Chasing the Truth, by All Means. Part 1.

It was not possible for man to know himself and the world, except first after some mode of knowledge, some art of discovery. The most perfect, since the most intimate and intelligent art, was pure love. 

The approach by love was the approach to fact; to love anything but fact was not love. 

Love was even more mathematical than poetry; it was the pure mathematics of the spirit.

Charles Williams: Descent into Hell. p69.

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Okay, you probably read that and sighed. Or, read it twice or thrice, which is my hope!

This quote reminds us that to use our minds in the loving pursuit of knowledge is an act of worship...and that to honor anything that is less-than-true is to commit hellish idolatry. But, what really kicked my cranium was the last line--that to love is to enter into an equation--my mind on one side, and truth on the other.

What's this jazz about "...love more mathematical than poetry"? Has anyone in the history of humankind ever called poetry mathematical? Really?

Makes me fall deeper in love with poetry, real poetry, poetry written by honest seekers of truth. And, helps me to see why I hate some poetry (and some modern art): they're not seeking truth, they're just deconstructing with no interest or intent to reassemble the pieces to find truth--they like the fact that they've reduced something to sharp little shards of meaninglessness.

I think I blogged about the 81 page book of poetry where I understood only three or five pages...or, I kinda thought I might have understood them, perhaps? That author can be commended only for getting someone to print his stuff. Probaly goes over big at Berkeley.

Phoo.

That said, I think deconstructing in order to reconstruct--cool. Be it architectural elements or somebody's philosophy or a corpse on the autopsy table--we take stuff apart, learn, and build deeper truths from what we've learned!


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Charles Williams is a favorite author--he was one of the "Inklings," completing that famed trio with C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, sharing many the tale and pint at the Eagle and Child Pub there in Oxford. (Son Daniel told me it was also known as the "Bird and Baby" or the "Fowl and Foetus.") Williams wrote tales that match Stephen King for weirdness but omit the gore.

NOT reading?

What are YOU reading? Curious people wanna know.

                                           

The link below highlights a few "popular" books that the majority of Americans haven't read. Why? Because the majority of Americans aren't readers!

https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/678-books-the-bestsellers-americans-are-and-aren-t-reading#.U-KBxrl0ycw

Have you read THE HUNGER GAMES? Its sequel, CATCHING FIRE?
Howzabout any others on the list?

For me, I'd generally rather ignore the TV and instead be reading. Why?
--expands my horizons
--challenges my world-view
--stretches my vocab
--makes ME think up images that represent the story, instead of TV serving up pictures (and sound) in its soporific, mind-controlling, commercially-driven environment. (if ya wanna know how I really feel about television...well, let me just misquote Stephen King, who calls it the glass pacifier--actual term, "the glass teat." I'll bet your mind just came up with an image!)
--invites me to wonder about an author's meaning, their context, their biography
--helps me to applaud the gift of creativity as we emulate our creator.

Just a Book, and Don't Stir a Muscle (or a Mussel!)

While I drink more tea than I do coffee, I do love that brewed bean beverage!

Thinking about the medical effects of coffee...

“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”
― Dave Barry

Happily, that Dave Barry quote really isn't me--caffeine doesn't do that much other than give me a slight tremor if I've had two cups before eating anything!

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

Abraham Lincoln


A good cuppa joe, a thick book, and see-ya-latah, world! With the emphasis on the book, thick and new and full of intrigue...or, mebbe, a dear old favorite: I've read Tolkien and CSLewis' Space Trilogy many, many times and am already looking forward to my next read-through. Re-read some Shakespeare this year: fun (as long as I remember to read it at high-speed--getting bogged down in archaic language can ruin a good story--which is why I now advocate for reading Wm Shkspr in the graphic novel editions for the obligatory high school courses!)

What is Art?

Perhaps art is seeing the obvious in such a new light that the old becomes new.

--Madeleine l'Engle. WALKING ON WATER, p175.

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Behold, I make all things new. 

--Jesus, in the aptly-named book of Revelation.

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I've learned a ton about art this past decade or so. We've been to museums and galleries in San Diego, Tucson, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Boston, and both the Portland and Colby Museums here in Maine. I've been fascinated recently in reading about the intersections of art and world history...and literature, architecture and culture.

Applying the term "art" to all the creative enterprises, l'Engle offers a valid way of getting under one roof all of our open-ended, imagination-fueled pursuits, from painting to poetry, from sculpting to scripting. She also recognizes that there are creative, non-rule-bound creative leaps in the sciences, be they nuclear physics or sub-cellular mechanisms, brilliant computer programming, or the solution to Fermat's "unsolvable" Last Theorem.

Okay, perhaps that's a bit windy--let's try again: Madeleine sees creativity everywhere, in all jobs and tasks. Some jobs are more up-front in the use and need for creativity--other jobs require the worker to be creative in order to not die of boredom!

I also like Madeleine's observations on our reactions to disorder:

  --some see chaos and bring cosmos out of chaos. 

  --others, seeing chaos, only reproduce chaos in their art.

I'd add to l'Engle's thoughts:

  --there are probably many more who, trapped inside chaos, cannot escape it and thus are chaos.

For those of you who like word games...turn "OLD" into "NEW" via one-letter substitutions in the fewest steps possible.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

mebbe not the shortest, but after a coupla missteps:

OLD

odd

ode

ole

owe

............not gonna go.....

OLD

odd

add

and

end

any

ana

............phooey, again....

OLD

odd

old  ode

ole        |

ale        |

are        |

ore   <--

ort

oat

cat

caw

saw

sew

NEW

Cart? Horse? Cart-horse? Horse-cart?

Okay, weird title, but, Elizabeth tells me I've got a weird sense of humor...


The following is a quote from Dan Blank, writing for Writer Unboxed:

There is No Horse and Cart. On Finding Success as a Writer

I worry that the cart & horse analogy is exactly the type of social contract that has long since broken, if it ever existed at all. That you do well in grade school and high school to get into a good college to get a good internship to get a good job which leads to a good promotion which leads to a good salary which leads to a nice house which leads to retirement savings which leads to…this concept that there is a basic, safe, linear order to things that leads to “success.” 

Instead, what I have found from my friends and colleagues: life is complex; trusting relationships are the core of everything; great work is highly respected, but not always rewarded; persistence is key; luck is necessary, but unpredictable; ‘best practices’ are often illusions sold to you so that others can feel like gurus. 

Scott Berkun puts this nicely when we consider actions based on the odds of them working:

“They say most businesses fail in the two years. That most books don’t sell many copies. Why is this surprising? The interesting things in life are hard. Do you want an interesting life? Then you have to accept different odds.”

[end quote.]

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 My only point of disagreement would be to cut the title to..."On Finding Success." The "as a Writer" is unnecessary, eh?

So, what do I need to do differently in order to write more and sell more? Hmmmmm, I am going to pump up my relationships, get a tad more pushy in selling, and write more, every day. I've done a great job this yr of sticking with my "Poem a Day" writing, but the fiction-writing needs more time. So....

buh-bye, gotta hitch my wagon to my horse...or, my horse to my wagon...oh, whatever......gotta go write.

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