MANNA STORMS FROM THE DIVINE

Dear Universe:

Here’s the quote you fed me this morn from my daily “Today’s Inspiration” newsletter:

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell

That said, I should probably make this morning’s letter brief, stop thinking about phones, phenomenology and philosophy, and focus on work. I do not wish to feel a lot of anxiety this morning. It used to be that my flaming thoughts, the flaming creative thoughts, were mostly a joy. Now I see them as:

1) manna storms from the divine
2) manic storms

I get a lot of good thoughts from these manna manic storms. But I feel physically ill. My stomach hurts. I worry about the appropriateness of what I express. Please, let me be appropriate. Is there such a thing as appropriateness, or does the concept stifle? I think sometimes that expression is very important in making the Universe a more humane place to live.

Oh, that I would obsess over art! But I do not feel I have time for art. I feel hurried. I feel that I must chug out a large portion of work and promise for cash flow and karma, respectively.

Dear Universe-God-It-Ess, I need focus. I need only some obsession. Obsession is like focus. But obsession is compelled focus, whereas focus without obsession seems a tad more healthy. Can’t I give myself over to the manna storms sometimes? Aren’t they part of my participation in divinity?

I need to compartmentalize and to be productive in many areas, don’t I? Is the conventional wisdom wise? Why do I feel the need to hurry? Do I need to hurry? I have a list of promises I’ve made. I made one more promise yesterday as well but I’ve got a year to start working on it.

I’m being buried under my own creative compost and good intent.

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I have been thinking about memes and dreams. Memes are the fruits of processes, the underlying history not always obvious. I have been thinking that memes are valuable evaluated on their own. But then the underlying history can help one evaluate the consequence of spreading the meme–the underlying history is encoded in some memes depending on the sophistication of the meme’s exploiters and recyclers. These memes are fruits wrapped in vines. On what lode load rests a meme?

I cannot throw everything out because of tainted history. Even the concept of taint is repugnant to me–it requires conformance to some kind of virgin ideal.

This is the huge problem in human reason right this moment, I think. The fear of slippery slopes. The inability to think through complex things in a sequential order, shuffle it, think through it again, shuffle it, etc. We’ve got to get smarter. We’ve got to stop playing to an assumed “lowest” common denominator. We’ve got to assume that most can rise to a threshold that’s going to get us through our severe biosphere problems.

There’s a ridge one can walk for easy ethics, I think. And then there’s utility in footholds on the sides of the ridge. This is called moderation. Walking the ridge is called fear. Dualism is fear. The two-party dichotomy is fear. Either/Or is fear.

The history of memes, how they’ve been used in the past… is the history enfolded in the meme’s fruit on a quantum level? Does it depend on the mindset of the person eating the fruit? Does it depend on the mindset of community? I think so.

“One has to develop a memory,” I told Smith.

“I just stole mine from the Five & Dime,” he answered.

One also has to develop a dream…

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Dear Universe, thank you for everything, especially the sky and the lawns and the trees and the woods and the raw uncut metaphorical swaths that are left, the metaphorical wilderness that I’ve not yet explored. I’m thinking particularly about country music as a context in which to understand Smith more, as a springboard for another context in which to understand his biography (one of the projects I’m working on now.)

Dear Universe, thank you for my health, my intelligence, my luck, my love.

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