ounce of effort, and mostly the kind we're blessed with in nearly infinite quantities."

Cornelis Massijs: The Lame Dancers,
from La danse des estropiés, Plate 10 (1538)

" … bare trees and I will still be standing."
—
I ended my writing week praising amateur effort in Amaficient. "I suspect that we make all this up because we never knew better. We designate proficiency because we have no more random means to descriminate against each other."

Johann Theodor de Bry:
De ezel op school [The Donkey At School] (1596)

"I never come close to producing my best until I leave the paycheck out of the effort."

This was a week of over-exertion and recovery, a dichotomy of excesses and absences. I tend to make my progress by the usual fits and starts, sometimes made more dramatic than absolutely necessary. Even the odd OffDay might inspire; even aimlessness has its uses. Nobody really should even consider meditating or engaging in BibleStudy in public. We produce MightyMachines, which inevitably become moot. I tend to over-anticipate to the point of Foreboding and remain fully capable of hurting myself in acts I intend to be loving. Despite considerable practice, I remain a rank amateur of a writer. I damned well insist upon it. Thank you for following along on these curious adventures!

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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