Anodyne
Saturday, September 05, 2009
 
The swelling strains of the Boston Rag, tump-tump-tump of that flexible rubbery bass. Grey sky, wind and rain. Memories of camping with K. at Lund, rain soaking the tent overnight, Rose T. Cat and Scat elevated above the damp nylon floor in an improvised hammock made of an inverted wool yak herder's hat, earflaps and cords doubling as attachment points. Rain on the window, green leaves tossing beyond the blinds. L. sleeping beside me. The nonplussed cat, bored with this weather, asleep on top of the jewelery box under the bed at three o'clock in the morning. My friend Sam, co-founder of the Owl and The Pussycats hiking club, "off to see what the inside of a cloud looks like." The endless unfolding of the natural world. Orcas off the port bow on the entrance to Departure Bay. Silvery light on steel-grey sea. How could Second Life ever compete with this? No second life for me, just this rich present one. "It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, one who would not attend his business by candlelight, to plead that he had not bright sunshine. The candle, that is set up in us, shines bright enough for our purposes. The discoveries we can make with this, ought to satisfy us: and we shall then use our understandings right, when we entertain all objects in that way and proportion, that they are suited to our faculties; and upon those grounds, they are capable of being proposed to us; and not peremptorily, or intemperately require demonstration, and demand certainty, when probability is only to be had." (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding).
- posted by cjb @ 8:00 AM


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