Well here I am changing things again… I’ve reached the point where the work on Daily Bread has converged with the novel I’m writing. I’m finding myself choosing which deserves the writing and which does not. And I’ve also found in Daily Bread that I’ve allowed myself to omit parts of the truth, parts that are not so nice and neat and tidy, out of fear. So I’ve chosen to allow the novel to absorb Daily Bread and the writing is flowing naturally now and truthfully. However, it is writing I can no longer share. At least not yet. SO, I’ll bring back the essays, for now, on Wednesdays. Apologies for the inconsistency… such is the way of the words…
Godless Language:
Two selves comprise me: the living self, and the Historian. I wish to believe all my living opinions and thoughts are mine. They are not. They are results of the era in which I live. Little notes of time and place. In some things I have chosen resistance and in others I’ve flowed. But my freedom is just a ripple. My freedom is not broad. I am subject largely to the era of my life. Reliant on the technologies of this time. Reliant on the morality of this time. The Historian comprising the second part of me is the impartial narrator. It seems today we are so terrified of impartiality. Even subconsciously. Subject to the expectation of our partiality. But is the opinion formed to appease this expectation an opinion at all? No it is not. I am not ashamed of my private opinions and thoughts because they are hardly a product of me in as much as the lone purple Cosmo could be held accountable or take credit for its late October bloom standing tall above the native grasses, despite its beauty. As if the parts of a flower could offend… yet the parts of us our expression deeply and quickly offend others… as if these blooming opinions were my choice… as if they were not fed… as if the reality of freedom matched our thoughts of freedom. I am not free from confines or influence or the ancient knowledge of the body passed down from all our generations and the generations of the genus homos before ours or the Australopithecus before them. No one wants to face this. We will not admit this. My freedom is as grounded as my body and as limitless as the breadth of my travels. Time and Place. And we strive and we strive and we strive to surge forward in our modern morality. I’ve found our society polarized. Degradation of democracy. Living through the sadness and violence of this humorless era. All of this dictates my thoughts and my actions and my simple gestures and my tolerances and compels the more popular intolerances. I see our world through this lens. Surely our thoughts and opinions would take on a rosier hue should our era be one of humor. No matter the issue we apply the same Western language. The whispering autumn leaves do not speak this language of the Oppressed and the Oppressor.
Following these thoughts I’ve not read the news for weeks. Yet bits of this Western language arrive in unwanted and endless duplication. I can hardly thumb the screen without being lambasted with hackneyed self-righteousness. The oppressed the oppressed the oppressed. I’m the oppressed. No I’M the oppressed. I WAS OPPRESSED FIRST. NO I WAS! Self-righteousness awkwardly arrives from expectations outside of us. Oppressed is the oppressor. Oppressor is the oppressed. Ad infinitum.
In this modern era when I am compelled to face the Israeli and Palestinian conflict and transphobia and gutter of public commentary on the mysterious death of a beloved actor…all arriving indirectly and through channels traveling too great a distance to keep from corruption… In the course of everyday living it is difficult to remove myself from such discourse where fact is too far to obtain and where fact is someone else’s life lived in a place far far away. Such muddy discourse becomes my Time and Place. Expected by the liaisons of Western morality the so-called democratic morality to form an opinion with further expectation that the formed opinion is the correct opinion or thou shalt suffer the consequences of the liaisons of morality And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them[i]… And I ask you, dear reader, which of the gods of the world is the right god to follow? There is no longer any god in the West and it is this godless language we speak to cast commandments and judgment. And I will give unto thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.[ii] The Western language is not the language of the leaves or birds or followers of god or seekers of peace and justice. It is the language of hypocrisy.
I am a Historian of the self. I am two people. The one who lives and the one who writes. And in writing I am most free because the duty is to History and not the tapping toe of righteousness at my doorstep. In History there is no right or wrong but only truth. It is a wonderful place of impartiality. History judges no one. So many find this so very disagreeable. Call for heads. So the rewriting of history commences as if our people would be bothered to learn from yesterday. I live in the age of the Great Mob. But I practice the language of the autumn leaves. It is this language of peace I am learning. And in this peace-language words are not spoken. This language exits not the mouth but enters the ears. Do you hear it? Just out the door there… the sound of harmony.
[i] KJV Exodus 35:1
[ii] KJV Genesis 17:8
beautiful writing. alas can't speak for the others, but I know the human trees know what they're doing when they poison the ground for alien species. they know it down to their quivering leaves and in the toes of their roots. the human dogs have some understanding of what they're doing when the tear the living human squirrels apart in their teeth. the autumn leaves cackle as they crackle at your foolishness. The thing that is sought and hardest to find, however banal it sounds, is always closest at hand. even the god you seek to bind you to nature and love and peace is already yours. 🙏🏼
Yes, I too love your depth....will never forget the phrase "the tapping toe of righteousness at my doorstep"...absolutely profound...mahalo!