Closing my favorite writing table at the old Dingo Deli - preparing to find a new favorite writing table when it opens at its new location on Sunday the 5th. I felt the best show of solidarity i could observe is to bring business as it closes and then bring business as it opens. This morning while restocking from “Refillables” an eco-friendly store doing its level best to relive the landfills here i, of course, forgot the peppercorn. The proprietor is as close to kindred spirit i have found, but i have no way to know if that feeling is more a function of communication between peers or actual understanding. She has been here much longer and acclimated well as anybody . .. ···: the proprietor of D-Deli just passed by and took a load off for a moment to share. He’s a grand fellow in an “old-school” kind of way. It is a relief to reach a place in my own dismantling of the ego to hear more clearly the lives of others, and how their own processes have informed their struggles. I realize that i need very much to stay open and not react to anything, rather peer at patterns as they emerge without judgement and share what i know when useful to what i see emerging.
Though try as you might that will never be possible. For example, they are moving the kitchen past where i sit, and as always it is the simple truths: plugs getting run over, dirty equipment carrying dirt to the new location - but Gordon bless his heart is much like Freidemman Mausch with a radically open heart · i recognize, but have yet to manifest, or have manifested but don’t recognize in myself just yet. What’s really neat about what i am witnessing just now is its heroic aspect - i guess a little bit like the city fathers of Hoi An realizing there is a tsunami of worldwide interest in their city which they are doing their best to accommodate, even if the response is one dimensional by adding housing units to meet demand, rather than peering deeper into the future and examining how can the community be best served and the energy of such demand be harnessed wisely.
My last recommendation to Gordon was to get someone assigned to taking video footage of the move - i try to imagine those aspects of any event that get lost, like children in shopping malls, and old people without children during holidays. He is elated with his accomplishment, and it is a fine feeling to witness. Our world would be a better place to live if more people could enjoy the type of success Gordon has arrived at. What i perceive is best about this event is Gordon is outside of his own ego and only dealing with what i used to experience when the point of the pencil dissolved into the portrait in process; i miss that aspect of the creative process and wait for it to occur while i write. It may that solipsistic essays are too thin a vehicle, it may be i am old and the elan has been beaten from my being, or it may just be too fucking hot and my patience is cowering in the corner frightened by a world disintegrating around me.
I have drunk 4 Heinekens and have only finished 3 paragraphs of today’s essay; a fairly apt metaphor for the world we occupy. In Vino Veritas has it’s limits and even the ancient cultures that employed such a crude metric for ascertaining accuracy used both states as have authors who advocate writing with alcohol, but editing sober. There is no prescription of substance that will prevent its abuse - even sobriety has its limits. What is more important is what objective you are pursuing in your efforts. If it is to blind yourself to pain, then that is what you shall accomplish, yet if the shackles of convention weigh so heavily that you are more constrained than clear - do something, anything to stay fluid and expressive.
For writing is no more than a momentary glimpse of a fluid existence that contains the makeup of a life. Ostensibly writing is to share with others who are curious about the thinking of others, and find it informative to read how others have managed pain, solitude, joy and fear. Any state of existence which helps one to peer ever more deeply into the labyrinth of our souls is useful. To shut down as so much of our modern lifestyle demands us to be - unconscious while we do the things we have been directed to do, to buy, to say without mindfulness deadens the possible blissful feelings and saps the joy we each can experience moment to moment even if it is only feeling a trickle of sweat riding down our back or witness the painful indifference of someone else attempting to weather the suffering they may be experiencing at any given moment. What is most important is that whatever strategy you choose, helps you to awaken to your life and all you feel rather than close up and hope the misery will pass without causing you greater distress not knowing if it is distress, discomfort or distraction, or discovery.
jts 03/07/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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