Sunday Meditation #44: Interstitial Crisis

I have spent my life making much of the in between. The places no one thinks about, the leftover, the marginal, the edges of the edges. 

I am the interstitial. I am the space between. I am the floor between floors holding things rarely in mind unless they break. The floors that matter only if the power fails or the air conditioning gives up. This is my life, my head space to carry the pipes and the ducts that allow others to do the talking. It is my bed and I must lie in it.

Floor 13-1/2. Duck your head when stepping off the elevator. A condition of existence when one chooses to live in the margins of the book. Is this a cry for pity? No. No pity needed. This path is voluntary, if somewhat regrettable.

The battle cry these days seems to be "No regrets!", but in my mind I think that is just rationalization of emotional laziness, an unwillingness to acknowledge that what we have done may have hurt others. To swallow the pill of No Regrets is to announce to the world that we have not been paying attention to our lives, to living. To live honestly is to experience regret.

A digression, if I may be indulged. To my ears most of those people whom I have heard say "No regrets!", or have it tattooed somewhere on their person, seem to be overbearing types who have made a lot of willful mistakes. Their hoisting of the banner of No Regret is an attempt to disown responsibility, to avoid a reckoning of the emotional damage they may have wrought.

If I were to campaign my life on the platforms of no regrets, it would be from the perspective of not having done or said something regretful in the first place. My life would be lived in such a way as to do the things I want to do the way I want to do them, without hurting others in the process. An ideal, I know. One that is impossible to attain.

Ah, I see this has gone off the rails a bit, has it not? Somehow I drifted from a meditation on living in the in-between to a screed about pretending to live without regrets. How does this happen? A side effect, perhaps, of living life in the interstices, where one thinks too much and maybe really lives not enough. This is what I get for insisting on living at the edges, for making my home in the spaces in between.

Magpie Tales 211: Simon Says

Feast in the House of Simon, 1610, El Greco via Magpie Tales

In my house at meat

Cure upon me, yet

I am the example

to be made of forgiveness,

by you, son of God?

Outcast I was, perfume I have not

Let the question reverse itself

Thankful to keep my limbs

But without perfume or hair as rags

You damn me with faint praise

Letting Them Slip

Of the things that get my goat these days, the conflict between art and duty is at the top of the list. I kvetch often when I cannot seem to find, or to make, the time to attend to the acts of creation that I claim I need to sustain myself. It would seem to be inconsistent with my goals. It makes me wonder when I truly am going to pull a carpe diem and satisfy my intention.

My peace of mind depends on it, don't you think? And if peace of mind is that important it would seem imperative to follow those notions and impulses that feed it. I had the chance today. Make that two chances. I failed to act on both, and now I am disappointed.

The chances were nothing earth-shattering. There was no flash of insight leading to the cure for cancer or ending world poverty. No, these chances were more humble, intrinsic to me and me alone. Well, unless you consider that the chances had potential for me to gather something to share with the extrinsic world.

I had an assignment wherein I had the opportunity to do something constructive with my camera and earn payment from the results. The assignment was in a semi-rural area somewhat south of my current abode. When I had left the house earlier, on impulse I put my film camera in the car, in case I saw something scenic or interesting out in the rolling fields and farms. So it wasn't like I didn't have any equipment.

The assignment took longer than I expected, and I was tired, hungry and hot when I finished. My thoughts turned to getting home and finishing the task. I was in a hurry, for what in hindsight turned out to be not so pressing reasons. So I get in the car and head home, thinking too much about what I needed to do.

I passed a concrete plant at an intersection of two roads and what seemed like four cornfields. The interplay of light and shadow on the industrial structures was fascinating. I thought about the black and white film I had, but shook my head and muttered to myself "No time, gotta get home." I kept driving.

Nearby and across the road the top of a slightly derelict silo peeped up above a deep cornfield. Next to it were some barn buildings, also in need of sprucing up. Peeling paint, an old tree, cornstalks waving in the foreground. The light was hitting it all just right. The mood was of opportunities fading away, hard work needing to be done, and the unsettling openness of the prairie sky above it.

Perfect photo op, right? Great shots to be had, yes?

I watched it recede in my rear view mirror. I didn't stop. The velvet shackles of duty, the sure thing, the chore to be done, all convinced me to keep going by laying on the old saw of "There will be other opportunities, move along." What really bothered me, the farther down the road I went, is that the creative soul in me raised hardly a peep. It just let it happen.

The question turning over in my mind and heart while I sped down the highway back to the "city", was one of "If not now, when?"

Indeed. Opportunities may exist, but to assume a guarantee is to take them for granted. The voice in my head told me to drive, to follow the call of duty. My artistic life is in danger of atrophy, all because sometimes I listen to the wrong voice.

Sleeping Dogs In My Head

Crash! Clang! Bang the lids
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs

Magpie Tales 89: Enemy of the State

Image courtesy of Tess at Magpie Tales

The meatheads from the Ministry of Information came for me, as they came for everyone they disappeared, at four o'clock in the morning.  Predictable and laughable, to those of us who knew we would get caught, eventually.  The secret police was hung up on outmoded aspects of psych-ops, left over from the wars, that said humans are at their most vulnerable just before dawn.  A load of shite, we said.  After all, we had lived under the clumsy thumb of the Premier for all our lives, and we stopped feeling vulnerable and became numb.

There they were that frosted October morning.  The small flotilla of chunky black limousines pulling up to the curb out front, silent and slick like oil spilling into the gutter.  The thunk of the doors closing was faint but I heard them.  I was in the basement in my usual habit, having been up for an hour already, too anxious to sleep.  Sitting in the semi-secret closet-turned-study behind the furnace, I was chain-smoking and piecing together the next piece of samizdat for the upcoming protests.  The dank little room with its single bare bulb had been my secret home for years.  I had stapled insulation to the door long ago to muffle the click-clack of the contraband typewriter I had smuggled in shortly after moving in.  I was banging away on the keys when I heard the clatter of boot heels on the wooden stairs.

The typewriter had been my own personal joke, a sharp stick in the ribs of the State.  Computers, laptops, smart phones were all the rage now.  The Ministry had focused so sharply on the electronic revolution I reckoned they would never suspect broadsides from a pre-digital relic.  And I was right.

For years they had chased me, always wondering, never grasping the motivation behind the typewritten pages.  They could not fathom why anyone would do such a thing when smart cards and an Internet connection was so much faster and pernicious.  They never understood how I had rigged up my own ribbons from spools of tailor's trim, the ink a home-made mess of Vaseline and carbon black from candle wicks. The blot on the nacreous concrete of the basement wall a testament to a bottle of the ad hoc ink thrown in a moment of panic and frustration, that night so long ago when the apartment next door had been raided.

They never understood.  They never will understand.  The revolution will not be accomplished by machines.  The revolution will only happen because people are behind those machines, even the relic I had poured my life into; this was the joke, you see.  The typewritten pages were all one elaborate joke that the blind leviathan called the State was too dim to see.

Just as the bullet leaves the gun because a finger squeezes the trigger, Truth leaves the pen because a human heart made it so.  Like water wearing down a stone, truth will wear down tyranny.  And truth is not produced by machines.

Their was a sharp rap on the door.  The insulation jumped, peeling a little further off the door. An iron voice.

"Bellensky!  We know you are there!  It is best that you come with us, peacefully!"

My mouth opened in a silent laugh.  They still had no idea of my real name.  I placed my last cigarette between my lips, bent to the desk to rummage in the drawer.  The cold metal grip of the pistol felt electric in my hand.  the magazine was full.  I swiveled the chair about to face the door.

"Come in, komissar, come in!" I exclaimed jovially, "I wish nothing more than a polite discussion of the truth!"

Planting my feet firmly on the gritty, stained floor, I leveled the pistol at the door and watched the lever turn.  The revolution, I thought, starts now.

I'll Not Be A Pr*ck

September 2, 2011 - Mind akimbo.

Mind wandering, careening back and forth across the pavement like a wheel that fell off a bus.  All because I was directed to do something that would have made me seem like a prick.

What I was directed to do was not illegal, immoral or unethical.  It did not go against the tenets of my profession.  It was nothing major, but just the same...it would have made me seem like a prick.  All because someone else was acting like one, but was "too busy" to do the thing itself.  I was acting on earlier directions, following instructions and exercising my professional discretion to get things done.  When I relayed the news that the information we sought would probably not be available in time to get it into the project, I was directed to give an ultimatum to the person providing the information: get it to us by X, or have your name removed from consideration.

An ultimatum given for no other reason than it could be, flexing muscles for the sake of flexing.  I asked if that was really necessary, given that the issue in question would not delay the project, could easily be added after it went out (when it was apparent that other, bigger things will have to be added), and was it worth it?

I was rewarded with spite, pissiness and dismissal.  I was told "never mind, I'll do it myself".

On a late afternoon in September, I was directed to do something unnecessary, that would have made me look like a prick.  All in the service to another's apparent insecurities.

I didn't do it.  I'll not be a prick as a surrogate for someone else.  Never again.

Please Welcome the 52nd State

The Tallest Building In The World Is A Pile Of Boring

Okay, time for a rant.  An architectural rant, perhaps the first one on the Gumbo, evah, which is surprising considering that I play an architect in real life.  Have for 22 years now.  Yikes.

What got all up in my grill, gave me a snootful of pepper spray, was this notion of building the tallest building in  the world, and how ridiculous it all seems.  Its been years since the Sears Tower in Chicago was the champ, and right now I couldn't tell you where the tallest building is or who built it.  Probably financed by oil money in a part of the world where it doesn't make sense to build really tall buildings anyway, but that's what happens when you've got more money and ego than common sense.

I couldn't tell you where or what the tallest building is anymore, because I stopped caring long ago.  I don't care how tall the building is, its not a matter of national pride for me, it does not have a truly beneficial effect on my life or the people I know. i don't ever plan on working on it or in it.  I don't want to work 75 stories or more off the ground.  Hell, I don't even want to go higher than say 10, at most.  Because. I. Don't. Care.

The competition to build the tallest building in the world is no longer about architecture.  In some ways, it isn't even about engineering anymore.  It's about ego and arrogance.  Sure, the designers will tell you they are "maximizing density" and "minimizing footprints" but really what happens is they are trying to maximize dollars per square foot and show the world who has the biggest penis.  Some will even claim they are designing eco-sensitive buildings, they are "being green", but that mainly applies to the surface.  To build a monstrously tall building is to take horizontal sprawl and make it vertical, thereby making it more difficult in may ways to manage, and consuming just as much resources, if not more, than a much more sensibly planned low to mid rise development.  Don't believe me?  Just take a look at how much power it takes to heat, cool and move people in a building that is 150 stories (or whatever the current record is) tall and is full of businesses.

I know, I can hear some of you sigh and say "Yo, Gumbo, we appreciate your vibe, but you seem to be a little lazy in your research.  How about some examples?".  Fair enough...

Here's my research for you:  google it.

Because. I. Don't. Care.  I absorbed most of what I really needed to write this post from the regular parade of articles I had been seeing in the trade rags I read as part of my information intake.  I reached a point where I just got tired of reading yet again about the new record for tallest building and how one even taller was being planned, and really, it has nothing in common with the kind of architecture I'd like to practice, the kind that gets me really excited about why I wanted to be an architect in the first place.

So to all those who think it is so god-awful important to build monuments to the man-junk you probably don't have, but that your egos have convinced you that you need...stop it.  Just stop it.  I have to believe that the majority of the folks in the world don't care how tall a building if they don't have a decent built environment of their own.

Besides, skyscrapers are fascist.  Worse...they are boring.  Please stop boring me to tears.

Here endeth the rant.

Full Metal Jacket Heart

Be careful before you open a six-gun mouth

to pull the trigger with words ballistic

or spray the room with linguistic pellets

without a choke, at the speed of sound

because high-velocity physics is a tricky thing

for anyone to control, anger and scorn hard cases

that may not strike at calculated angles, instead,

a beating heart abused by blowback and ricochet

Overheard In The Temple: A Short Play

Teacher: "It is our attachments to things that cause us anxiety and grief. We must lose our attachments if we want to find peace."

Student: "If that is so, Master, then perhaps I should lose my attachment to God. Only then will I cease being anxious over wondering if He really loves me."

Teacher: (stunned silence)

Student: (blows out candle; exits)

God, Stephen King and Irish Gumbo Walk into a Bar...

Not really. We did enjoy a bike ride together, in a sense.

For the first time in months, I am reading a book for more than five minutes at a time.  The book is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.  Stop rolling your eyes and sighing, I know, I know, I was supposed to have read this long ago.  Cut me some slack, I've been busy. Lazy, as well, but let's not discuss that, shall we?

It was Mr. King who roused me off my lazy arse this day. I refer to him as Mr. because writing 'It was Stephen who...' seemed wrong, somehow. I do not know him personally, although that has rarely restrained my informality in these posts of mine. No, it had more to do with that he's Stephen King, an author of accomplishments so well known the lower reaches of I have yet to even touch.  I'm not in that league.*

While there is much to like in On Writing, he wrote two things in particular that grabbed my attention.  I'm going to take them in reverse order. The second one shamed me into heading out the door, but it was the first one that garnered more think time.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:  read a lot and write a lot."  This was the second thing, the firestarter if you will.  I quote him here because of its brevity and its power.  Yes, it may seem obvious,  but how many of us do those things?  By reading, he didn't mean the backs of cereal boxes or five minutes skimming paragraphs in a book on top of a stack of books, destined to be half-ignored.  By writing, he didn't mean a paragraph of hastily scribbled ideas on a torn sheet of notepad paper and cryptic words in the margins of an impromptu day planner.

He meant reading books,  many books.  He meant paragraphs and word counts reaching into the thousands.

I hung my head a bit.  I don't recall having read a book to completion in maybe two years now.  My writing output used to be,  as many of you probably already know, within the range of the professional.  I know I have not written everyday in so long I can vaguely recall ever having done so.  Somewhere back there, the wheels fell off the bus.

I became restless at this revelation.  Action was needed, but desire to write was lacking.  I resolved to go for a long bike ride.  I put the rack on the car, put my bike on the rack and headed off to one of my favorite parks,  one with plenty of paved trails that I could easily ride with my hybrid tires and sore butt.  I was hoping for some solitude.

I must have missed the memo,  because it seemed to be "Large groups of people picnic and party day" at the park.  There was a Baltimore Ravens fan club and a very large church group,  packs of mountain bikers and at least two separate birthday parties.  Fortunately, it is a big park,  and the trails were surprisingly empty.  That did not mean there was no one to see.  On the contrary, everywhere I looked I kept seeing the one grouping of people I was least in a mood to see: happy couples.  The place was lousy with them, walking on the road, in picnic shelters, wading in the river.

Call me a curmudgeon, but all that togetherness was mildly irritating.

This was in large part due to the first thing in On Writing which I mentioned above.  Let me quote it in full:

 Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.  They don't have to make speeches.  Just believing is usually enough.

I was taken aback by this because I understood it, deeply and in a way almost painful.  The quote is in reference to the support he received from his wife,  but it spoke to a broader idea that whacked me in the head like a rubber bullet.  Seeing all the couples strolling together,  some hand in hand, only hardened an already painful truth:  I lack that kind of support.

I've been fortunate to have known that belief more than once in my life, but things change, they always do.  Waves from the ocean of life keep pounding our shores and the edges begin abrading, pieces fall and get swept into the undertow, never to be seen again.  It is true that some things don't seem to change much, but nothing and no one is invulnerable.  Certainly not I.  My ego has finally admitted it.  My pride continues to choke on it.

I attempted to put the notion aside to concentrate on the bike ride.  I was successful for some time as I dug in and pedaled my way up false flats, admired the gently flowing river and the butterflies amongst the leaves.  I felt so good just being in action without having to consider every move I made.  Blue patches of sky mingled with green leaves in the sunlight, lulling me into a peaceful mood.

Then God showed up.  A big rock smack in the middle of the pond.

He wasn't there in the sense of poof! suddenly He is riding alongside me on a bike.  God arrived, as He often does, in the guise of a question posed by my subconscious.

Why is it, the little voice said,  that so many other people get to be with someone, but not me?  Why, God, is it so?

I refrained from yelling an epithet and kept on pedaling.  Now was really not the time to get into another running argument between me and Him.  It was such a beautiful day, and I was enjoying myself.  This pretty much guaranteed at least there would be a brisk dialogue. 

In my head, I couldn't see a face, just a presence.  The presence appeared to be sitting in a leather club chair.  The faint aroma of cigars was in the air.  I heard the tinkle of ice in a glass, followed by a sigh.  God spoke.

"Who says you are alone?" the voice said.
"I do.  Because I am.  You of all...beings...should know that."  I murmured without turning my head.
"Ah, yes, I do know that. Omniscience has its uses."  

A pause, more ice hitting the glass.  I think I even heard crunching noises.  I stifled a giggle at the notion of the Creator of the Universe chewing ice just like my daughter.  The presence spoke again.

"My addled son, you may be alone right now, this is true.  But you know how I work.  Mysterious ways and all that.  You really believe it is hopeless?"

I gritted my teeth before responding, "Do you really want me to answer that?  Nothing seems to be working according to any plan I have ever had.  I've been wrong or misguided so many times now I've effectively given up on wanting to want anything." 

The professional pessimist in me was taking over. 

"Surely you've noticed all that bitching I do about being lonely."  It was true.  I was irritated at myself for opening that door again. God or whatever it was just chuckled, stood up and made to leave. He said "Will you do something for Me?"  I heard a the faint squeak of an old wood door being opened.

Who says no to God, especially when He is being polite? "What?" I muttered.
"Be patient...Don't give up on the things you love, just because you think love has given up on you."  The door creaked shut, and then He was gone.

By now, I was approaching a narrow footbridge, so I halted the bike and dismounted to get some water before I walked my bike across.  A set of park service historical signs was opposite me on the other side of the path.  Next to the signs was a young couple on bikes,  talking softly to each other while they read the displays.  I sighed.  I twisted the cap from the water bottle and drank.  The tepid water was faintly bitter in my mouth, or so it seemed.  The couple rode off down the path in the opposite direction.

It wasn't the water in my mouth that tasted bitter,  it was the joke I had just heard.  A joke with a punchline I didn't exactly get, swirling around in a jaded mouth.

*In comparison, I may as well be on another planet.  Maybe the Pluto of planets in the Solar System of Writing.  Except Pluto is no longer a planet. Jeez, that made it worse, didn't it?

Some Things Will Never Be Finished

You Are Free To Eat

From the “Biting The Hand” Files:

Am I? Am I really free to eat?

I used to think so. Nowadays, I am not so sure. What does it mean to be free to eat? Rather, what do I have to DO to be free to eat? Be someone else’s tool, I suppose.

In the corporate culture, to be free to eat means to be not free to do something else. It means doing what you are told, when you are told to do it, by whomever is in charge of telling you what to do. They can get away with this through the exercise of fear.

Fear that you will not have a job.
Fear that you will not have insurance.
Fear that you will not have a retirement plan.
Fear that you will not move up in life.
Fear that you will not have a “career”.

These are wonderful things, but no one like the implicit threat of the leash.

Fear that if you do not keep your mouth shut and behave you will become a corporate leper. You will not be able to find, or keep, that “position” in the “ladder” or “organization” in which if you work hard enough, long enough, you too will be “vested” and get to tell other people what to do.

Just keep chasing after that next “goal”*. The goal is there, they tell you, it’s just up ahead, just around the bend, just around the next corner. So you do keep chasing it, because after all, achieving the goals is what gets you “security”. Isn’t security the most important thing?

You will have “security”, they say. Security being a relative term, that everyone thinks they know the definition of but is really solely defined by the inscrutable whims of someone else in “authority”. If by security, “stability” is meant, that is true in a limited sense. You get somewhere to go everyday at the same time, whiling away your hours. Security, however, is a myth. A myth wielded as a tool to keep the parts of the machine in line. ‘Replaceability’ is implicit in being a machine part. Machine parts are not really meant to be individuals. You are useful in so much as you are replaceable.

The threat of replacement breeds fear. Fear becomes a tool to control the other tools.

If I am going to be a tool, I prefer to be a tool on my own terms. If I am going to work myself to the point of exhaustion, I prefer it to be at my discretion, for my own goals.

I once told myself that “we are all exploited” and I suspect that really is true. It is up to us to set the terms of that exploitation. Does this guarantee security? Of course not. But to survive, no, to thrive it becomes a matter of imperative. Being free to eat does not mean always having the ability to put food in your mouth; it also means the freedom to say “I’m not hungry”.

If we don’t set the terms of our exploitation, we will never be free to eat.

*Digression: If you transpose the ‘o’ and ‘a’ in goal, it becomes “gaol”, an archaic term for jail. How about that.

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LAST DAY TO BEAT THE DRUMS: Please don't forget the HeBlogs/SheBlogs contest forget sponsored by Petra over at The Wise (*Young*) Mommy. Today's entries are from Ron from Clark Kent's Lunchbox and Ryan from Pacing the Panic Room, two nice guys (well, one nice guy and a handsome bastard relying on his good looks) who are very good at what they do, although we are not quite sure what that is yet. The posts go up at 8:00. Remember, voting starts tonight after all entries have been posted. Rock the vote!