Dear diary,
What if, instead of each soul owning her own apartment but sharing the same communal restroom, we all lived together in one huge, all-steel building, and each individual had access to her own personal water-closet; so you’d have privacy whenever you want it – you could bathe & admire yourself in the mirror – and these bathrooms would be sizeable: each one would be even bigger than a two-car garage.
The chambers are spotless on the date they are issued; and all, amid even the violentest abuse, remain immaculate.
Now if we say that each private bath is much larger than a mansion, then what is different about this setup from the one that existed before (when each person possessed an independent house, yet all shared one bathroom)? The difference is nature: There’s no nature between us now. When each soul owned a standalone abode, natural growth would thrive between the borders of all homes; but now, we each enjoy our own outsized lavatory within a single encompassing tower: so, when you leave your “throne room”, its front door does not open to a view of rolling hills; no, instead you behold a land of rolling red carpet, & spiraling stairways sided by porcelain railings. The only grass here is astroturf.
But you can still fly in the expanse overhead, with your wing-suit, because the ceiling is vaulted.
And all the birds are robotic, while the insects they eat are organic. But insects are sort of robotic, even when they’re natural; so that’s why they’re allowed to infest our fine world.
Now the question arises: How does one become KNOWN!? And by known I mean famous. For in paradise, everyone’s a writer; and your output is magnificent, but nobody wants to read any of your compositions, because you have no “name recognition”.
Well, what worked for me, in this situation, is purchasing some hallway space: then I etched my name and the titles of all my books there, as a makeshift advert. This increased my readership by tens of thousands.
But the type of readers that I gained just left me sad – even tho I’m now POP & making BIG BANK because my productions are selling, this success is only a mechanical phenomenon; it’s a reaction to the ad that I took out, nothing more: no one’s absorbing my enigmas very deeply; nobody’s wrestling my provocations or contemplating the thots that I unveil. Mobs’re just passively, impatiently skimming my offerings; they remain satisfied with a surface comprehension, as they care solely about being conversant with what is deemed (by all the corporate media) fashionably entertaining. They want only to land a good quip at the next tea party.
[To be clear, by that phrase tea party, I do not mean the current movement in North American politics, but rather a social gathering at which light refreshments are served, whose attendees traditionally discuss the latest bestselling anti-novels.]
But there’s about thirteen people who live outside of our building, and they like my scripture. I can tell they “get it”. On account of this, I declare them to have eyes to see and ears to hear. I approve of this subgroup — they constitute my true fans. Except for one: he’s a mole. He works for my adversary’s campaign. I allow him to believe that he’s duped us, because, as the administrator, I have permission to read all his mail. I like to know what my haters are saying about me.
Yet, perceiving oneself thru the eyes of one’s divinely blessed enemy necessitates the sporting of a thick, manmade skin. The first time a journalist published a negative review of my private diary, I threw a tantrum. This reviewer focused on the parts of my writing that berated her personally. She was a member of my family. I say was—past tense—because those passages in which she served as my subject led her to legally renounce her familial membership. She took up journalism, purchased her own nationally distributed news service, and published an editorial panning my private thots. This was in addition to the aforesaid book review.
One should never dash off an article while still hot with rage. Instead, wait till your feelings have cooled down a bit. If you’re too emotional, you’ll lose your credibility with those who are more scientifically minded. That’s why it was smart for Milton to compose “Lycidas” after having grown dispassionate, not only for his recently drowned companion but for the whole gift of death.
In summary, the main thing to do, if you want to solve the problem of obscurity, which is all-too-common among young artists at present, is to set some money aside for an advertising blitz. HOWEVER, be sure that your marketing approach is right for your product. Say you’re a carpenter and you need to cut a floorboard to the size of one parasang. You don’t just measure the board a single time, in haste, and saw thru it immediately, trusting to that initial measurement; no, you measure & then re-measure. This will correct any error that might’ve crept into your methodology. And, no matter what devices you’re using to facilitate your measurement, give them time to wake up. You can’t just whip them out of bed (that is, out of their toolbox) expecting them to be able to determine faithfully and with any degree of correctness, whether political or otherwise, the simultaneous position and velocity of a subatomic particle. For who sets the value of a parasang? That’s right: the U.S. government. Not Rome; not Sparta. If you take an old coin from an ancient land whose commercial market has failed, and cut your board in accordance with its…
I’m merely trying to say that if your floorboards do not extend to the end of your wall, you’ll have a gaping cavernous gorge or chasm, which a passerby might fall into. Let’s say Lucifer pays you a visit for luncheon, and he sees Jove attempting to murder Moses’ firstborn. He’s going to want to rescue the lad, or at least to substitute a ram or christ, like he did for Abram Lincoln. Then, as he’s dashing north by northwest, right before he’s able to reach the scene of the crime & accomplish his saving act—zounds!—down the rabbit hole he goes: like Milton’s other poem about Hell.
MORAL: it’s hard to justify God’s ways, but you’ve still gotta try. Measure twice, cut once. Make the ad match the product.
Proof text 1
And he said, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him!”
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. (Genesis 22:12-13)
Proof text 2
And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
Then Moses’ wife Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me!” So he let him go: then she said, “A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision!” (Exodus 4:24-26)
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