My Year in the Corps II: Fragments
It is a strange and solemn pattern of humankind, that when we seek to find an object lost to us, we stumble around an area far larger than the item lost (and we manage to imagine this area always larger, no matter what the object we have misplaced) and call out to it, in our way. This way of ours is the strangest part of the whole ritual. We say to ourselves usually, but often out loud, "If I were an earring," or "If I were my house keys," or "If I were my car, where would I be?"
I believe I can say with certainty that not one of us has any practical experience being any of these things. And, in fact, there is nothing that we can lose, which we have any understanding of its movements or behaviors. That's not to say we cannot lose something we understand, but that in order to find something, we'd do better to find ourselves at the time of misplacing than to find an inanimate object we've never so much as traded small talk with.
Whatever we lost, it will be right where we left it. It did not, after all, lose itself.
I suppose we take this for granted, though, and assume the rest of the world works in the way we ourselves work. We so often lose ourselves, don't we?
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I am sitting in the office, next the wood stove, overly warmed in the radiant heat of the burning wood and the sun. The latter is coming through the window behind me, which, if I were to look from it, would present me a dazzling view of the pond itself. There is a chair, for some reason, in the center of the floor, and it casts a shadow that stretches from one side to the other. There is also a tiny pebble, which casts a dark shadow only 1 cm or so in front of it. No matter how I manipulate the shadows of the chair, I can always make out the dark spot just beyond the pebble.
In life, I often find two types of people - some believe in a formal education, one in which the students are told what works and what doesn't (not necessarily what is right and what is wrong), while the others believe that passion, inspiration, and insight fuel success.
For myself, I find that both are equally necessary, and I often find myself in heated discussions with...well, everyone, really. The former group find that you are presumptuously denying some obvious and seemingly divine truth, while the latter feel that you are ignoring the spirit of the individual. But for me, again, it's never that simple. The artists and writers and thinkers who have let the passion of the moment guide them have been forgotten, to some extent. Those who only know how to follow the rules find themselves, to borrow a phrase, perfectly equipped for a world which is not long to exist.
The most lasting and accepted works of creativity in our culture are done by those who understand the rules...and they are not rules so much as tried and tested techniques..., but who are also given to some furious and ineffable rage of beauty. I can name several artists or songwriters who, at their time, were regarded highly because of their passion, but overtime that passion fades, and it's extremely difficult to recall, or for later generations to discover in the first place, if the technique is not observed.
I myself have a terrible time attempting to mix these things. I know, of course, the technique of great poetry, of lasting verse. I have, also, those sudden jarring moments where the words overtake me from the inside and force themselves out. I don't have the understanding, though...I can either follow the rules, or I can acknowledge as I casually disregard. The understanding, you see, is something beyond even inspiration or insight. It is some sort of rhythm that we cannot learn to help, or help to learn, but that will guide our passions and our knowledge if we are so gifted by its presence in our lives.
Once it is present, I do not believe it can be forgotten, for it is not known in the first place. Ignored, perhaps, but not much more.
I bring all this up because it relates to so many other things. I know a lot, and I know how to convey it clearly. I know that it is empty without a pleasantness that makes others feel good to know the things you know. What I struggle with, though, is how to bring them together. Either I seem pleasant or I seem smart....
I believe I can say with certainty that not one of us has any practical experience being any of these things. And, in fact, there is nothing that we can lose, which we have any understanding of its movements or behaviors. That's not to say we cannot lose something we understand, but that in order to find something, we'd do better to find ourselves at the time of misplacing than to find an inanimate object we've never so much as traded small talk with.
Whatever we lost, it will be right where we left it. It did not, after all, lose itself.
I suppose we take this for granted, though, and assume the rest of the world works in the way we ourselves work. We so often lose ourselves, don't we?
--------------------------------------------
I am sitting in the office, next the wood stove, overly warmed in the radiant heat of the burning wood and the sun. The latter is coming through the window behind me, which, if I were to look from it, would present me a dazzling view of the pond itself. There is a chair, for some reason, in the center of the floor, and it casts a shadow that stretches from one side to the other. There is also a tiny pebble, which casts a dark shadow only 1 cm or so in front of it. No matter how I manipulate the shadows of the chair, I can always make out the dark spot just beyond the pebble.
In life, I often find two types of people - some believe in a formal education, one in which the students are told what works and what doesn't (not necessarily what is right and what is wrong), while the others believe that passion, inspiration, and insight fuel success.
For myself, I find that both are equally necessary, and I often find myself in heated discussions with...well, everyone, really. The former group find that you are presumptuously denying some obvious and seemingly divine truth, while the latter feel that you are ignoring the spirit of the individual. But for me, again, it's never that simple. The artists and writers and thinkers who have let the passion of the moment guide them have been forgotten, to some extent. Those who only know how to follow the rules find themselves, to borrow a phrase, perfectly equipped for a world which is not long to exist.
The most lasting and accepted works of creativity in our culture are done by those who understand the rules...and they are not rules so much as tried and tested techniques..., but who are also given to some furious and ineffable rage of beauty. I can name several artists or songwriters who, at their time, were regarded highly because of their passion, but overtime that passion fades, and it's extremely difficult to recall, or for later generations to discover in the first place, if the technique is not observed.
I myself have a terrible time attempting to mix these things. I know, of course, the technique of great poetry, of lasting verse. I have, also, those sudden jarring moments where the words overtake me from the inside and force themselves out. I don't have the understanding, though...I can either follow the rules, or I can acknowledge as I casually disregard. The understanding, you see, is something beyond even inspiration or insight. It is some sort of rhythm that we cannot learn to help, or help to learn, but that will guide our passions and our knowledge if we are so gifted by its presence in our lives.
Once it is present, I do not believe it can be forgotten, for it is not known in the first place. Ignored, perhaps, but not much more.
I bring all this up because it relates to so many other things. I know a lot, and I know how to convey it clearly. I know that it is empty without a pleasantness that makes others feel good to know the things you know. What I struggle with, though, is how to bring them together. Either I seem pleasant or I seem smart....