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Wreck Walk

The tran­si­tion into high school has been tough for my son. I feel com­pe­tent to han­dle just about any sit­u­a­tion involv­ing him except when a sit­u­a­tion occurs and I can’t talk to or see him. In these cas­es, frus­tra­tion is hav­ing the pow­er to resolve con­flict and help my son, but not being allowed to use it.

So I took a long walk, and toward the end of it, at dusk, passed by a group of chil­dren play­ing. One of them imme­di­ate­ly drift­ed off and fell into step beside me — a young man prob­a­bly around 13 or 14. He said “I’m ready to go home.” and I said, “Me, too, kid.” He then ten­ta­tive­ly said “Dad?” to me a cou­ple times, and we made eye con­tact. I gen­tly said, “I’m not your dad” and he looked a bit off guard and said “Oh.” One of the oth­er kids said “that’s a neigh­bor, not your dad, don’t talk to him!” and the young man drift­ed back to the rest of the group.

The ener­gy I was pour­ing into wor­ry­ing about my autis­tic teenag­er drew anoth­er one to me. He also need­ed com­fort, and, as much as I want­ed to, I could­n’t pro­vide it to him either. He voiced what I assume my child also need­ed that day. To be home with dad.

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Hip Flexor

I have been think­ing about the unique strug­gles each per­son has exist­ing as an embod­ied being. I am being philo­soph­i­cal­ly impre­cise for the sake of ver­nac­u­lar clar­i­ty. Mind/Body dual­ism has been passé for awhile, and thoughts about men­tal states and skep­ti­cism about expe­ri­ences might be intel­lec­tu­al­ly enter­tain­ing, but do lit­tle in the imme­di­ate to help peo­ple do bet­ter at existing.

Exist­ing and being aware of exist­ing is real­ly hard in infi­nite­ly vari­able ways. Pilot­ing these meat machines might be a lot eas­i­er if humans weren’t sapi­ent. Adam and Eve gain­ing the knowl­edge of good and evil by eat­ing the for­bid­den fruit is the orig­i­nal sin in that myth; and, stay­ing inside that par­a­digm, lit­er­al­ly every­thing that can be con­sid­ered cul­tur­al can be traced back to a strug­gle with sapi­ence. Whether art, or war, cook­ing, humor, music, or eco­nom­ics, they’re all moves Israel uses to wres­tle god.

So maybe that’s the metaphor for liv­ing — con­stant per­son­al strug­gle to under­stand, or rebel against under­stand­ing born out of our own impre­cise and faulty abil­i­ty to per­ceive and expe­ri­ence the world.

Hip out of joint, limp­ing along but refus­ing to submit.

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Third Choice

One must lean toward epis­tle or apho­rism rather than dis­ser­ta­tion; the act of widdershins.

Life feels like it is just prac­tice because it is just practice. 

One must imag­ine Sisy­phus’ recog­ni­tion that there is an end to just prac­tice; that there is no end to just prac­tice; that there is no just practice.

The day of reck­on­ing is always a loss of just practice.

One must imag­ine alter­na­tive cul­tur­al evo­lu­tions sans the bro­ken arrow of cap­i­tal or commune.

Jain wis­dom of wind­fall. What six hun­dred and fifty thou­sand years of grace and grat­i­tude does to humankind. What dif­fer­ent things we know by accept­ing what is no longer need­ed and just prac­tic­ing with it. Dropped feath­er by dropped feath­er — to fly — as a bird flies.

The knife is sharp­ened by hard­ness // the jel­ly­fish sus­tained by being what its world is

One must imag­ine there is always, at the least, a third choice.

You are the third choice — just practice.