RUDIMENTS, pt. 840
(they may be yours)
While growing up it was
important, I found, to be
able to sort out the things
I was good at, against the
things I was not good at
at all. I always leaned more
to the cerebral end of things.
I found myself all thumbs
when handling physical
objects, tools, building
things, leveling, and
formatting. It was as if,
at the physical level, the
real world, in that sense,
and I, didn't get along.
Don't get me wrong, I'd
manage to get things done,
could turn a screw or drill a
hole, but never to perfection.
Things were always slightly
off, just askew a bit, or they
were rushed and off kilter.
I'd find myself just wanting
to get the task done and to
hell with finessing it. On the
other hand, and fortunately, I
wasn't too bad with cars and
engines. I could flip the hood
and actually get things done.
The old way, when you could
do that stuff. Now I don't do
that work at all. Cars have
lost their luster in the tinker
and repair department.
-
It's a sort of important distinction
to get those things sorted early and
quickly. I guess that's why in the
old school days they had those
7th grade introductory shop
courses. Metal Shop, and Wood
Shop. Everyone making those
same stupid curved metal magazine
racks with the twisted metal
handle. Bringing one of those
home to the unwitting parents
must have always been a treat, as
it was for mine. Magazine rack?
What do we do with that? It was
a tryout period for boys to see
if they liked working with wood
and saws and screws, or drills and
presses and lathes and metal. Beats
me what I even thought of it all;
by the year's end I was seminary
bound and forget the magazine
rack stuff, please.
-
What a disaster everything turned
out to be : I'd have been better off
as a cook in the French Foreign
Legion except I didn't like food
either...Anyway, tangible stuff and
the physical world, to me, sucked.
I could never get much interest up
in it. I had a course in Carbon
Chemistry once that bored the
stiff out of me but it could have
been the teacher too. Chemistry
itself was basic and OK, but he
kept getting all crazy over 'Carbon'
Chemistry, and I guess it made
a difference. I was cool with the
Periodic Table of the Elements,
but only because it was visual and
had this strange sort of conceptual
framework behind it that wasn't
really physical at all - that I was
able to really dig. I even thought
of using it in 'Art' pieces, but I
never did. It all flamed out on
me and I ended up bored. I'd
sit around, watching 'Science'
teaching in action, and think,
about these science teacher guys.
what did they give each other
for Christmas? Bunson Burners?
-
I always figured everything was
just a random jumble. Some wood
shop guy using a wooden yardstick
or ruler to measure things - what's
he know about anything? The entire
idea of the 'wood' he's measuring by
is that it absorbs and empties of
moistures and atmospheres and
all stuff that we don't even think
about, but that chemistry and the
rest of that tell us about. He's
measuring his stupid world by
a changeable stick, a thing that
changes sizes always, and telling
me those are the dimensions of
the item at hand within the world
we inhabit. Not so, Kemosabe!
The guy down the hall was just
telling us how the entire universe
is in constant flux, things flying
around, invisible to us, changing
sizes and directions and presences,
and even the facts of their 'being,'
if that can be said. One of you
guys is off-wave here. I never
knew what in the heck anyone
ever wanted out of me.
-
Perspectives always shift. And
time bends. I always believed
in the intangible and the unreal
more than anything else. I got sick
and tired real quickly of those
who profess to know everything
about some current pit-stop of
a physical universe not worth a
dime. They believed it was
rock-solid and here to stay. I
believed it was always on its
way. It used to bug me how
people with such an unfortunate
certainty would go around saying,
'Well, you're not going to live
forever; may as well do it now.'
What were they thinking - you
actually are going to live forever
or what's anything about, you
fool? And anyway, the limit
of your forever will be your
death, past which point you've
surpassed 'Forever' - by the
feeble terms of your concepts.
-
OK, so someone's going to say,
'What the hell are you up to now?
Well, I'll tell you. Have you ever
been somewhere, something
flitted by you, but you didn't
really see it, just felt the presence
of something else, unknown and
fleeting. But it caught your sense
and you felt something inside
you, leaving or lightening you?
That was a fragment personality,
of yourself, a part of your own
entire entity. Your image fragment,
splitting off, going off into another
reality from yours entirely, and
created by you. We do that all
the time; it's part of our latent
creativity. We're each Gods of a
universe, somewhere; one created
by us, by our thoughts and ideas.
Be that good, very good, bad, or
very bad. (Watch out with those
bad thoughts; you're giving them
life somewhere). It's repeated
over and over within the course
of our lifetime, each. Which isn't
a 'course' in any linear sense, for
all things happen at once. Only
WE have 'Time' conceptualized
in that straight line fashion. And
all wrong too. These 'fragments
you create, by the way, thy have
no power to 'get up, and walk away'
unless you first let them. Without
you, they are powerless.
-
You really are a pretty big deal.
So be careful, be really, really
careful. And have some reverence
for all things around you. After
all, they may be yours.
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