Jean Jacques de Boissieu: The Public Scribe (1790)

To Thrive On The Absurdity
They refer to them as old haunts not because the present revisits the past there but because what's now past was present then, and we who were present were ghosts then, just as certainly as we continue to be ghosts today. Consider how much of our presence hung around on that stage to be revisited later. (Nada!) This writing week's revelation revealed simply that concept, as I attempted to explain in GhostVisiting. I barely qualify as a being, just about as much as I ever qualified as a had-been or as a has-been, either. I keep moving, hardly resting between infatuations, sincerely dreading each new attraction. I remain sincerely up to something of very little consequence. I almost exclusively accomplish the ethereal. I produce little material, rarely bothering to print off my production, that being both expensive and curiously redundant. My work should properly remain virtual, ghostly, and essentially immaterial. I amuse myself by making my keyboard click. I seem to thrive on the absurdity of this.

Weekly Writing Summary

I began my writing week reflecting on the protestant work ethic in Hardworker. This posting proved to be this week's most popular. "One must learn to judge oneself by means other than Puritan, to become much more generous and forgiving …"

Lewis Wickes Hine:
A View Of Workers In Ewen Breaker
Of Pennsylvania Coal Company (1911)

"One might, with practice, even eventually become an EasyWorker sometimes."
—
I spoke of my lifelong habit of anticipating pretty much everything with Dread. "No boogieman can ever successfully creep up behind and scare anyone expecting a boogieman to try to creep up behind and scare them."

Cornelis Anthonisz:
Allegorie met Waarheid, Kennis, Haat en Vrees
[Allegory with Truth, Knowledge, Hatred, and Fear]
(1507 - 1553)

"I seem to chase off worst case scenarios …"
—
I realized a great benefit my dreading provides in Vexpectations. "It seems I can guarantee better-than-expected results by merely expecting things to turn out worse."

John Singer Sargent: Olive Trees, Corfu (1909)

" … just the sort of vigilance succeeding demands."
—
I explained how the modern seems a poor replacement for how everything used to be in GhostWriting. "Whatever replaces innocence hardly seems worth the expense, for innocence seems essential for living a meaningful life."

Bartolomeo Pinelli:
The Letter-writer in Piazza Montanara in Rome
(19th century)

" … an utterly impossible aspiration …"
—
I concluded when visiting my darling daughter's gravestone, that I was the GhostVisiting. "They've completed their haunting. It's us who continue rattling chains and unsettling ourselves. It's us who cannot quite decide whether we're wave or particle. The departed resolved every damned dichotomy in the instant they departed."

Albrecht Dürer: Descent of the Holy Ghost (c. 1510)

“I must be the ghost of my Christmases past …”
—
I ended my writing week by setting aside ChildishThings. "Of all the so-called skills I've acquired in this life, my begrudging ability to break entrenched behavior patterns amounts to my greatest superpower."

Maxfield Parrish: Seein' Things (1904)

"I was once addicted to life …"
—

Writing weeks tend to reveal lessons the writer never intended, but he has no one to blame but himself if any blame ever need be ascribed. He took up the pen, again, and again, and again, and he created, deliberately or inadvertently, the lessons he received. If he really wanted to stop learning, he could simply stop writing and stop admitting to serial experiences, some of which might qualify as crimes. Finally, he dabbles exclusively in self-portraiture, for better or worse or indifference. Even when he's a Hardworker he might feel as though he's slacking. Even when he engages with sincere Dread, he has yet to turn up dead by the end of any writing week so far. His expectations, his Vexpectations, seem to have served him well. He's his own Ghostwriter because he's actually a GhostVisiting. He collects then discards ChildishThings. Thank you for following along!

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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