Nice analysis DMB, The only word I baulk at is the "of our time" idea, a somewhat nostalic view I suspect.
I know Mark picked you up on too easily discounting the value of small talk, but I think we do all recognise the low-value forms of small talk you refer to. Ian On 2/10/07, david buchanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dan and all MOQers: > > I think your essay is a beautiful portrait of alienation. The outpouring of > sympathetic response shows, ironically, that feelings of loneliness and > isolation are something we all have in common. Maybe that goes past irony > and makes it all the way to funny. But seriously, I think the picture you > paint is one that we can all relate to because alienation is the disease of > our time. That word is a bit vague and it has Marxist overtones, but at > bottom its just a feeling of not being at home in this world. Its not just > about being left out of the party or being insulted by the stupidity of TV, > but that's part of it too. Alienation expresses itself a million different > ways, not least of all by the desire to seek an alternative vision of the > world. That's what drew many of us to Pirsig's work and to this forum, no? > It seems to me that Pirsig thinks he's diagnosed the source of the problem > and his MOQ is aimed at making us feel at home in the world instead, as Arlo > has so eloquently and repeatedly explained. > > I think that one of the most destructive features of this sense of > alienation is that we generally blame ourselves, as if there were something > wrong with us personally. But its not a personal problem. Its a metaphysical > problem that we all suffer from on a personal level. Big difference. I mean, > if everybody feels like they're drinking life through a straw, then why do > we each suppose that its only our own life that sucks so hard? Sure, some > folks really are painfully shy or socially clumsy but I think even the most > confident and un-neurotic person in the world feels that way at least > sometimes. I mean, if you're anything like me, certain social situations > make me uncomfortable because it feels like I'm just pretending to be a part > of it. I feel that I must participate in certain events even though they > seem to be completely ridiculous and embarrassing. The company Christmas > party springs to mind. Or how about singing the national anthem at a > baseball game? Never felt so alone as when I was singing a song with tens of > thousands of people. At parties, when I meet somebody who is particularly > suburban and full of plattitudes, I have a kind of out-of-body experience > where my soul leaves for a while until the small talk is over. As a result, > I've never had a conversation about the weather or my job except for the > ones I watched from the ceiling. > > Anyway, nice work. It made me feel a little bit more at home in the world. > It also made me put on a warm pair of socks. > > dmb > > > >From: "Dan Glover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Reply-To: [email protected] > >To: [email protected] > >Subject: [MD] Clouds > >Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:06:20 +0000 > > > >Hello everyone > > > >I've been away spending time in the mountains. Winter caught me a bit off > >guard forcing me to stay longer than was my plan. I brought enough food for > >a week so the snow and ice storm I found myself caught up in didn't much > >concern me. > > > >I holed up by a frozen rocky creek in between a pair of rather large > >boulders that offered some little shelter from the wintery blasts of wind > >coming down over the mountain tops. Kindling a small fire to cook > >dehydrated > >vegetable stew provided me with a bit of warmth. My poncho protected me > >from > >the freezing rain. I feel confined in tents so I don't carry one. I > >stretched a tarp between the boulders with clothesline to get out of the > >weather as best I could. > > > >Snow began falling around the time darkness came. Those mountains are > >normally so quiet that I can hear my own heart beating and with the snow > >now > >covering everything the quiet became enormous. Almost unbearable. There was > >time to think as I sat there deep in the mountains feeding small twigs into > >the fire every few minutes and watching the snow fall hissing into the tiny > >flames. Ah, solitude. > > > >I've never been lucky enough to have many friends. Perhaps it would be > >better to say any. I remember standing in a corner of the school yard > >watching all the other kids play, unable to join in. It's not that I > >dislike > >people. I'm just not much good at small talk and the social graces that > >seem > >to come to others so easily. I find myself time and again sitting alone in > >the middle of crowded rooms. When I move to sit with others they seem to > >get > >up and leave one by one until I find myself sitting alone once more. After > >a > >while I just give up. It doesn't matter. > > > >Alcohol and drugs seemed to help, ages ago. They loosened my inhibitions > >but > >also loosened my anger so gradually all that dropped away. When I began my > >zazen some years ago the drinking got in the way so it stopped one day, I > >don't remember when. Nothing intentional, mind you. It just stopped and I > >could see no reason to begin again. Drugs too. I didn't need them so I put > >them down. The price was clarity. And aloneness. Yet I am never lonely. > >Just > >alone. > > > >I seem to see things others do not. There is very little to connect me with > >the world of people. Words, maybe. One day I feel I will fade away all > >together and that's okay. There's very little here anyway. Very little that > >is actually me. I am a cloud passing on a summer day. When one looks I am > >gone and one wonders if I was ever here at all. > > > >It is cold there in the mountains. Bone chilling cold. So cold one wonders > >if the warmth of summer will ever come again. My food began running low > >while the storm still raged. Wave after wave of freezing rain covered the > >trees until they began giving way under the weight. I could hear the > >branches breaking during the night with loud cracks that startled me from > >fitful sleep. > > > >One night I dreamed my dad was there shaking me by the shoulder trying to > >wake me so I could go to work picking asparagus before school. I've always > >had trouble sleeping and rising early and he grew angry with me, shouting > >my > >name and shaking me ever harder. I woke with a start but only the > >mountains > >were there. I felt so alone. So alone. The dream had been so vivid I > >couldn't reach sleep again that night so I sat and watched the light grow > >slowly to reveal an ice-covered world. > > > >Another night I dreamed I was with a woman. Soft. Tender. It'd been so > >long. > >I didn't know her yet she was familiar. I knew all her lines and just how > >to > >touch her and where to put my mouth so she responded under my carress. When > >I woke I wished she was really there. But, of course... she wasn't. And I > >wondered who she was, if indeed she was at all. I remember how her eyes > >shined and how good she felt. I went to sleep the next night hoping to see > >her again but she failed to return. I woke cold and hungry. > > > >The food was gone by now so I decided that I should begin my trek out of > >those mountains despite the storm. I knew the way. I'd been there so many > >times that the maze like-paths are my only friends. The snow and ice made > >for treacherous traveling and in those mountains a turned ankle can mean > >death. So the going was slow. It didn't matter. I didn't care. I had time > >and I had clarity. And there was no one waiting for me. No one to care. No > >one to worry. > > > >I tightened my belt all I could yet my pants still wouldn't stay up so I > >took the time to make a new hole in the belt with my pocket knife and a > >couple days later another and yet another. I felt lighter and lighter. I'd > >been out of food for days. I made tea from boiled snow and crushed pine > >needles. It was bitter but good. Hunger gnawed at me at first but as the > >days passed it gradually grew quiet as my mind grew ever sharper. I felt > >good. Yet I felt bad. > > > >We are in such danger. Civilization is so precarious. How did all this get > >started. Technology will not save us but it just might destroy us. Perhaps > >it would be better to turn back if only we could. But we can't. Not without > >being fanatics and no one likes a fanatic. I don't worry for myself, mind > >you. I worry for you. I worry for my family. For my loved ones, all. If > >only > >I could save myself I could save the whole world. But I cannot. We are in > >such danger. Terrible danger. > > > >No one seems to see it. They go about their lives as if. As if everything > >will be okay. They don't see. I envy them. I want to live paycheck to > >paycheck and go home after work to plop in front of the tv and eat garbage > >and have a soft warm woman to sleep with. But I can't hold a job and I > >don't > >know how to talk to women. So I drift and dream. And I stay hungry. Always > >hungry. > > > >I don't understand any of it. I haven't worked a real job in thirty years. > >And fast food makes me sick. I can't keep it down. The tv is so stupid that > >I want to be ignorant enough to watch. I want it more than anything. But > >clarity gets in the way. I hate it. Yet I crave it. What does that say > >about > >me? I don't understand. > > > >Even with clarity I find that I don't know much for certain. In fact on > >examination I find I know nothing at all for certain. I believe that I know > >yet when I stare into the darkness of those mountains I realize how it is, > >even though the words to convey what I realize will not come. Maybe there > >are no words. I fill my mind with words but they mean nothing at all. > >Nothing. > > > >It is all a waste, I suspect. Such a magnificent waste. There's nothing to > >believe in. An imaginary God perhaps if it suits one's fancy. Not mine, > >thank you Jesus anyway. And when we return to the crumbled dust from which > >we all sprang perhaps that realization will come to us all. I just don't > >know for certain. That's all I can say. And there's no one to ask. No one > >with answers. It all seems so exaggerated. So absurd. > > > >On the sixth day of walking I saw something red flitting through the icy > >trees. I wondered at it and then I realized I had come to my truck. For a > >moment I considered turning back and returning the way I'd come. It was > >just > >a passing moment. Like life. Like this wonderful world. A cloud passing by > >on a sweet summer day never to return. > > > >Then I got in my truck, drove to a grocery for some fresh fruit, and then > >to > >a motel for a long hot shower and a night in bed. The mountains wait. They > >know I'll be back. Until I am no more. And we will be together again. > >Forever. If there is such a thing. > > > >Thanks for reading, > > > >Dan > > > > > >moq_discuss mailing list > >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > >Archives: > >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > > _________________________________________________________________ > Check out all that glitters with the MSN Entertainment Guide to the Academy > Awards� http://movies.msn.com/movies/oscars2007/?icid=ncoscartagline2 > > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
