Towards Guesswork

10/28/2006 6:59 AM – 7:59 AM

And so it turns out that if one is Missy, one does not get paid to sleep but, instead to stay awake. We could all probably learn something from this. But, really, why bother? The sun arises and the sun goes down. No more of that then. The panic attacks must be a reminder that one gets old faster than one thought, but discovering what lies beyond the charnel house can wait.

Up, then, there’s always much to do and it’s a private eye’s morning – wet streets, light fog, yellow streetlights. When at last we have arrived, there will still be work to do. The problem with drinking deep is that you swallow everything. So, up. Up and to work. Delight in labor and you life will be a delight. The need to labor will not slacken. The day grows longer than the light. Go to sleep and get up. You choose your Holy book for its gilt, but the pull does not grow less.

Out with all that, then. The bobbing and weaving, the thought of what one wants and knowing that this this is where you are. Do not let it go, I guess. Tomorrow will come. Today will go on. Sleep and wake up. Do you really have a dream or did you borrow it from someone else? Bah. That’s the stuff of trite. Trite is as it is. Replace it and move on. Forgetting and remembering. Putting down and picking up. If one could only find the quiet. Ah, all the world’s therein. The putting down, the picking up, the lesser children of the greater god. All things flow through and drop behind the bed to gather dust and books. Where are you going then, now that you’ve determined that you’ve nothing to prove? No answers, perhaps that’s what the madness taught. One wishes that one could stop needing the lesson. But up you are. And here the words erupt from fingers. We’re hoping they string together better than the monkey’s, but we can’t ascertain the limit of a thing, so how can we judge its value? Guesswork. That is a fine labor at which to labor in vain. On to it then and God grant us wings.

On the Possiblity of Being Missy And/Or A Gentleman of Leisure

10/23/2006 7:55 AM – 8:23 AM

Having neglected the task for so long, restate the premises of the experiment: 1) to wake up in the morning and write is emotionally and intellectually satisfying, 2) the purpose of writing is enjoyment, 3) this me who writes desires something.

What is this something? Money. What is money? Money is an abstract symbol of value. Who determines value? I do. Do I value more sleeping longer or writing? Yes, depending on the wind. But, more generally, writing. Why? Because no one pays you to sleep. Unless you’re Missy. Are you Missy? Not that I am generally aware of. I’m pretty sure someone would tell me. Probably Woods.

Having verified to the best of your current ability that you are not Missy and, therefore, not likely to be paid to sleep, where are you now situated? At a desk, in my room, in Buffalo, on an overcast day, having woken up late once again. Why do you write? I write 1) on the off chance that my writing will improve enough that someone will give me money to do it, 2) for the chicks, 3) it’s personally more enjoyable that most other things. Let’s go back to 1, what is money? Money is the opportunity to exist free of the dictates of other people. And yet writing for money is to pander to the dictates of other people. Yes, but if I had money, I could write as badly as Kant and still have a grand old time of it. Perhaps someday in the distant future, some poor sap of a PHIL 101 student would be forced to waste a few precious hours of his or her life slogging through the crap that I wrote because I was a gentleman of leisure and no longer bound by the dictates of other people and, in doing so, would wise up and realize that they should be shooting for something like an MBA or a rich husband. Or, perhaps, they might realize that they are, in fact, Missy and that any second now the alarm clock is going to go off and someone is going to come in and hand them a fat wad of cash and send them home to Woods, so they should just stop worrying and commence with trying to fly and/or score with themself.