RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,314
(the emperor of nothing, pt. SIXTEEN)
I want to say that my first
regard has always been for
others. That's not quite a
characteristic sort of thing
to say - or perhaps it's just
too much of an obvious thing
to say. Either way, for me it's
always been true, and it has,
as well, always been a sort of
burden to carry. All that 'feeling
too much for others' stuff is both
good and bad. I often have thought
that blind spots towards the welfare
of others may be better - but
that's more in line with the
thinking of a tyrant or a
megalomaniac who takes it
all out on others. I hope that
has never been me.
-
I say this because I come off two
different ways at times. Accidentally,
because I've never set out to do or
be that way, and tyrannical attributes
are never 'me.' My line, if anything,
tends more to the humoresque shrug.
-
Like Jack Stove, I've always sought
a settled life - unlike Jack Stove, I've
never attained one. All of my times
have been in mixed-need situations
bordering crisis; maelstroms into
which I've somehow gotten myself
into the center of. My wife always
had it that 'People either love you
or hate you. You've never had a
middle ground.' That was her take,
and maybe so. Ol' Jack, on the other
hand, from the little I've seen, just
sits there and lets it all roll around
him. A discerning eye withholding
any judgment, or a crank? I don't
know. A man can do that for many
years, apparently, as he's done, but
I'm pretty certain doing that would
wear me down. I'd want to 'activate'
something - which is probably the
spot at which I've always gone wrong.
Wanting to 'do' something, implement
something. Organize. That's what
then makes the absolutes, the either/or
situations that cause people to 'love
or hate.' It's not worth it.
-
Down at Jack Stove's place, the woods
have been there, and untouched and
unmanipulated, for many years; and
that's the way it should be. At the
other end of that road (Cortese),
there was - last Summer, not this -
a sign, and a bunch of tree culling
and cutting and some clearing, and
it was announced, on that sign, to be
all of some agency's work - an
organized work of forest management,
controlled culling of trees, for the
benefit of better forestry. Something
about the forest-floor needing the
clearing for better remediation and its
own regrowth and density. Maybe all
that's true - and I've heard it all from
others - but it sure was a nuisance.
At first, I freaked, thinking that some
developer-moron had set in with ideas
of developing the property, putting in
10 or 12 homes, whatever. My friend
who is one of the local town 'Supervisors'
laughed me off when I mentioned it to
him, saying 'Things like that don't happen
here, everything takes a decade, and in
these parts 'developing' a property means
one home, not ten.' Then the fool asks
me, 'How old are you?' and when I
told him, he laughed again - you have
nothing to worry about, you'll be long
gone by then.'
-
By then? What did he mean? By WHEN?
That sort of talk nerves me out too. Flip
and cavalier just a little too much for my
taste. The same guy then said to me, 'For
years we've tried to get zoning put in for
these parts, but no one goes along. No
one wants that, they claim it as an
infringement on their rights. So we get
this mishmash of people and their
properties, all doing what they want.'
I wished to tell him how good I felt
all that was - cars, old barns, people
selling stuff, crumbled old houses as
if left behind. There's none of that
idiotic tidiness of curbs and tightly
held lawns and property lines, or
properly paved roads and sewers and
street lighting and all the rest. My own
feelings are 'let it stay wild and unkempt,
and the moreso the better.' That new
'Forest Management' thing seemed
like trouble, day one.
-
Humankind just seems to ruin things
and call it gain. Without so much as
a second thought, the assumption is
made that progress is always right.
The problem is, any of that is always
in the quest of profit and money, and
that's where the base error lies. There's
no purity there; money and its quest
is always filthy, dirty, and cheap. The
lengths to which people will stoop
downward to attain it always amazes
me. Servility and careers seems to go
together. Some call it great. I call it
misery, pure and simple, and its
adherents have the entire, crummy,
rotten world to show for it - which
world, now tottering, they suddenly
start finding to have been all wrong!
Wrong fuels, energies and usages,
waters, dams, foods, drugs, and even
sexual identities and composures. The
modern world rolls to its own steeple
now, just to fall off the edge.
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