Daniel Christopher June to the Students of Life:
Greetings!
So I've landed a little nothing job doing customer service at Office Max in the few hours I have totally to myself (7 am – 2 pm). That will let me pay off my debts. I am taking a break from freelance writing as I've been uninspired lately.
I've been having a fun with the challenge of helping Emilie, my 8-year-old, ace her spelling tests.
Other than that, everything is as it always is.
Take care, Caretaker!
* 1043 *
We have of the substances of the universe the fire of logos, the sayable, whose theologian was Heraclitus, and the water of the tao, the ineffable, whose theologian was Lao Tse. The way of water is to perpetually bow, but the image of flame is to rise to heaven. Where shall we italicize, the knowable or the unknowable, the rational or the mystical, West or East? Indeed, need we subordinate? Both grow.
* 1044 *
We are made of the body of Mattria – the substance of God, not the image, and the idea of a hypocritical God making a clay idol in the image of God and then calling such an act the number one sin is all a bit too much for us artists who love to suggest the divine in all our graven and literary images. Mattria made all the universe from her substance, she the arch-artist. We are most like her when we create.
* 1045 *
Children everywhere suffer the travails of growing up and find spiritual nurturance in fairy tales. But be the child ever so much a prodigy, he could never develop on his own such a fulfilling fantasy as the fairy tales teach him. Those were created by generations and generations of parents and children. People think in stories. Memorizing bald facts numbs the mind, but tell stories about them and you will remember them in a cinch. This is why we suffer dreamers to walk among us. Dreamers teach us how to fantasize, and fantasies teach us how to live. Yes, we rightly discourage the artists among us, just as we stamp out cult leaders. No religious group endured more hardships in America than the Mormons. Artist and prophets are the lowest of the low unless they succeed. Their entire career is a sort of shooting for the moon. A few make it big, most fail into obsolescence. For dreams are serious business, and Communist dreams have woken us up to living nightmares. Dare to dream, therefore – if you've made it this far with me you have the requisite courage. Hold to your dreams, though all the world attempt to shout you down and stomp you out. We are a gift to the universe.
* 1046 *
I give one corner; I expect my students to infer the other three. I offer the top of the arch and my disciples will bring them to earth. Strong suggestions that hold and hold, I offer this, but I merely plant the world tree: you must tend her.
* 1047 *
With genres, we know what we're in for and can keep in the game till the end. Literary fiction might be asking too much for a presleep treat. But we have those twin genres, fantasy with its magical past, and sci-fi with its technological future, both playing past the tedium of making a plausible story with reality-based details by focusing exclusively on nonsense to reveal a certain breed of sense. Every genre reveals something best, and as we've seen countless genres, each having their heyday, with new ones coming soon, we might wed our words to a set of rules – to a game – that speaks to us, whether mystery, horror, fable, parable, sonnets, or whatever.
So what genre are we living, each of us in our private and public situations? For lives also take on tempo, tone, emphasis, and stereotypical plotlines. Certainly, ever profession has its stereotypes, as do the various sexual orientations, the various religions, or what have you. What defines you?
* 1048 *
I cage the wolf spider I find in the basement and name her Agora. I drop a cricket from the yard, black and jumpy, down into her tank, and he lodges in the web, freaks out, and pops like corn, jumping left, right, smacking Agora in the face with his audacious leaps. I take him out and set him back in the yard. The next day I put a feeder cricket from the local pet store into Agora's cage. He hops about curiously, fumbles into some web, and then – sits there. Kinda strains for a second to dislodge himself and then gives up. He doesn't even struggle enough to alert Agora. She happens upon him later, when inspecting her web, and quietly poisons him and bundles him up.
Am I heard? Men, be wild! Don't let yourselves become domesticated!
-- R ᴤ88s Я --
Perfection Is Easy
www.perfectidius.com
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