Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Mark Twain
...a while ago, most excellent yoga blogger Brooks wrote about an article in The Sun magazine by Wendell Berry called Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer...having read both, I left a comment...which, as my comments tend to do, veered away into rambling that had very little to do with what I was commenting on....now, in the spirit of Earth Day, I’m gonna recycle part of it here, while, as Yoga for Cynics posts tend to do, rambling on even further....
...I like to think of myself as a Luddite...with a blog and an ipod...but no air conditioning, and a cell phone that doesn’t take pictures or show movies...so can relate somewhat to a stodgy rejection of the digital age...seeing it as another expensive burden, another obstruction standing in the way of traditional human connections...even if it’s formed new kinds of connections as we converse effortlessly and instantly with people on the other side of the world...however many painful misunderstandings may ensue as we continue struggling to figure out the rules for a brave new radically smaller world...
....then, one could say the same of any technological innovation...including, certainly, the manual typewriters Luddite writers tend to be so proud of...as if the sages of old used them to write their sacred scriptures (note: they didn’t)...as well any form of mass communication...movable type, without a doubt...and, certainly, we can’t forget the invention of writing itself...I mean, just imagine: there was a time...for much of human beings’ tenure on earth, in fact...when a relatively close level of physical intimacy was required for any communication...to hear what another person thought, you would have to be close enough to hear that person’s voice...most likely looking into his or her face...and, chances are, you would rarely speak to anyone you hadn’t known for your or their whole life...all communication was close communication...
...then, if the invention of writing was alienating, it can’t have held a candle to the invention of words themselves...before which, I can only assume, communication must have been accomplished solely by facial expressions, and subtle—or not so subtle—gestures...and touching...no representing by phonemes or anything else...no abstraction at all...
Who needs action when you got words?
the Meat Puppets
...was writing last week...for myself...had a point, to begin with, but ended up kinda listing everything I’d been up to, or thinking about...without really exploring anything...then started getting self-reflective...about how I was just catalonging stuff...was about to fix that...make it cataloging...but decided I liked it better the way it was...listing stuff in seeming aimlessness as an expressing of longing for...what?...something more meaningful to write about? something to come up in the list that’ll catch fire and glow with transcendent meaning? or, maybe, something that couldn’t be written about at all...but that I wanted to express nonetheless...leaving me nothing but catalonging...
Mark Twain
...a while ago, most excellent yoga blogger Brooks wrote about an article in The Sun magazine by Wendell Berry called Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer...having read both, I left a comment...which, as my comments tend to do, veered away into rambling that had very little to do with what I was commenting on....now, in the spirit of Earth Day, I’m gonna recycle part of it here, while, as Yoga for Cynics posts tend to do, rambling on even further....
...I like to think of myself as a Luddite...with a blog and an ipod...but no air conditioning, and a cell phone that doesn’t take pictures or show movies...so can relate somewhat to a stodgy rejection of the digital age...seeing it as another expensive burden, another obstruction standing in the way of traditional human connections...even if it’s formed new kinds of connections as we converse effortlessly and instantly with people on the other side of the world...however many painful misunderstandings may ensue as we continue struggling to figure out the rules for a brave new radically smaller world...
....then, one could say the same of any technological innovation...including, certainly, the manual typewriters Luddite writers tend to be so proud of...as if the sages of old used them to write their sacred scriptures (note: they didn’t)...as well any form of mass communication...movable type, without a doubt...and, certainly, we can’t forget the invention of writing itself...I mean, just imagine: there was a time...for much of human beings’ tenure on earth, in fact...when a relatively close level of physical intimacy was required for any communication...to hear what another person thought, you would have to be close enough to hear that person’s voice...most likely looking into his or her face...and, chances are, you would rarely speak to anyone you hadn’t known for your or their whole life...all communication was close communication...
...then, if the invention of writing was alienating, it can’t have held a candle to the invention of words themselves...before which, I can only assume, communication must have been accomplished solely by facial expressions, and subtle—or not so subtle—gestures...and touching...no representing by phonemes or anything else...no abstraction at all...
Who needs action when you got words?
the Meat Puppets
...was writing last week...for myself...had a point, to begin with, but ended up kinda listing everything I’d been up to, or thinking about...without really exploring anything...then started getting self-reflective...about how I was just catalonging stuff...was about to fix that...make it cataloging...but decided I liked it better the way it was...listing stuff in seeming aimlessness as an expressing of longing for...what?...something more meaningful to write about? something to come up in the list that’ll catch fire and glow with transcendent meaning? or, maybe, something that couldn’t be written about at all...but that I wanted to express nonetheless...leaving me nothing but catalonging...
...while writing, was listening to the Blood on the Tracks album...in Tangled Up in Blue it sounds like Dylan sings I murdered something underneath my breath rather than I muttered...and if so, would that mean he had something meaningful to express that not only couldn’t be said aloud, but shouldn’t, under pain of death?...it’d have to be shouldn’t...you don’t murder something just because it couldn’t...
