10,713. RUDIMENTS, pt. 280

RUDIMENTS, pt. 280

Making Cars

Mostly I didn't care about

anything. Try telling that to

someone, however, whose job

it is to grant approval, to you,

for admission to one thing or

another, or  -  instead  -  to

reject you for not meeting

standards. That goes for the

usual  -  jobs, schools, grants,

and undertakings of whatever

nature. I used to go around

saying (another 'pet phrase'

episode) this string of words:

'The world is vast-arrayed

against out possibilities.' Well,

to begin with, as an adverb it

perhaps should be 'vastly' arrayed,

but I figured that by putting the

hyphen there I made it distinctly

my own combination word. So,

the premise inherent is that no

matter what intentions you

yourself may have the difficulties

which always arise will be

because the situation itself

harbors them, and against you.

So, good luck with that.

-

My trick was just to never stop.

And I didn't  -  right to the present

day my life is made of of nothing,

and believe me when I say 'nothing'

but what I myself sit here and do.

Point of fact is, I've kind of given

up on any further useful endeavors

by the judged standards of others.

I just do what I do, and there it be.

Soon enough it's all gone for me.

-

I'm a rugged soul, but a sorrowful

bastard too : I look up at the starry,

deep-night sky, when I can anyway,

and know that I'm from there but

that's not the place  -  because it's

not a place. It's a state. All that

primitive darkness is just

primitive darkness, trying to

talk back, inside-out of me, to

the pre-historic forebears who

also had confronted that same

deep sky with incomprehension.

Whether the same sort of

incomprehension or not I don't

know. It's said  -  and I guess

I understand that too  -  that

an ancient part of our brain is

still instinctively attuned to the

inspirational allure of the night

sky. That could be, but you have

to watch Science carefully too;

It, and its scientists, are as full

of crap sometimes as are most

others, and they make things up,

until later when they do suddenly

decide to disprove that and come up

with some other 'temporary' fact.

A weird game of cosmic leap-frog

ensues, but the time-frames involved

are pretty long, by our human 
standards, I mean, not cosmic or 
historic standards  -  like 40 years or

so  -  which just means that by that

time the original guy who's had

his (or her) idea dis-proved is

dead anyway and nothing's any

worse for wear. As an example of

'bogusosity,' I well remember

being told, 6th grade and all, that

the reason the body 'jumps' or

snaps to attention, say, when you

dream of falling out of a tree or

stumbling or whatever, is because,

millennia ago, as a primitive human,

you and I lived and slept in trees,

and waking up just before toppling

off the limb or branch was an

inbred, life-saving reaction to

prevent the sleeping person

from falling out of the tree.

Yeah, sure. I didn't believe it

then, and I don't believe it now.

-

In a way, one way alone, the

ancients were stuck, as we are not.

We're stuck, in actuality, as they

never were. However, and at the

same time, for us things now have

been constructed so that much of

that old 'mystery' which  -  by the

current story-lines of Science

anyway  - held them in thrall

is over. WE, as modern-class

people, have removed our

sensory blinders  -  we like to

think -  in ways that have let

us envision constructs of

phenomena beyond their (old)

reach. (Again, none of this is

true but as Science tells us it is):

atomic nuclei and stellar infernos.

Now we claim to hold designs

on the building blocks of matter,

the time/space framework, the

make-up of things. Concepts

presented get explanations created.

I guess the ancients never had that,

even though it's all the same  -  they

made Gods and thunder, we make

telephones and video-games  -

even though all that much of this

is is the construction by words

of an alternate world. Which we

now readily accept  -  but disallow

the acceptance of facts whereby

the ancients traveled through 

space, altered matter and Being 

at will, constructed pyramids 

and other massive stoneworks, 

distorted matter, time-transported 

and spoke with Gods on land.

There are, after all, certain things,

now, which our present world-views

simply won't allow.

Oh well.

-

Back in the seminary, no one 

ever mentioned 'temporal limits' 

except as they referred to maybe

angels and angel-wings flying into

some Miss Mary's bedroom window

to tell her she'd just conceived.

With and by God, and without so 

much as a smidgen of the pleasure

principle involved. I used to wonder

why that was. Wouldn't instead

having 'sexual congress' (whoever

dreamt that phrase up) with God

set off some fireworks and major

waves of joy? Who left that out?

As far as I could tell, Mary was

always about as miserable as my

mother, on  a good day. And Joseph?
Jesus he was as clueless (no 
pun) as they come. Anyway,

wherever I went I always felt

somehow a small child of some

big God in a crazy, mystical

universe  -  without a key and

without meaning too. As a kid,

the day I used to dread the most

was, like, the day after a holiday.

Say, Christmas, the next day,

whatever it was, when  - at least

in my house  -  it seemed like 

we'd always go to visit the least

desirable of visiting-places :

A really boring relative, some

friend of my father's, really

boring, some crazy, wasteful,

long-afternoon of deadness over

some leftover Christmas junk.

That was for the most part

what the rest of live was like :

not so much my own kid-life, 

which I controlled, with a 

bicycle and a pen-knife (no

one lorded over me) but I

mean the rest of life. All that

crummy, coveted stuff  -  dress

up church days, feasts of this

and that, school crud, listening

to the parents wrangle over

some hazy future nothing.

Man, I just wanted to scream.

Talk about primitive man looking

up at the mysterious stars, I was

looking under every pillow and

stone for some sort of transporter

or rocket ship to get me the

blankety-blank (kid's version)

out of here. Oh, Mama, 

you don't know. Some

wise-ass uncle or know-it-all

adult, family-friend, would 

throw his collection of, say,

Sherlock Holmes books my way

and invite me to start reading the

series. On him! 'Oh, you'll see,

follow the clues, the answers are

always there. He was a crafty man,

that Sherlock Holmes.'  Yeah,

sure, and my pea-shooter 

wouldn't  take your eye out.'