RUDIMENTS, pt. 13,453
(the at-hand moment that the present is)
I once read something which I
call the Pizza Parable - just a
stab at categorizing it; I'm not
even sure it's a parable by format.
Maybe not even a lesson'd-out
fable. Anyway, let's call it here,
'The Problem Of the Slice.'
-
This kid loves pizza, and one
day, out with his father, they're
walking along and his father
stops them into a pizzeria for
a lunch. The kid orders two
slices. The father's watching
the kid, who is wolfing down
the first slice with his eyes on
the second. He wasn't even
tasting the first slice, in that
rush of eating it down. The
father says, 'Son, you need to
learn that while while you're
eating that first slice of pizza
you should be eating the first
slice. Because right now you're
eating the second slice before
you've even finished the first
one, let alone tasted it. You
can't always have your eye on
that second slice.'
-
Well, perhaps it's not much of
a lesson, but I always liked it,
and it was validated for me lots
of times. The giddy activity of
the 'activity' itself most often
shields a person from any true
experience of life, or of the
living of it through its successions
of moments - each moment
being a building block of time.
To be savored. To be appreciated.
In my own life, I once or twice
came to a point of just 'stopping.'
It was the only way to bring sense
and sensibility to the fore. (This
also always brought up the curious
aspect of the writer Jane Austen,
who used that as a title once, and
who seemed overly fond of, in her
titles, using the 'and' conjunction.
Perhaps 'Pride and Prejudice' would
outplay 'Sense and Sensibility' or
Time and Money, or 'The Power
and The Glory,' which of course
was by W. Somerset Maugham
and used the article 'the.' But that's
all another story...). The idea of
the slice episode, the parable of
taking stock, appreciating the
moment, etc., made lots of sense.
What got funny about it, later, was
how the 'philosophy' side of me
would go along with the charade
of 'Maybe when you're eating the
first slice you're really eating the
second anyway?' It went nowhere,
in that vein; and it only led to the
most dangerous aspect of life, which
is when you proceed to the point
of ALL of life being conjecture.
Once a person accepts that, he or
she might as well jump, or put that
bullet, yes, to the brain.
-
A hundred old-timers I'd see every
day and, to all practical purposes,
none of this had ever bothered
them, or, at least, if it did, it left no
visible traces or scars. Old people
always seemed bent and busy just
going on and very involved in their
task, whether it be walking, gathering
some grubby old grocer-supplies, or
just sitting on a bench somewhere
to face the sun and take it all in.
It seemed as if, for them, activity
was all over. Finished. Whereas
for me - an early 1967 all ready
to burst nut-case, it was all potential.
Errant; wild; crazy; anarchic; without
any reason except possibility.
-
I figured perhaps it was all like sex;
even the pizza parable part of it. When
a kid gets rolling with that sex stuff,
it's all future, all expectation - the
legendary hard-ons begin, everything's
all set up, you're all over the girl
in expectation - as is she in hers -
snaps and buttons are flying, the
rolling moans of salvation begin,
everything a'jumble. It's as if, even
in the moment of all that, the stupid
brain is always leaping ahead, in
its fiery expectation, to the next step
or level and the actual 'moment' is
never fully appreciated, or experienced.
Even as the big blasts start hitting, the
male mind turns to 'where do I put
this stuff, what should I do next...'
Too much thinking ahead like that,
and the moment loses value. (Well,
probably a crummy example, but I'm
hoping a reader would get the gist,
even from my inestimable approach).
Hopes and Expectations. Hits and
Misses.
-
'To find one's art is to kill time dead
with a single shot.' Well, damn, how
about that! It maybe all goes back,
no matter how, to a parent or a teacher,
telling a kid: 'Do one thing at a time?'
I remember once, my own parents,
after having visited with my 2nd
grade teacher one day, on one of
those parent-teacher day things, when
the parent(s) are invited to sit in, at
the back of the room for 20 minutes
or so, to watch the proceedings and,
I guess see their kid in action, (they
had these things, anyway, at Avenel
School 4&5, in the 1950's. I don't
have a clue if stuff like that happens
now; I guess maybe you can watch
the whole class on some sort of live
computer remote, if you cared; but
some dweeb would probably say
that was predatory, and the stupid
system would agree with them and
have it stopped. Some beer-guzzling,
unemployed, Dad, I can picture, saying,
'I don't care none much about the kid;
I think the teacher's hot!'). My father,
driving a car with us in it, after school,
going somewhere that day, along Route
One, tells me that from what he saw
I hunch over too much, I squish down
too much at the desk, when I am
writing. I ought to sit up straight and
not hunch so. He demonstrates my
posture - and nearly creams us into
the center-divider at 55mph, while
demonstrating my single-minded
dedication to he craft of putting pen
to paper. Thinking only of that,
ONE, pizza. The at-hand moment
that the present always is. I already
knew how to get lost in it.
-
Anyhow, that's the way it went. Old
folks lining Broadway, uptown, sitting
on all those benches in the middle of
Broadway. 1968; often Nazi-camp
victims, survivors, yet alive, hanging
on, nearing death. You could see it in
their eyes, the hurt, the sorrow, the
lethal anxiety, all still there. It had
stopped everything - talk about
dwelling or doing on thing at a time!
Their lives had become calcium. Bones.
Ghost figments. Irrational and Fearsome.
Lethal and Haunted. Dead and Alive!
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