Epigraphs and anticipation

As I eagerly await this Saturday's event, I'm on a continuous path of imposing organization to my physical environment. Just as I think entropy is going to overtake me, I come across a piece of paper on which I wrote something that I thought was important. Today's finding comes from the wonderful Barbara Ehrenreich:

Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief. This is typical advice, and I've tried to follow it as much as humanly possible. The drawback of being intelligent and well-informed is a dangerous inability to think your despair doesn't matter. Even if you come to the conclusion that ultimately you can do very little about it, you must still, at least, consider the source of it carefully enough to understand the real root.

This is from her autobiography, Living With a Wild God. I have since come across many other quoted sentences that didn't make their way into the book, thoughts from Dmitry Orlov, Chris Hedges, and so many more. It seems there is no end to all the things that might have made their way into the book. The endless process of picking and choosing what to include and how to weave it into the narrative kept me busy for two years.

Now with the launch of my book I'll have to construct conversations around why I did it and what the hell I thought would come of it. At least, I'll have to think about how I might like to answer some of the more typical questions that will arise. As with so many unanticipatable events, I'll probably just open my mouth and start expounding on whatever is forefront in my mind at the moment. I've been living this topic for so long it isn't difficult just to begin. Where it goes from there--Who knows?

There is a certain relaxation you can experience when you realize how worn down you are. Like an old river rock, you've been battered by the endless stream of water washing over you for so long, that now your edges are gone, the surfaces are smooth, you are perfect as an egg, naked, raw, and unmistakable. This is what I aspire to be.

I have no ulterior motives left. Sitting with a certain emotional honesty is all that matters in the end. No one's truth is greater than you're own. We show up so that we can stand in witness with others who are willing to be there with us and if we're lucky they'll say: Yeah, you know, I think I see your point. I still think I would have done it differently, but to each his own....

And so ends this stream of consciousness for today.

Search and bookmark!

I'm reading George Carlin's autobiography. It has been very interesting to learn about the evolution of his comedy routines. The beginning of chapter sixteen struck me as poignant observation.

"The reason I prefer the sledgehammer to the rapier and the reason I believe in blunt, violent, confrontational forms for the presentation of my ideas is because I see that what's happening to the lives of people is not rapierlike, it is not gentle, it is not subtle. It is direct, hard and violent. The slow violence of poverty, the slow violence of untreated disease. Of unemployment, hunger, discrimination....The real violence that goes on every day, unheard, unreported, over and over, multiplied a millionfold."

The core of this idea is not new, but rarely expressed so well. Not everyone has the grace to see what happens and understand that the consequences slip from awareness or hardly register. For all the power and magic of the internet, it sadly seems just to add to the noise of everyday life without also giving badly needed clarity. If you want to find it you really have to be willing to search and bookmark!