FootprintsintheWind.com

I was a little anxious about writing today on the books. I see on the other hand that yesterday went well, and that I have plenty of material for today. Best to wonder where it will take me, and get on the path!

:- Doug.

What is the danger of meaningful conversing? Prometheus is our warning. Will our liver, the seat of our emotions, be continuously, torturously, and with much blood eaten out? Will we be chained to a rock?

:- Doug.

What is the purpose of meaning?

:- Doug.

Could there be a believing game not of ideas/propositions, but of people?

Why did I write people and not persons? Perhaps because we do not need to work at believing persons, that is, Thous. But maybe we do. Maybe it takes more work because they might be too familiar to us. Maybe for them, we ought to doubt ourselves.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a process of the whole person, so you are a fool if you try to learn it step-wise. You must throw in your whole self—naked. So must one other. Because of this, it is doomed from the start. Very few meaningful conversations happen in our times. Did they ever? Perhaps when we sat around campfires at night telling our fears and in the morning telling our dreams. We seldom do that now, even on vacations. So is it merely luck when it happens? Probably that is how it happens when it happens these days. The question is, can we improve our odds? For instance by getting “naked,” revealing our real selves? Searching for our real selves, in front of, with, another? Guessing at our Thou’s real self, or more likely, selves? Is this question worth our sweat and fears?

:- Doug.

The words are a chain to pull me along. But not following them: Having them throw me out into new paths no one has yet walked. It is I who chain the words together, each opening to another link. The links do not end, they keep coming. They keep casting me on and outward. This labyrinth does not end. It is like Alice’s fall with attracting objects on each shelf at each turn. Again it is like Mandelbrot’s set, producing wonder after wonder. But not like either, for it produces new and novel and pulling further things.

:- Doug.

You cannot grow to be something else. You can only grow to be yourself. And then you die. To grow. Grow.

:- Doug.

There are a thousand thousand paths to track. Go.

:- Doug.

Sometimes things stir in me. Those times I need to get on the stallion bareback and ride off, hanging on. Sometimes perhaps I need to hitch up reins and plow. Or whisper to the wild when it won’t come. Each day go out to meet an unknown beast. Meet. Hear.

:- Douig.

How to expand without being a drudge? For one, always be on the trail of the unknown, hidden, hinted. . . .

:- Doug.

To teach meditation is to teach a new way to think. It is good to have many ways. You can let something make you angry. You can fight the anger. You can let it slide away. You can examine it—and you—to see of what it consists. Of what you consist. Of what you choose to consist.

:- Doug.

Why do I resent meditation/contemplation, try to get out of it? When done I often see value in it. I am eager to get to something, this intervenes. It also propels. Allow.

:- Doug.

There is a lot of meat here, threads to follow, paths to explore, test, try, survey, pioneer, track.

:- Doug.

See what can happen if I just start writing and uncovering? Maybe the two are the same: writing gives us a new slant on an old word, or a new phrase. This slant and this phrase are each tools to peel, to stab, jab, poke, slam, cut into. . . .

:- Doug.

My work is writing. And it is work. Not easy. Need to work on letting things draw me in and on and along to new territory. That takes a dose of letting go: not just of control, but of fear of myself, and the unknown myself.

That is a new direction: the unknown myself. We can never know someone else fully. Each possesses the ability to surprise at any moment. So too our own selves. Of course: 1. the parts we have yet to explore; 2. the parts we have yet to create.

:- Doug.

The definition game: use dictionary for usage examples, thesaural words, explore.

:- Doug.

Is meaning the same as honest? Significant, weighty, important, of consequence, secret, special, disguised, a sign, known, portend, betoken, force.

:- Doug.

The fog confuses
obscuring the building tops
eyes soften, crinkle

:- Doug.

He has not changed the world but merely called forth its baser drives. What many call his uncontrolled displays of ego, are really uncontrolled displays of id—childishness, anal retentive tantrums, pretend iron-fisted male parent figure. Of this the neo-fascists and tyrants take notice for here they are able to suck all the oxygen world wide.

Countervailing this something that has gone unnoticed. Every day throughout his hissy, babies were born. Yes a small thing. But just enough.

:- Doug.

There’s something irrevocable about January 1.

:- Doug.

Learning to converse in I and Thou mode is a long and painful way to go. The only living way to go.

:- Doug.

Why are we?

:- Doug.

To voice your thinking is a useful way to distance yourself from it. Now you can react, have other thinking duel with it.

:- Doug.