Even the healthiest body knows how to expire: it could decide to die whenever it wants. Its cells have entered an agreement to animate this character; but, if certain terms and conditions are not met, the employees will walk. So maybe having a stroke is like having a strike. I heard that U.S. President Ronald Reagan terminated more than 11,000 fetuses—oops, not fetuses; I meant to say federal air traffic controllers—when they did not to show up for work. A body can be in conflict with other bodies while that same body’s inward parts are at strife with themselves.
And also the most horrific aromas are easily “translated” by your body: it already knows how it will represent, for instance, the scent of a rotting corpse; you just have to sniff one in order to activate this knowledge. We come preinstalled with a variety of potential agonies.
Those who are lowminded have been winning the game of society for some time now: On this day, they have at last officially won. What happened today, which makes me declare that the lowminded are the champions of our society? Nothing, really; it just felt like the right time to say it. Maybe I shouldn’t have locked it to a date…
Yes, I think it’s better to announce that the opponents of everything lowminded forfeit retroactively—this way, the victory can occur on the very first day of the battle: 4004 B.C.
I was thinking about how the most intelligent kids are ridiculed by their classmates in school. This is not good: this is part of the triumph of the lowminded. And I want to stress that lowmindedness is a choice that one makes, so it is able to be remedied. Feel free, therefore, ye lowminded multitudes, to join, at any time, the losing team. We will accept you with no questions asked: we will make you a cardholding affiliate of the Happy Few. (Note that I do not call my posse highminded. For there is none highminded but one: that is, God—and God is dead; did you not get my message?)
Before I lose control of this entry and spend the rest of it chasing insignificant details, I want to stop and list two things that I hate.
- I hate that this day was spoilt by my autumn allergies.
- I hate that not enough infants are christened Ethelbert.
I took the date 4004 B.C. from an appendix that I found in the back of my King James Bible: it has a long timeline displaying important scriptural events, and the very first event is labeled “Adam created”: I thought this would be a good starting point for the war on poetry.
In order to maximize its potential suggestiveness, the cited phrase is left vague: each reader is thus encouraged to flesh out its meaning; it can be interpreted as asserting that “Adam [was] created,” or that “Adam created [himself],” or even that “Adam created [God].” Most truly it signifies all of the above, as the statements are synonymous.
Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth. For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. (Gen. 4:25)
So Seth is the third son born to Adam and Eve (here is a tic that I have developed: every time I try to type “Eve,” I add a terminal “n” so it comes out “Even,” and then I have to correct it—also, and this is not a joke, I am unable to type the word “Dad” without first typing “Dada”), unless they had other sons and daughters whose numbers remain unlisted in the big yellow book.
I used the word numbers instead of names just now, because the content of my statement reminded me of the olden days when the telephone directory, which was vast in magnitude and possessed a gold-plated cover, held the telephone numbers for all of humankind; albeit, extremely affluent people could bribe the directory’s chief to blot their name from out of the Book of Life, thus allowing them to remain unlisted—this way, they would not be required to return to Heaven after serving their time in Hell (that is, on Earth); instead, they could wander amidst the glorious tumult and disarray that buffers the worlds, as Satan does in Book II of Paradise Lost.
Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep, a dark
Illimitable Ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal Anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.
[…]
Into this wild Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixt
Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look’d a while,
Pondering his voyage…
I began composing the paragraph that directly precedes the above quotations, with the goal of marveling that the Bible attributes to Adam such an old age at the advent of his third son (Genesis claims that he had advanced more than sixscore years before the birth of Seth, whose mother’s age of course is undisclosed); but then I got sidetracked speaking of Satan’s adventure. Let me quote a passage (5:5) that presents us with an even shapelier figure:
All the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
I just wanted to point out that that is a long time to suffer. I wonder if Adam was actually one of the Cat People. This thought struck me, because cats are said to have nine lives; which duration, in human terms, equals Adam’s lifespan exactly. Now brace yourself, dear diary, while I cite one last brief pair of quotes from Genesis (1:26-27 and 5:3) solely for the purpose of noting their similar wording:
God said, Let us make a man in our image, after our likeness… So God created Adam…
And Adam begat a man in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth…
Here we have God creating Adam, and then Adam begetting Seth. Seth possesses the likeness and image of Adam; Adam possesses the likeness and image of God. I enjoy musing about this idea: God makes art that makes art. Anyone can paint a painting; but it takes a special kind of painter to paint a painting that paints additional paintings. It’s wrong to say that humans are sorely different from their creator: according to the Bible, we’re practically identical to the LORD. And it really gets hot when one asks: “If each human is the clone of God’s own likeness, then what in the world cloned God after its own likeness?” Of course the answer is: humans invented God; for God is a character lifted from our poetic tale. So we’re left with a painter painting a painting that’s painting the painter who paints it. Art dealers often fret about whether a piece is “genuine” or “fake.” Regarding God and humans, the copy actually authored its original.
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