Moody morningthots

Dearest,

I am currently in a ship on the ocean, sailing to Ancient Europe. Onboard we have wheels of cheese, dried beef, enormous containers of whipped cream, chocolate, bananas, textiles, grains, ultrasound systems, and defibrillators. Everyone is seasick except for me; thus, all the other passengers have retired to their cabins. The orchestra left, as well. The only sound that one can hear is the water slapping against the sides of the vessel. Now all I can do is sit here in the empty ballroom and write to you in my diary.

It’s tough. Why continue to commit my thoughts to paper? I don’t believe anyone will ever read any of this. When I say I’m writing “to you,” I don’t know who you are, I doubt you will exist, I fear that you will be kicked out of paradise, and that a fox will chase you and bite you and then sell you to a grandmother who will throw you down a well.

Why did we ever form nations? Because it’s better to cooperate: Why live as so many single beings in the wilderness – each gal her own island – when we could pool our resources and help each other out? 

Then eventually we realized that it was easier to allow judges to govern us. And, in no time, we wanted a king: so he replaced the judges. And then we got rid of the king, and now we have some other type of system, which we’re all dazed about.

Yes, now we have the worst parts of being totally on one’s own in the wilderness, together with the worst parts of having the most oppressive dictatorship.

This is what happens when you try to change things for the better. Of course I don’t want things truly to get worse, but, since it seems that the system takes a nosedive when we try to steer it heavenwards, I suggest that maybe we should just attempt to make it fail, on purpose – then, who knows: maybe it’ll end up better than ever.

I really don’t believe in writing today. It seems like the stupidest path that one could choose.

Think about this: Yahweh God had a word for death before death existed. He fashioned Man out of earth, then he said: “Eat from these trees over here, but not that one right there, or you will die.” Yet, at this moment when he said this, nothing had ever died yet. It’s hard to convey how absurd this is. You must imagine a word (or rather just a sound or noise) that you’ve never heard before, whose meaning has not been established, and then imagine God standing before you and motioning insistently while speaking this nonsensical term. Man could only have inferred that God meant business, by the tone of voice that he was using.

And whosoever the unknown people of this unknown world may be / . . . it will still be a gesture of the old world I am making / which they will not understand, because it is quite, quite foreign to them.

—from “New Heaven and Earth” by D.H. Lawrence

And it’s all just about power, after all. We thought that it was about mathematics, and that we could justify our stance by demonstrating how we arrived at our answer. But our opponents simply pulled out heavy weapons.

Why is love invincible? Why is the king always offering his daughter for a prize? Why can’t Solomon and the Shulamite just enjoy their respective solitude?

Try skipping a meal: you’ll find it exciting to learn that hunger no longer has any sway over you.

A lot of dirty deeds are done dirt cheap. People commit crimes to support their families. Some even find careers in churches.

You look out into the world, and you see what people need; then you work to supply those needs, and you charge a fee for your goods or services.

A man said: “I think that people would like to ride on a Ferris Wheel.” And then he built a Ferris Wheel. (Imagine designing, producing, and assembling “a giant vertical revolving circle with passenger cars suspended from its outer edge.” This is something that someone once did.)

Look at your suburban lawn’s irrigation system: Why did you replace all its sprinklers with flamethrowers? What were you hoping to accomplish?

I’m out of time now. I’ll leave you with this scene that I admire, from the Brothers Grimm tale called “Gambling Hansel”:

. . . our Lord told Gambling Hansel that he might beg three favors. The Lord expected that he would ask to go to Heaven; but Gambling Hansel asked for a pack of cards with which he could win everything, for dice with which he would win everything, and for a tree whereon every kind of fruit would grow, and from which no one who had climbed up, could descend until he bade him do so. The Lord gave him all that he had asked, and departed with St. Peter.

And now Gambling Hansel at once set about gambling in real earnest, and before long he had gained half the world. Upon this, St. Peter said to the Lord: “Lord, this thing must not go on; at last he will win the whole world. We must send Death to him.” And they sent Death to him. When Death appeared, Gambling Hansel had just seated himself at the gaming-table, and Death said: “Hansel, come out a while.” But Gambling Hansel said: “Just wait a little until the game is done, and in the meantime get up into that tree out there, and gather a little fruit that we may have something to munch on our way.” Thereupon Death climbed up, but when he wanted to come down again, he could not, and Gambling Hansel left him up there for seven years, during which time no one died.