Friday, February 22, 2013

Revelation Blues

What happens when you learn something about yourself?  Is discovery always supposed to be worth celebrating?  Or is it possible that sometimes, what you learn could make everything else that already exists, more complicated.  
What if what you have learned is an inconvenient revelation?
What if what you've learned doesn't actually go with your existing life?   Like learning that the fresh fruit you've been feeding your children since they were wee, is actually a genetically modified organism laden with pesticides and chlorine and the risks of mass consumption of those "strawberries" outweigh the benefits.  
I know, I know, buy organic.
 
But that's not really what I'm talking about.

Is it a violation of your own conscience to ignore your newfound knowledge?

Of course.

So what if your epiphany is worse than strawberries?

What if you have to continue to live your external life unchanged despite the change within?
What happens to the soul when it has learned that it can sing again, it has remembered how to sing, but it's not supposed to sing.  It's supposed to stay hushed and not make a sound.
What happens to the soul then?


Slowly I Turn

One might say the first press of any finger on any given key, is the hardest.

Like the first penguin on the edge of an ice flow, despite the others in the waddle, huddling close, none will make that first plunge into the Leopard Seal - Killer Whale, infested waters until absolutely necessary.
Until it is no longer possible to be any closer to the edge of the ice - then one falls...or...dives.  So that's the question, is it the bravest penguin who makes a decision of conscience to be the first to take that leap, or is it a matter of dumb, cowardly-laden luck that he happened to be the one who got pushed in first?
So the first word, is it brave or just lucky?
Could it be a bad decision to begin to "publish" again (I love, publish), like using one's finger to rub one's eye, forgetting that the previous task that finger was engaged in was slicing a fresh lemon?  Ouch.
Or, is it a necessary evil, one that the perhaps great, certainly prolific, Stephen King suggests:
Just Write.
Doesn't matter what it is, just put words down, and eventually the words will get better.
Ha.  So says a great American writer.
Be bold, take the teachings of a former professor who said:  Simply sit down and open up a vein.
So therein lies the risk.  To bleed upon the page, or at least upon the laptop.
The question being, what do my veins hold?