Length, Width, and Depth...

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

--H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956).

 

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

I was talking with a (rising) high school freshman today, and told her that I was still excited about reading more history books. Kudos to Dr. Askew @ Gordon College many moons ago--he was such a great teacher that Elizabeth would sit in on his lectures when she visiting.

Something that has emerged among authors of history books aimed at the lay audience is to organize about a theme. A favorite was WATER, by Stephen Solomon, 2010. He looked at societies (ancient thru modern) that harnessed rivers for irrigation, by canals for transport, mills for grain and machines, sea for transport...it made for a fascinating framework upon which to hang a 500 page history of the world. Simply stated, water for food, transport, and machines provided simple yet major themes that naturally run thru human history.
...also: Jared Diamond's

Guns, Germs, & Steel...and his COLLAPSE.

Freese, Barbara..............

Coal: a Human History.

.....dittoes for major theme.

[Sorry, as I'm pasting in titles and authors, the formatting is going nutso.]

I asked myself why history was never taught like this in el-hi schooling? Sure makes it more interesting, as well as more digestible!

Any historical titles that've fascinated you lately? Or other non-fiction? To me, writing fiction that holds one's attention feels easier than penning superb non-fiction that grabs the reader...hmm, now that I think it over, since I've written both genres, I guess both are amenable to humor, asides, literary devices like alliteration and figurative language, varied pace, and varying points of view.

Love writing this blog...it helps me think about things from a different perspective....that whole breadth/depth/length (which, multiplied, equals volume, btw!)Thnx for reading and commenting. Right. Just click on the leetle yaller pencil icon below and scribe away. Remember that older blog entries can be accessed in the right-hand column, labeled by month.

Tapestries, loose threads, and loose screws.

We here are on the wrong side of the tapestry. The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else.

--Chesterton, GK. Father Brown Mystery Stories.

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

I wonder how often a writer, thru creative art, actually manages to crane their neck around to get a glimpse of "the other side of the tapestry"? And, is that the result of a bold and stunning imagination? Divine gift? Or both?

Does a writer lend meaning to the meaningless? Discover patterns that are truly present or merely imagined?

This, I think, is the delight and dilemma for the writer...am I seeing something real and making it more clear for my readers? Or, is this just, as Solomon said, a "vanity," the product of a fertile imagination?

To answer this question...well, I'm going to point in the direction where I think answers await...I suggest Narnia and Middle Earth. Whattaya think?

Did Lewis and Tolkien see something new? Or the old in new and exciting and memorable ways?

That's my question for the day...

PS: whilst I used the term "writer," perhaps better would be, "honest seeker of truth via the creative arts."

PPS: Tapestry--NOT the place to go tugging at loose threads. Art and littyature--oh yeah. Sometimes I think it's fun to go looking for a thread that, while not exactly loose, isn't quite aligned with its neighbors. Tug and run, what fun!

PPPS: Some creative pursuits may look like the loose thread isn't loose at all--it's the artist's screws that are a little loose! I think creativity and eccentricity and loosey-goosey-ness are pretty close together on a continuum that ends with --van Gogh? Jack Kerouac? Your candidate(s)?

PPPPS: I think sometimes "the other side of the tapestry" is hiding in plain sight, and we try to make things too complicated, look for "the big answers" when meaning and purpose and value is right in front of us...in the little things. Such as? Children and their absolute joy in discovering something new to them. A dog at play--is there a more clear and direct demonstration of joy than that? Sunsets, sugar maple trees bedecked in their regimental colors in September, a mountain range, chocolate, Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms! Ahhhhhhh.


There is no element of genius without some form of madness.
--Leonardo DiCaprio (I hated attributing it to him. Even though I found the quote attached to his name, I had a hard time giving a Hollywood feller credit...so I looked it up...shure 'nuff, also attrib to Seneca and Aristotle!)



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.

------------------ --------------- ---------------- ------------------ ----------------
      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.