October 21, 2020

The First Part:

Stolen away from the mundane passage of time, 
I was seized by a vision of the world:
Frothing dust, busying itself with itself. 

Cosmos reduced to a gray void.
Time and eternity congealed to flat slate. 

The Second Part: 

From the slate-gray void,
there formed a speck. 
A deeper void within the void. 

The speck was black.
And its name
was desire. 

The Third Part:

Desire was negative,
A selfish locus,
A lonely eddie.

...

There was a fallen sparrow on the side walk on my walk home from the gym this morning.

I think it was a sparrow.

...

I spent my late morning in Bothell, thirty minutes away from home, drinking a small latte at a cafe. I was to meet a man named Ron. I arrived over an hour early and plugged away at pre-algebra lessons online. We first met at a small gas-station-and-diner off of Highway 2 somewhere near Wilbur or Davenport when I rode the bike to Spokane a few weeks back.

I thought we were to meet for coffee. Turns out he owns an office building next to the cafe and he's frugal about his coffee. (You can't get rich and drink a latte on the daily, supposedly.)

We spoke for thirty minutes. I told him my goal: A house in the country, some land, a big vegetable garden, five motorcycles or so, chickens, 2-3 kids, etc. 

And in a long series of words, he told me about his wealth and how he would help me become wealthy. I'm not sure he used the world "wealthy." Rather, he talked about my potential success in vague terms. He says he sees potential in me; and he said something about some wells having more oil than others.

He's quite the salesman. But I'm not sold. 

He gave me a book called Success, written by the editor/publisher of Success Magazine. I skimmed through its platitudes. 

He said two things that I remember and have not been able to successfully purge from my head this late evening before I sleep: 

1. There's a war going on in this country: those who are free individuals and those who want to take that freedom away from us.

2. I never sent my kids to school. I don't believe in what they teach. My son is a successful business owner. 

Point 1: This is a naive American-conservative, or perhaps more accurately, libertarian platitude.

Point 2: If skipping college means becoming infatuated with self-help books with titles like Success, then I am glad I went to school. While I think there's a lot of bullshit in school, I am still convinced that learning the humanities in school can impart a deep sense of value that cannot be found anywhere else. Philosophy, poetry, history, literature, music—these are the deepest foundations of our culture; school is a good place to learn about these.

There are many successful self-made businessmen, but I would bed good money that the best businessmen and the majority of above average businessmen have secondary and post-secondary education. 

I don't see eye to eye with Ron.

...

My voters pamphlet sits beside my computer as I type this. I am looking at it with tired and ambivalent eyes.

...