Dodge Macknight: A Narrow Way, Montpezat (1885)

More Complex … Not In Need Of Further Simplification
I am increasingly convinced that none of us understand what's happening around us. We unknowingly speculate. The purpose of civilization sometimes seems to protect us from knowing the purpose of our civilization, for it seems in odd moments to be conspiring against us, against us ever understanding our purpose here. It insists, for instance, that we focus out there, as if out there might hold the secrets to ourselves. We, in turn, might counter with introspection, insisting that our essence might be better defined in absentia of our context. In practice, we might be both-and animals, neither feral nor conditioned, neither learned nor especially ignorant. These transition weeks tend to highlight these inherent contradictions. We aspire to be able to declare some simple definitions. We tend to eventually learn that we were both more complex than that and certainly not in need of further simplification.

Weekly Writing Summary

I began my writing week with an act of absolute Inanity, describing the obvious if not the inevitable. "Life seems both tragic and not, a false dichotomy, a paradox. It seems to insist upon everyone seeking forward progress, then robs us of the means to meaningfully measure our success."

Cornelis Dusart:
Violin Player Seated in the Inn (1685)

" … we washed up on this shore rather than some other."
—
I experiences
d one of those OddConvergences that tend to happen just when they're most needed. "Who knew why they were there before they found themselves there and constructed an explanation backward to some acceptable root cause? Who knows where they're going before they arrive and surprise themself with another OddConvergence explained backward?"

Arthur Rackham:
They'd such very odd heads and such very odd tails.
(1911)

" … just happened to be passing …"
—
I reminesced about a World Series game my dad and I missed seeing together in HighCrimes. "These HighCrimes visit, I suspect, to amplify self-awareness, to hammer home some aspects I've neglected to attend to. I'm still learning to ask before inflicting my gifts."

Lucian and Mary Brown:
Untitled [little boy throwing baseball] (c. 1950)

"I do not believe in anything like learning to forget some things."
—
I described a state The Muse dismissed as requiring an awful lot of thinking, perhaps too much, in SuperImpositioning "This might be the puzzling attraction of gambling. Not innumeracy and maybe not the winning or the losing, but the uplifting supposing that occurs when the outcome enters that quantum state where everyone still holds a potentially winning ticket, where the future exists in satisfying superposition."

Edward Hopper: American Landscape (1920)

"Old campaigners never die …"
—
I posted perhaps the most sincerely self-disclosing story I've ever written in WryDing, the most popular posting this period. "There's nothing very noble about publicly exposing what occurs between one's ears."

Pierre-Quentin Chedel:
Le Maître d'école [Writing School ] (18th century)

"That's how I use the English language."
—
I reflected upon the inevitable regressive process of evolution in Effolution. " I wonder if we have a future or if we're just stumbling ever onward toward a certain oblivion."

François Bernier:
La Liberté, soutenue par la Raison,
protège l’Innocence et couronne la Vertu
[Liberty, Supported by Reason,
Protects Innocence and Crowns Virtue]
(1793)

" … just buy a replacement whenever their dreams need repair."
—
I ended my writing week by slipping into the profound in Change. "The primary purpose of living seems to be forgetting. The dead remember everything in absolutely frozen detail. The living actively practice forgetfulness so that they might continually experience discovering again."

Dodge Macknight: Rain (19th-20th century)

"The living actively practice forgetfulness …"
—

I swear that any week might prove enlightening. I have no precise prescription for this happening, but I watch as each writing week transforms itself into the profound. Without insisting that I've seen anything, I've found that confronting not knowing each morning helps this process. One might well be blessed with ignorance or innocence at first and doubly blessed to be unable to distinguish between one and the other. I prefer on my better mornings to insist that I am blessed with innocence. Any less-than-generous observer would likely insist that ignorance better explained my story. Inaity or insanity, I pled this week, might explain my work. My life, like yours, might seem overflowing with OddConvergences. We live in a quantum realm our senses cannot explain, SuperImpositioning intentions and experience. We commit HighCrimes in the most innocent possible manner. My Wryding often proves embarrassing as well as telling. Evolution was not supposed to be this effing disturbing. Change might well remain constant but also consistently baffling. Thank you for following along!

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GoodNuff, #PureSchmaltz