A Blast from the Past.

The monumental ruins left behind by past societies hold a romantic fascination for all...we marvel at them as children. When we grow up, many of us plan vacations so we can experience them first-hand.
--Jarod Diamond in COLLAPSE.

But, courtesy of your local independent bookstore or library, you can visit those haunting relics of the past in the comfort of your own recliner! Courtesy of your favorite author, you can enter a make-believe world that will transport you back in time, to when those were not monumental ruins but the focal points of vibrant societies. Here let's try it:

Tzikal lugged another bundle of firewood to the top of the pyramid, muttering about his aging knees and back with every steep step. Why they had to build these temples so steep I'll never understand. Typical priests, not thinking about the realities of life. Still, he mumbled, it's better to be a lowly bundle-bearer for the priests than having my daughter sacrificed to these insatiable 'gods,' ay-ay-ay, may they and their greedy attendants all vanish in a cloud of smoke from this bundle of wood. He paused on the forty-fifth steep step, turning to rest the heavy load on the second step above him. As always, he tried to look out over the temple complex to the vast expanse of cultivated land beyond. That could be her, he muttered, knowing that the tiny figure in the distance could be an elderly grandmama just as likely as his lively seventeen-year-old daughter.

"Up, up, you lazy donkey!" the overseer shouted down from the priests' platform. "That's your second stop already! You can sight-see on your way down," he yelled, shaking his gold-covered staff that flared in the sunlight as if it were on fire.

Tzikal laughed nervously as he deposited his bundle on the heap that he'd lugged up on his previous trips. "I'm sorry, Pak-Tziki, but my old knees can no longer run up these steep steps the way we did when you and were playful and young and--"

"Quetzal-Prokzi-Pak-Tziki to you, old man! You will show respect or I will show you the quickest way down those stairs!"

"Yes, I am sorry Quetzal-Prokzi-Pak-Tziki, on whom may the gods smile forever. I will be going for another load for the sacred fires, if that is all, sir," Tzikal said, his hand clasped over his heart and head bowed. But my heart does not bow to you, he thought.

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      So, how was your trip to the Mayan ruins? Mine was vivid, although I quite wanted to take Tzikal's childhood chum and show him the quickest route down those stairs, which are indeed steep, so steep as to be nigh-giddying on the way down! So steep that they've installed a chain for us tourists to hold onto...back when my muscular dystrophy was more a nuisance rather than a life-altering constant presence.
     See, I wrote about something I knew--91 steps on each side of the four-sided pyramid plus the priests' platform on top...do the math for the number of steps, or trust me that it adds up to 365. Cool, huh?
     As Stephen King said in ON WRITING..."See, books are magical. I thought it, and you saw it." [DLS paraphrase, but that's the gist f'shure!] So, tell me, to when and to where did you last time-travel?

Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley...

The odd things that come to mind. Today I had to refresh my memory--I'm ashamed, I couldn't remember that the sarcoplasmic reticulum was a specialized form of the endoplasmic reticulum. I know, I know--how could I let that slip?

And, I had to refresh my memory of the lyrics for Tom Dooley...

I think the real tragedy isn't forgetting. Or, having to look up a fact. Tragedy lies in a young man like Tom Dooley who didn't live up to his potential. Threw his life away on his passions. Or, did he go with the simpler/basic/animal passions and ignore the higher calling, for I am certain that the gifts of logic, imagination, and creativity are universal--yes, universal, I'll go out on a limb and assert that every conscious human has all three of those gifts. Sure, in varying degrees, and some are more or less responsive to cultivation...but my traditional education did very little to foster imagination/creativity. Oddballs were ostracized. Dreaming be dashed!--we've got seatwork/busywork/homework to do! Even our art projects were sorta, "see this, this is how to do it" in many cases. Other art stuff was open-ended, I'm happy to say. Not much room for a wide-open, "Write about something that wowed you!" but, "Write about your summer vacation."

Okay, back to the tragic part: feeling not very creative? I find lots of adults who claim they're not imaginative or creative...and I respectfully disagree. I think the opiate of the masses (TV and other mass-media) weave a cocoon around us, dense and nigh-impenetrable, hindering us from our own imaginative works by drowning us in sensory input--sound, sight, dialogue, feelings toyed with...but none of that our own true feelings or imaginings. So, shut off the media and make/do/write/paint/sing/draw/sketch/garden...we have a friend who had made the map of the USA out of rocks. Not satisfied with that, she made a map of the world! Whenever she hikes, she's finding things to put to creative use. Cool, huh?

So, what's it gonna be? Cocoon or creativity?

As for me and my house,
   we will serve the mouse
over the net in center court
   Oh, blast, I hit it short!

(In honor of Wimbledon, now in session!)

;-p

KNOWING and Knowing. [huh?]

We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.
     --Mortimer J. Adler

And then I gotta ask, is "understanding" the same as "wisdom"? [Pls note, unless the query or exclamation is a part of the quote, one closes the quotes before applying those two punctuation marks, ditto colon and semicolon. NOT true for periods and commas, which fall inside of the quotes. And, DO NOT get Dr. Grammar-police started on "its" versus "it's"; my local loca newspaper makes me loco!]

Okay, back to understanding and wisdom, whattaya think? More pointedly, what did Solomon think? Something to the tune of, "It ain't whatcha know, it's what ya do!" [taken from The Not-King David's Version of Proverbs 1: 1-7.]

"...do not be weary in well-doing." 2 Thess. 3: 12 (RSV), as dear old Paul said.

So, when you're reading or when I'm writing, what on earth does that have to do with knowing, understanding, grammar-policing, or well-doing?

I dunno, I'm just full of good questions this aft...good questions w/o good answers. More, later.

Okay, after a day to mull (so many things improve with slight aging...especially ideas!) I'm thinking more about knowing what we know. I'm going to go down that olde English road, the King's English, and assert that truly knowing something means we've spent time with it, invested emotion and intellect in it, have gone beyond factual knowledge to profound acquaintance--as in Genesis 2, "...and Adam knew his wife, Eve..." Leaving aside the issue of sexual intercourse, as difficult as that may be to set aside as that's one of my favorite parts of the goodness of God's creation, Adam was the first (and last) man to truly understand his wife! Okay, all joking temporarily aside, Adam knew Eve the way an artists knows his palette, the way a pianist knows her keyboard, the way a dog knows its favorite toy--profoundly, intuitively, experientially. Ahh, and that brings me to a good closing point, with a quote from Denis Diderot, French guy...hah, you guessed! He was a philosopher, art critic, and writer.

"There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation."

I submit that not only writers and artists, not only scientists and scholars, but every last human being has these three capacities. I would also suggest that traditional schooling does a rather good job of squelching the innate eagerness to learn that we see in every normal little kid. Alas...but, it's never too late. You, yes you, today, can go forth and see, touch, think, wonder, and do--remembering that creativity is a part of human nature that is a reflection of the divine.

Unusual? Ordinary? Or, just plain stupid?

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
   --Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker.

=-- -= ---= -- =-- ---==--=----

      Do you agree with Mr. Rohn? Think fast--aye or nay?

      Now, ask yourself if the answer might depend on the context...still aye? Nay?

      Thinking about context--gee, now I feel like a politician...or, a philosopher...or, an English teacher....or, perhaps, an author?

      Characters cannot, any more than you or me, exist without any context. Sure, there are things that need no context...truths like the laws of thermodynamics or gravity or arithmetic...but how much richer when they're inserted into a particular context. The young physics professor who is brilliant but tends to mess up simple math problems because they're too simple because he's already thinking about something else...so he adds when he should multiply, takes 7 from 13 and gets 8*, and whose students all love the fact that he reheats his morning coffee with one of the lasers that he "borrowed" from the optics division. And, every day, holds his coffee cup up, wrinkles his brow, and intones some blend of physics and metaphysics along the lines of, "Gravity--the key to keeping hot liquids safely inside an open-ended container."

See? Thermodynamics, gravity, and math--fine by themselves...but, a particular context makes those ideas come alive!

So, back to the lead-in quote: do you go for the unusual, or for the ordinary? In writing, I think itsa combo of both...if all I aim for is uniqueness, so what have I achieved? Sure, it's off-beat, but it needs to be set in the context of the ordinary for the true oddness to stand out. In life, I think trying to be outstanding is an admirable goal, but if you cannot also be happy with the many ordinary things all around, then yer gonna be outstandingly unhappy. Too many superstars burn out (Michael Jackson, anyone?); geniuses crash (really, look at Bobby Fischer of chess fame); and lotsa great athletes end up in jail with DUI/drug/reckless-endangerment charges.

The way I see it--if you feel called to pursue something outstanding, great, go for it--but stay rooted in who you are and where you come from. Surround yrself with folks who are willing to deliver the necessary quantity of dope-slaps to keep you humble! (Thnx, Tommy and Ray, for that vivid imagery--whatsa brother for, eh?) Or, be stupid: shake off those who'd keep you humble, and soar with the eagles...for awhile.

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*if you have no problem with this, please close this web page, walk slowly to the nearest doorframe, and rapidly decelerate your skull thereupon repeatedly until I feel better!

Dr. Seuss, such a goose, was loose.

The more that you read
     the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
     the more places you'll go.

--Theodore Geisel...a.k.a., Dr. Seuss.

* * *

Since I recently made a re-post about the Lorax, I figured Dr. Seuss deserved some more "ink." What's your fav Dr. Seuss book? Or, books? Hmmm.

I just love the thumping, rollicking rhymes of THE CAT IN THE HAT, IF I RAN THE ZOO...oh, gosh, and the number of times I read ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH to our kids, oh my! THE NOSE BOOK was a winner with the kids, too. Perhaps the persistence that finally persuades Sam-I-Am to try green eggs and ham...in a box or with a fox, on a train or in the rain, here or there or anywhere...yup, that's the top of my list.

The rhythm is contagious, like a good kids song or like a Sousa march; the subjects are both prosaic (cats and hats, fish and colors, ham and eggs) and zany...boy, do they tickle the funny-button of kids young and old. My parents weren't fans of Dr. Seuss: too many made-up words, and too preposterous...well, that's what they thought when I was a tyke...certainly, they didn't deplore of those books by the time they were grandparents.

There are good life-lessons in Geisel's books, although he (thankfully) did not attempt to be "educational" or moralistic:
--persistent pushing to try something new, those green eggs and ham.
--everyone's nose is different and that's just hunky-dory (The Nose Book.)
--be careful just who you play with (Cat in Hat.)
--from a writer's perspective, Dr. Seuss was great with his loosely associated ideas...he wasn't stuck on linear/adult logic! If two unrelated things were side-by-side, well, by golly, then there they were, and now they're related, unhated, frustrated, out-dated...here or there, near or far, make them funny, whatever they are!

So, what's your fav, and why?



PS: older posts are accessible in the column on the right, a bit lower down. DS.