He Digs, He Digs!

To say, only, that The Boober likes to dig - to Scoop and Dump in his parlance - is to miss, entirely, the meaning of this sublime act. He does not just "dig", he becomes A Digger, melding himself to whatever implement he currently feels inspired to utilize. His Digging is a quest; not simply for a wider, deeper, hole, but for a sense of meaning in a rather scatter-shot world of activities unconnected to anything meaningful. He gets down on his belly, in his clean hoodie and jeans, and digs elementally with his hands until his body melds with the soft earth. He squats close to the ground in his camouflage-patterned pants and digs with a green, then a red, shovel; dirt flying in every direction it shouldn't. He clambers on top of his yellow excavator hunches forward until the thing tips forward across its center of gravity and pitches itself into the hole du jour, and grips both levers to control both the action of the scoop and elevation of the boom. He immerses himself so completely in the act of Digging, that the world melts away as completely if he were in a deep state of meditation; which, may, in fact, not be so far from the actuality of the thing. Meditation is about clearing out of the mind of all thoughts but the focus of the meditation; often this is focused on the breath, the Om, but in the case of The Boober, the focus is the ever increasing volume of the hole, and the ever increasing volume of the dirt mound that surrounds it. It is impossible to watch him and not be transported a calm place. He is supremely happy in this place of his own construction, and it is joy incarnate to watch him. Left to follow his heart, he would sit there at his hole until the darkness made it impossible to continue, sleep swept over and consumed him wholly, or Daddy had the ugly task of taking him in for dinner.

The Selfish Cunt

Legs squared and sturdy the squat
Frame and thick neck consume the room
And threaten oblivion to any that stare too long.
With vicious nimble fingers she manipulates and
The machine whines and spits heat;
Heat to dry the sodden mange of a beast
Hardly fit to be called "canin", but in memory
Of the first blood debt he slavers and whimpers
Like the afraid beast he is, and we wait for the selfish cunt to finish.

Happy Birthday to me, I'm 5 years past 33, Happy Birthday dear my-self, Happy Birthday to me. Yes, that's right ... tomorrow (April 27) marks my 38th year in this world, and, my God!, where did it all go? What have I done these past 38 years? I might be able to excuse myself for having no recollection of the first 2 or 3, but what happened to the other 36 or 38? Memory is a terrible thing; you know that you ought to be able to recall more of your life than you can because you know memory works, but try as you might, you can rarely do more than bring forward ghostly fragments of what we should loosely refer to as "history". It is only by the use of aids like photographs, movies, journals, the words of friends that you have any chance of recounting the past to yourself. The question is, though, of what value is too much memory? In a very abstract way you are living memory and the culmination of many histories, but you are only present in the moment. Even when your thoughts wander backward or forward, you have only control over right now, so why squander it on so much cloud searching? Memory informs us of things we have done, seen done, or done to others. It is the imperfect sense history of life as it has been lived by us. Do you remember the first time you read a particular book and how it changed your life? Strange that you can do that - to be able to recall an act as fundamentally passive as reading, or smelling, something in which you were changed, rather than being the agent of change. You cannot always be the actor. Sometimes, through no fault or choice of your own, you become the object of an event. You try to cross the street in front of a bus and get run down by a bicyclist carrying an empty gas can on a busy road. Wow, that would be emberassing if it ever happened to someone ...

I'm not sure how it is possible to judge whether this life has been well lived. I'm not sure it's really important to know whether it has been, or whether living life well is important. I feel, from eatrly years of parochial indoctrination that there is such a thing as a well lived life, but is it true in the way that 2 + 2 = 4 is true? So much hinges on our ability to hum it away. Why deal with those awefully uncomfortable questions when you can turn the music up just a bit louder, stare at the sky just a bit longer, or cram another sour tot into your gub? Self reflection takes time and work, and above all, a sincere desire to undersrand yourself. It has, over the decards, gotten a bad reputation as something only students of philosophy engage in between flipped burgers at fast-food joints. It has become the realm of the nerd, geek or intollerably precious men. Women (whoa there) I think, reflect on it less than men. I have no real data on which to base this statement other than my gut, and my gut has got shit for brains (pop culture reference #1).

This queet meandering is mostly about my feeble and failed attempts to tally 38 years' worth of living and excuse myself of the rather slovenly way I've done it. This is not to say that I've done a poor job of it, but that I think I would have liked to do a better job of it, but why waste time on the past when the future is still wide open?

It is no great revaluation to anybody that most of us strive without quite understanding to what we are striving, and less still, to what end we are striving. Attempting to attach meaning to what we do is the curse to which we are all doomed. Even the most hard put-to individual, so long as he is given his individuality, must sometimes wonder for what purpose they do this, or that. Why rise at a particular time of the morning; why greet a familiar or a stranger in an almost proscribed fashion; why pause and day-dream about where we'd rather be other than where we are; why, at the close of day, ask yourself if you are further ahead, or further behind. We have not lost the ability to be free so much as we have allowed ourselves to be lead on by the vanity of others. We do, from birth, get swept into the flood that drags us ever closer to the precipice, from which we must inevitably fall, never to return. Many of us largely spend our days struggling against the current, hardly managing to keep our heads long enough above water to admire the shore as it rushes past. I do not contend that it is easy, or perhaps even possible, to pull ourselves out of the flood altogether, but there are culverts and protected parts where the current runs less harshly, where we may, for a short time, grab hold of the bows of ancient trees that lean out over the banks, not for us to hold, but to reach out - for that is the destiny of a tree; it is in reaching out that it drops its fruit, which may then seed, take root, and form the next generation which promulgates the moment of individual genesis. Still, even in such a situation, to what end does this generational promulgation lead? In the absence of a greater meaning, all striving must take on local significance. If we view ourselves through the lens of Eternity, local significance could perhaps mean our own lives; the lives of the people who surround us; the lives of our city folk, countryman; those of the world; but from thence where do we aim? Should we be able to reach out past the boundaries of this planet Earth and leave our mark on nearby planets, then what? Our Solar System is but one in millions in our galaxy which is but one in billions in the observed universe. Without an external moral reference, all that we do has only local significance. Time forgets us completely. Time will wipe us from the slate of the past. Why then strive? We strive because without either tacitly or explicitly leaning on local significance, our lives fade to utter insignificance and we either take it away in one quick action, or allow it to fade out like a chalk drawing washed out by consecutive rains.

I don't claim to have full grasp of the reasons for which I wake up in the morning beyond the most obvious. I wake up because I must; I wake up because, while this life is mine, it is precious to me if to no one else. Even in the absence of my children and wife, I would wake up because I am able to do so; I am capable of breathing in fresh air which enervates my nerves; I am able to read a book which stimulates my thinking; I am able to sit in silence and contemplate the way the wind moves the branches of a tree and not wonder at anything but the fact that I can be mesmerized by such an ancient trick. It does not matter that I believe in evolution, or that I understand there are Laws of physics (even if I don't understand them in their particulars). It matters only that I have the capacity for cognition and feeling, and that as long as I am a free man, in some sense at least, that I be. All things are slaves to the natural processes that give rise to them. I am a slave to my basic needs of hunger, consumption, elimination and sleep. I am also slave to more metaphysical needs as contemplation, beauty and problem solving. This brain of mine demands a certain level of attention that I feel compelled to nourish it with, and if I do not tend it loyally, it will rebel and drive me to illness. I have had it happen, and it manifests itself in severe discomfort and irritability. It is the metaphysical bonds which are, in my personal view, the most difficult to satisfy. Hunger and consumption may be dealt with using any number of means so long as the consumables are not poisonous or noxious; sleep may be satisfied at any time in the form of formal sleep, naps, or nodding off during dull meetings. Elimination, if not dealt with summarily, will take care of itself.

I feel that I am thirsty and hungry and will forage (if so feral a term may be used in so pedestrian a context) in the pantry cupboard to find something pleasant to eat.

It is, by the by, a rather dangerous thing to read Thoreau when in a contemplative mood; or perhaps there is no other mood suited for that very thing.