The Last Politician

So I did not win the Nine Dots Prize which is a bit of a bummer. On the other hand, I thought the piece I wrote warrants me sharing. So... it is titled:

The Last Politician

Excuse me. Is this seat taken? No? Good. Do you mind? I’m a bit tired,
and all the other benches seem occupied. Sometimes I walk farther than
I intend. You could say I forget my age. What a truly gorgeous day it
is, eh? What’s that? The election didn’t turn out your way? I suppose
you have quite a lot of company in that regard, my friend. But for me,
I’m pretty much apolitical. Sure, I keep up with the news. And of
course, I voted. Well, for who doesn’t matter so much as for what.
Wouldn’t you agree?

Yes, digital technologies are changing the political landscape but
making politics impossible? I tend to disagree with that assessment.
Well, it’s only my opinion, of course, but I would hazard to say that
this interconnectivity we foster with one another via social media and
wrought by the rise of digital technology is certainly cutting out the
political middle people. Oh, you know, those charged with telling us
who to vote for and why we should.

Yes, the journalists are prime suspects. Oh, you disagree. I
understand. It’s easy to see why. We’re inculcated with the notion of
fair and impartial reporting. But I think if you closely examine this
past election you’ll perhaps start seeing telltale cracks in that
façade. Honestly, I didn’t notice it myself. At least not in the
beginning. I have my preferred newspaper that I read each morning.
Yes, online. No more hunting in the bushes for this old man.

Now I don’t know about you, but I have certain columnists I favor. I
don’t take what they say as gospel, but on the other hand, they seem
well-informed and so yes I base many of my opinions on what they tell
me. At least partially. I do play one against the other at times just
to perhaps winnow my way in between prevailing sentiments. Maybe
that’s why I consider myself apolitical. On the other hand, is there
such a beast?

Sure I have a smartphone. Ah. I’ve heard that argument, yes. We’re all
too connected to the extent we’re disconnected. So that’s the cause of
your discontent. I’d beg to differ. Oh, I see them too. Even here in
the park. Everyone is so busy staring at their phones they’re
oblivious to those people sitting right beside them. I notice that
just about everywhere I go. I nearly got run down by an errant mother
fixated on her screen as she navigated the crowded aisles at Trader
Joe’s. Luck was with me that day, let me tell you.

No, I haven’t seen that show. I never watch television. Why? I learned
long ago what a great eater of time that occupation can be. Sure.
Social media can be quite draining in the same way but you have to
admit at least there’s a sort of interactiveness to it that isn’t so
with television. Well, I write. That’s why I gave it up. I discovered
much to my consternation that if I had a television, the first thing I
would do would be to turn it on.

I doubt you’ve ever read anything of mine but thank you for asking.
Novels, mostly. Articles for online journals, though most of those get
rejected. I like to think because a good deal of my thinking is
outlier compared to your common scribbler, but it could well be that
I’m simply not much good. Yes, there’s no accounting for tastes. Plus
we all perceive reality through the lens of our personal histories. I
mean to say we seek out that which we know rather than that which is
outside the format. Even highly intelligent people, sure.

A for instance? I have a little time yet. You? Yes, it’s good not
being chained to that infernal clock. Too many people are. Have you
ever seen a green sun? No? Nor me. At least until I read an article
about how often times people close to the water sometimes make note of
it. No, really. A green sun.

So I happened to be visiting family on the Atlantic coast. I spent a
week not doing anything in particular. Oh yes, I enjoyed myself
immensely. Since I’d never been there, they were gracious enough to
show me around. Sure, we took in the beach. Well, that afternoon I
glanced up at the sky, and there it was. A big green sun hovering
right overhead. Sort of like a go light, yes, but not exactly.

Did anyone else see it? Truthfully, I felt so nonplused I didn’t
bother asking. Would it make a difference if they had? Ah, the myth of
objectivity. Repeatability. A scientifically falsifiable hypothesis. I
understand completely. But still, I’d have to counter that even if
they had seen a green sun like me, or hadn’t, whatever the case might
have been, we’d still have to fall back upon personal history and ask
if they’d ever heard about a green sun or not.

Well, pardon me, but it seems to have quite a lot to do with your
assertion. Yes, about digital technologies making politics impossible.
How? We are ruled by objectivity. Personal history should have nothing
to do with what it is we perceive. But you have to admit, it does. Oh,
you still object. No, that’s completely understandable. I have failed
to properly state my case.

That stop sign on the corner. Good, you see it too. What does it mean?
To stop? Of course, it does. No argument here. Common sense, you say?
Well, let’s imagine between the two of us we rudely wrestle that sign
out of the ground, convey it down to South America by convenient
means, and hire an amenable soul to plant it in the middle of the
Brazilian rainforest. What would those natives think that stop sign
means?

Why, yes, I too doubt they’d know a thing about it. Why is that?
Exactly. Our culture informs us what stop signs mean just as it tells
us that the sun is yellow, not green, as well as how the reality we
perceive is entirely objective—how anything subjective is
automatically suspect. In other words, our personal histories have
little or nothing to do with how we see the world.

You still don’t understand. Forgive me, please. I’m an old man prone
to conjecture, and I can see I haven’t stated my case with enough
lucidity. Entirely my fault, believe me. According to the myth of
objectivity, when we consider things like digital technologies, we
tend to think of them as something apart and separate from us as human
beings. Would you agree? Good. Now perhaps we’re making a bit of
progress despite this heavy headwind.

How about politics? Ah. So politics is a part of the human equation.
Sure. Politics is something we do. So what we have is a sort of war
brewing between them and us. Why, digital technology is the enemy,
right? No? You think you were mistaken? How so? Digital technology is
part of the human equation too? Oh no. That’s quite all right. I in
fact agree. But tell me, is there anything you can think of that isn’t
part of the human equation?

Oh, I know it’s a rather tricky question. Me? Well, I speculate there
is nothing whatsoever outside the domain of human experience. So what
does that do to objectivity? Why, I suppose if you consider it with
care, my hypothesis shatters that myth. Oh, you thought of something?
The fossil record? But aren’t the fossils we dig out of the ground
like that stop sign? How so? Fossils exist as things in themselves?

You do know that for the longest time, people believed fossils were
the bones of dragons. Oh yes. Not millions of years old at all. In
fact, there are people alive today who insist dinosaurs and humans
were contemporaries living only a few thousand years ago. Well, the
fact how their beliefs do not conform to ours has little to do with
the matters we are explicating here.

Why, the dominance of cultural mores. How new ideas come along and
upset the applecart. Ah, you’re starting to understand. I knew you
would. I’m inexplicably drawn to intelligent people, you know.
Speaking of stop signs, was there any need of them before the advent
of the automobile? Of course not. Horse-drawn buggies didn’t travel in
a manner that warranted stop signs.

Well, the same thing is happening today. A new technology is changing
our culture in unpredictable ways. Let’s imagine we two are partners
in the buggy business back around the turn of the 20th century. Things
are going exceedingly well for us. We prosper, in other words. But
then one day this newfangled contraption appears on the streets. Yes,
an automobile.

Oh, it means nothing. A fad, certainly. Just wait a few years, and
you’ll see. Gasoline? Where on earth will they get gasoline? All a
horse requires is grass. But then, we notice how some of our coveted
buggy customers begin showing up behind the wheel of a Model T. Oh,
just a few at first, to be sure. And losing that contract with the
Army to supply buggies, well, sure, it hurts, but we’ll manage.

What? You think we ought to forsake the buggy business and begin
selling automobiles? Are you insane? Those things are making our buggy
business impossible.

Good. So you do see the similarities. Ideas can at times kill
culturally entrenched organizations. In that sense, I agree with you
how digital technologies really are making politics impossible just
like the introduction of the automobile made the buggy business
impossible. Oh, I’m equivocating? How so? Apples and oranges? Sure, I
can appreciate that even though I believe I am using apt metaphors.

The answer is evolution. No, not exactly Darwinian, but rather
cultural. The same? Yes, that’s the common sense point of view, I
agree. Let me ask you this: can you see an idea? No? How about a
society? Really? A society is simply a group of people? Sure. That’s
why it is commonly believed that a society evolves in Darwinian
fashion just like animals evolve over the course of eons.

What becomes of society when the people die who make it up? Others
take their place? Of course. So what we’re talking about is more a set
of rules handed down through the generations than strictly people.
Yes, the people follow the rules but in effect, they do not make up
society. The rules do. Otherwise, society would die with the people.

Yes, I know it’s a bit unconventional. Now perhaps you can understand
better why my articles are often rejected when I submit them to online
publishers. Oh, just because they are working in the digital
technology field doesn’t mean those publishers are cutting edge. To
the contrary. They are for the most part an extension of the
deep-rooted culture prevalent for a hundred years or more.

Exactly. That’s why I claimed journalism is part of the political
middle that is being usurped by the rise of digital technology. By
using social media, politicians are discovering they can connect
directly with the voters they require to be elected. Yes, some are
more adept than others. Good point. Celebrities? I’d agree they have a
leg up. But then again, politicians have always been celebrities.

Well, yes, even before the dawn of digital technologies. Think John
Kennedy and his televised debates with Richard Nixon. Franklin
Roosevelt and his fireside chats via radio. Those men understood the
power of celebrity in a visceral fashion and exploited the media
available to them during their reign of power. Plus, they knew they
needed journalism to further their ambitions.

Now, though, with the introduction of digital technologies and the
social media that goes along with it, that interaction is no longer as
one-sided. The notion of journalism as political interlocutor is being
subsumed by a more direct connection between the politician and the
citizen and of course the journalists don’t like it. Oh yes, the same
thing occurred in our little buggy business. Thank you. You are too
kind.

But let’s consider this aside for a moment: though they are sometimes
thought of as such, journalists and journalism are not synonymous
terms. The one refers to people while the other references the rules.
Yes, just like what we discussed concerning people and society. For
that matter, politicians and politics fall into that same type of
divide.

Well, think about it. Yes, I’m aware they call it politicking but that
in no way obviates the distinction. Because politicking refers to the
rules, not the person. A politician politics? Well, yes, but doesn’t
that substantiate my point rather than yours? You’re right. Things do
tend to get confusing on this level. But look at it this way: the
politician comes and goes while politics remains much the same.
Politicians are actors in a play that repeats ad infinitum. Now, new
scenes being introduced by the rise of digital technologies are
affecting not only politics but a host of ancillary professions.

Relativism? No, I can’t say I am a proponent. Well, because the term
relativism is difficult to define, for one. Also, most forms of
relativism suffer from various weaknesses that render the philosophies
behind them untenable. Examples? All is relative tends to negate
relativism itself. But yes. I have touched upon cultural relativism to
some degree.

The stop sign analogy, sure. I can understand how that might lead you
to believe I’m an advocate of relativism. However, I think if you
investigate this avenue you’ll soon discover limits arising from the
outside-in research tendency modern anthropology tends to adapt.

Objective scientific studies, yes, exactly. Students of anthropology
are taught to study peoples as independent objects as if interacting
with foreign cultures will somehow subjectively skew the results. Yes,
I agree. The only way to learn about another culture is to become
immersed within it, not surreptitiously peeping into their windows.
However, those researchers who do dip their toes into foreign cultures
are often considered to have gone native and thereby lose any
scientific standing they might once have held.

Universal absolutes? Actually, yes, I do believe there are tendencies
common in all societies. Perhaps we can touch upon that in a moment.
Well, in that regard, instead of studying the individuals, it might
behoove researchers to study societal networks. You are correct. To do
that requires giving up the myth of objectivity. In fact, I think if
you look into the digital revolution you’ll discover this is exactly
what is occurring within society. And this more than anything disturbs
the political status quo.

Your politician is going out of style, becoming an anachronism. Okay,
our politician. No, not any certain person I can name, but rather the
actor. Oh, there will be some last fitful gasps, certainly. And
remember, we are merely in the early stages of this revolution. No, I
do not believe recent elections are indicative of these changes that
are being wrought by digital technologies. Rather, I think they are
reactions of a dying culture.

The culture of the politician, of course, but no, not politics.
Remember, we’ve differentiated between the two. So in effect, digital
technologies are making politicians impossible. We’ve brushed up
against that theory already. The commonality of certain tendencies in
all cultures.

In a word, art. Well, yes, painting portraits is a part of art. But
the term itself issues from much deeper far more ancient recesses that
include caring and excellence. Artful pursuit unites the sciences,
religion, and animism. Yes, politics too. But not politicians, at
least not as we currently understand that pandering sort of activity.
And that is precisely why politicians are destined to extinction.

They can’t compete in the interconnected world that we are building,
that’s why. And so yes, it is easy to rail against digital
technologies and make claims that politics are becoming impossible.
But as I said, it isn’t politics so much as politicians that are
becoming useless. You see the distinction better now, I trust. Good.

Politics will evolve. That’s hard to say. Prognostication isn’t my
strong suit. But I think not in the survival of the fittest fashion
that Darwin postulated. No, that was regarding biological organisms,
not societal networks. Rather, ideas will propel politics into
unforeseen arenas. Yes, I too thought the automobile analogy was
particularly apt to this situation we’re facing today.

Politicians and car salespeople are kissing cousins. They both tend to
make unsustainable claims while appearing to be that which they are
not. There is a reason many people don’t trust them. Right. They have
their own agendas which are in no way geared toward art. Oh, but you
misunderstand me. They can still be good at what they do. But the
fundamental bedrock of caring is lacking, the excellence. That’s what
separates artists from racketeers.

Harsh? Yes, perhaps I am. That’s why I began this discussion by saying
it isn’t so much who one votes for, but for what. Well, I suppose I
would posit artful engagement as a start. Oh, you flatter me. Thank
you. I too enjoy sharing high-level ideas, and it is, I must say,
unusual for me to encounter, at least in person, an individual as
perceptive as you.

I admit in the beginning I thought social media might bring more
people of our ilk together though so far I am sadly mistaken. Oh,
don’t get me wrong. I’ve met some wonderful folk online. However,
there is also a general underlying meanness. You’ve noticed that too.
So it isn’t just me.

Yes, I come to this park nearly every day. A man my age needs his
exercise, or so my doctor tells me. Well, let’s put it this way: you
could be my granddaughter. But yes, perhaps we might have the occasion
to speak again.

So... You're the Writer...

Yes, I am. A friend, who I'll call Fred, dropped by just the other day to introduce me to his girlfriend Mary. He talks about the woman all the time and I can see why. She's beautiful, smart, and engaging. After our introductions, she said to me, so... you're the writer...
After I acknowledged that, yes I was, she proceeded to tell me about one of my books she'd read a while back. I have a habit of ordering up a batch now and again, keeping them in the car, and handing them out to people I know and like. I'd given a copy of Apache Nation to Fred last year. Whether he read it or not, I have no idea. I never ask.
Apache Nation is one of my few books that might be considered family friendly fare as it has no fucks or shits or goddamns in it. Well, maybe one or two—and only when the narrator is under extreme duress—but who's counting? Right?
So, as I was saying... she says... so... you're the writer. Tell me... do you really walk into those mountains of southern New Mexico like you say you do in your book? I never know how to answer that question. Yes, I do. Oh... well then, I'm planning on my next vacation to go to New Mexico and do the same thing. No, I don't. So what you're saying is: basically your book is just a pack of lies?
Now, if she read the book, she would've seen right off that it is marked as a work of fiction. I make no bones about that. I write fiction. In other words, I make stuff up all the time. I even catch myself doing it in normal everyday conversations. Why? Because it's a better story, and that's what writing is all about.
But then again, I have in the past really wandered into those desolate mountain... walked the trails that I write about in Apache Nation. Would I recommend doing so to others? No. It is too far dangerous for the uninitiated to attempt such a feat. They'd die, probably after enduring horrid days or even weeks trapped in some of the most inaccessible territory in the world.
That I survived is a fluke, sort of like my writing. Though I started with the craft at a young age, I came back to it late. I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it. I wrote a word, looked at it, and then wrote another... just as upon entering those mountains I took a step, looked around, and then took another.
I don’t go into those mountains on a lark, as if I am taking a vacation. My writing is the same. I obsess over it. People tell me, Dan... take a day off. Maybe two. Hell, take a week. That way you'll come back to it fresh. But writing isn’t work to me. It's fun. I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing. So why should I stop doing it just because someone tells me I should?
That's the reason I never let anyone know I'm going to the mountains. They'll advise me not to do it. Go to a resort, Dan... yeah... take a trip to Las Vegas. Gamble a little. Stay up late. Hit the whorehouses. You know, like every other red-blooded male does. Yet I can think of nowhere I'd rather go when I go than to those mountains.
So... you're the writer. Yes, I am. And there is a reason for that. I write. Obsessively. While everyone else is plunked down on the sofa stuffing their gullets with chips and popcorn and guzzling beer in front of the flickering television screen watching all the latest sit-coms or rom-coms or sports shows or Hallmark movies, I'm writing. I get lost in that shit. I'll sit down at 10pm, look up a moment later, and it's 3am. Huh? When did all that happen?
And sure... all my lies are laced with the truth. I suppose that's as good a way of putting as any I can think of. I never write about my own experiences and yet that is all I write about. What else is there? Still, I label it fiction. Maybe I want to fool the reader into believing no one can be as stupid as I am and yet live. Or perhaps I like to show off. Who knows. Either way, it is fiction.
I write to amuse the reader... that one reader who gets me. I'm sorta like that guy on the stage singing his heart out while staring right into the alabaster eyes of the prettiest girl in the house. I do it for her... I do it for him... I do it for that one reader who picks up my book and is enthralled by the words contained therein. Today, it's Mary. Tomorrow, someone else might discover these words. And like that singer upon the stage, I crave applause. But I never ask for it.
Yep. I'm the writer.

Big Shot

Hello, and thank you for all the kind responses I received from Stepping. This is another story from the collection entitled Streets, available for pre-order here.

Big Shot

A cold wind blows in off the Pacific and the sun hasn’t shined all day. I wake up itchy in the dunes not at all sure how I got here though I seem to remember riding in the back of a rusty van drinking cheap booze with the members of a hair band who are traveling north to do a gig. At least my ass doesn’t hurt so I'm pretty certain they weren’t queers.
I wonder what time it is, not that any of that matters. From the waning daylight I judge I must have slept the day away here. Maybe it's morning but no... the light is dying, a lot like me. I'm prone to binges these days so it's entirely possible I've been here for a night and a day or maybe even longer. Once I get started drinking I don’t like to stop.
My lips are dry and as coarse as sandpaper. When I moisten them with my tongue I taste the salt congealing upon them from the fine mist blowing over me. I shiver involuntarily as I stand up and the westerly wind hits me full force. Apparently I must have stumbled into a little grotto last night which protects me from the chilly sea breeze blowing incessantly. I notice all the trees are bent to the east from its force.
I try to remember what I'm doing here but between my head aching and my needing a drink it doesn’t seem worthwhile to worry about it too much. I'm here. I thought I'd be in Mexico though what I was doing there escapes me just now as well. I suppose I must have overstayed my welcome. That's become a routine of mine lately and one I'm not proud of but a habit I own nonetheless.
I have no jacket and my clothes are damp from the ocean fog. One doesn’t require accouterments as coats and such in the land of Mexico. In fact, not much is required of a man at all in that laid-back country though its citizens are working little mother fuckers to be sure. Me, I like work too but I'd rather watch it than to actually perform it.
The senoritas are fine and the tequila is cheap but the drug dealers are completely out of hand what with cutting off heads and blowing up tourists. Used to be Mexico was all about siestas and fiestas and having a fine time but these days us gringos are all too often seen as unnecessary evils in the land of the good... or is that the other way around? My mind doesn’t seem to model reality into a sensible equation as it once did. I tend to get things all turned around ass backwards and can never seem to set them right again.
Maybe that's my problem. Four wives—or has it been five now?—and eight or nine bambinos later, here I am all alone again wandering the wasteland like a wooly mammoth, a vagrant, like the kid I was forty years ago. It isn’t that I feel much different than I did back then. Of course the senoritas were easier to pick up and the jobs more plentiful and the liquor a lot quicker. All that's changed now... and then there's the goddamned mirror.
Mirrors don’t lie. Sometimes I wish they would... damn, even if they just sort of fudged the truth a little it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It's hell waking up to this grizzled old mug of mine day after day. In fact sometimes it's downright scary.
I see buildings not too distant from where I stand. It's probably a town, at least I hope so. These days there are clumps of houses sprouting up everywhere. The problem is that when a tramp like me shows up at their door, I'm likely as not told to hit the road and not to return lest they call the police. I suppose I am more than a little frightening. Towns are better. A bum like me can be more anonymous there.
My luck is good today. A sign on the outskirts proclaims I am about to enter Little River. I wonder what state I've landed in, or what country for that matter... it seems like there ought to be a law that signage should specify not only the name of the town but also the state and the country. I guess most folk take it for granted that everyone knows things like that, but I don't.
Walking past the single story brick post office in town I see another sign that tells me I am in the great state of California. Somehow I always thought California would be warmer. I've begun to shiver uncontrollably but I'm unsure if it's from the cold, from the alcohol withdrawal, or both. I decide both are the most likely answers. Luckily the streets are deserted. I wonder if some grand calamity has descended upon Little River leaving me the only swinging dick left alive but I'm certain my luck isn’t that good.
There's a neon red and blue Goodwill box sitting on the corner of the post office parking lot and since no one is around I dive inside through the trap door to find myself something warm to wear... a sweater, a couple more shirts... anything that might provide a bit of warmth. Here it is the middle of summer and you'd think I was in Gnome. But then again I could be wrong about the season. Time has a habit of moving past me way too quickly these days. It could well be winter for all I know. It would explain a lot.
I wish they had Goodwill boxes for unwanted liquor too. I need a drink worse than I care to admit. My hands are shaking and my eyes are starting to cross the way they do when the tremors start. There are no clothes my size... everything is too small. I feel like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians as I finally discover an old blanket and hauling both it and myself out I wrap it around me like an old squaw woman might. The damned thing's probably tainted with smallpox or the plague but I figure I gotta die of something and it might as well be that as anything.
My stomach is hollering at me the way it does when I haven’t eaten for a week. Food always deadens my buzz so when I'm drinking I shy away from it. I'm certain if I had a little booze to swill I'd feel a lot better but I don’t and as far as I can tell I'm not going to acquire any in the near future. Food is easier. There's always something to eat in the garbage.
Stopping by the Dumpster out back of the SevenEleven next to the post office yields a cache of pizza bones, though I have to pry them away from the stray cats that got there first. Most of my molars are broken off but I can still gum them long enough to soften up the crust as so I can swallow it. A drink to wash them down would be in order but sadly my pockets are as empty as the promise of tomorrow,
A squad car rolls by, going slow and two sets of eyes looking my way. That's all I need... to be busted for stealing a moth-eaten blanket from a Goodwill box and scrounging pizza out of the garbage. The hills have eyes and some of them fuckers probably saw me climbing into that box or out of that Dumpster and called it in. Jesus Christ... you'd think people would have better things to do than watch out for hobos stealing blankets and pizza bones.
I keep my head down, drop the pizza, and start walking. I figure as long as it looks like I'm going somewhere and I don’t have any evidence on me maybe the bastards will leave me be. Of course I probably seem a tad out of place what with a pink blanket wrapped around me and looking a tad too much like old Charlie Manson. The squad matches my speed staying just behind me. Yeah... I'm in for it. I watch out of the corner of my eye as it pulls up next to me and the lights come on the same time the passenger window rolls down.
"Hey, fella... what'cha doing out here?"
I look up for the first time. The voice is female but she looks like a dude... close-cropped ginger hair, surly attitude, just a hint of a moustache... all the attributes of a true police officer protecting and serving the populous. I figure I ought to answer her though it takes me a few seconds to summon my voice. Apparently I haven’t spoken for some time as my throat is sore and dry and goddamn but I need a drink.
"Just passing through, officer... ain't causing any trouble."
It sounds suspiciously like a croak. Did I say passing or pissing? Can't be sure now. I clear my throat and think about trying again but then decide better of it. Enunciation has never been my strong suit and the more I drink the bigger my tongue seems to grow and the goddamned thing tends to get wrapped around what few teeth I have left leaving me to sound like a bumbling idiot. Did I mention it's hell growing old?
The car stops and the doors both open at once. That's never a good sign. Her partner is a big galoot and she looks more like a dude than he does. I think of Selma and Louise but I am confused as to which one is which. Maybe they take turns. They both are wearing black body armor, night sticks, and enormous guns on their hips. They look way too serious.
"Just hold up there a minute, partner... we need to ask you a few questions."
They saunter my way with that practiced swagger they must teach special at the academy. Or maybe it's a prerequisite for being a cop. Either way, it's the same old bullshit routine... do you have any identification? No? What's your name... where've you been... where are you going... do you live nearby? I answer the best I can hoping to placate the assholes all the while knowing they're going to run me in anyhow.
"We've had reports of someone matching your description ringing doorbells in the area."
"Huh?"
That’s a new one. I thought I'd heard it all but I guess not. Doorbells? Why the fuck would I be ringing doorbells? I want to ask the dyke that question but suddenly she turns to the squawking bird mounted on her shoulder and speaks to it. For some reason I'm thinking the goddamned thing is a parrot. But no... once my eyes come uncrossed I see it's most definitively a radio. I can't quite hear what she's saying to it but I imagine it has a lot to do with me.
"Do you have anything in your pockets you want to tell me about?"
The big fairy is speaking again. At first I think he's talking to his partner because he's looking her way but no... he's asking me the question. Makes sense in a weird sort of way.
"Ummm... some sand, maybe... that's about it. If you find any money I'll split it with you."
He's not laughing. That's a bad sign. Hell, he isn’t even grinning. There's nothing wrong with a little impromptu humor but apparently my luck is rapidly turning ill today. The dyke keeps talking to the bird on her shoulder while simultaneously watching me with a kind of wrinkled-nose disgust that I've grown used to seeing whenever anyone comes too close to me. Yeah... that's what happens when you don’t take a bath for a few months.
"So if I reach my hand inside your pocket I'm not going to get stuck with a needle?"
"God... I hope not, officer..."
"Please place your hands on the hood of the car and spread your legs, sir."
I'm really hoping he's talking to someone else but as near as I can see I'm the only sir around. At least he's polite. He pulls on blue rubber gloves that match his uniform before he pulls back my blanket, pats me down, turns my pockets out, and finds nothing. I feel like fucking Superman with his red cape furling in the wind.
"Where'd you get the blanket, sir?"
"Ummm... I found it?"
"You don't sound too sure of yourself."
"Ummm... I found it."
Yes... that's better. Funny how just a little slipup can change the whole course of a conversation. Just a little sunshine... some cheap whiskey... something to warm me... that's all I need... that and...
"Anything?"
He's looking at me. Interrupted in the middle of a thought I have no idea what he means by that until the dyke answers. Obviously I've mistaken the object of his words. The shakes have set in now in earnest. I'm hoping I don’t start drooling. That'll only encourage them... the rats that are climbing my legs. I feel their teeny tiny claws digging into my flesh as they make their way up my body. They're inside my pants, the bastards. Pretty soon they'll be after my sack and the screaming will start.
"No... as near as I can tell he's clean. No wants, no warrants... do you think we should run him in anyhow? Could be a false name he's given us."
The big fairy looks at me. I figure he must be some kind of Houdini... a mind reader... a soothsayer, doubtlessly a gypsy in a former life. I stand up as straight as I can manage and wrap the blanket a little closer around me hoping to hide the tremors. I stomp my feet ever so slightly to try and shake off the rats... gotta hold it together for just a few more seconds. These fuckers don’t want any more paperwork than necessary. Running my sorry smelly ass in will cause them more trouble than it's worth and this guy knows that I know it too.
"Nah... let's cut him loose. He's just another down and outer. Take my advice, buddy... move on down the coast. If we see you loitering around this area, next time you won't be so lucky."
"Yes sir, officer... that's just what I'll do. Thank you, sir."
I start to walk away when the dyke surprises me by reaching into a pocket hauling out a five dollar bill.
"Here... take this and buy yourself something to eat... if I see that you've spent it on booze I'll be disappointed."
She hands me the money, turns, and climbs into the cruiser. The big fairy is still standing there staring at me like I have something on my face. Or maybe he knows about the rats. It's a disconcerting thought... that they might actually be real.
"Nell's got a good heart. Don't let her down, buddy. I hope not to see you around again. Remember... you're getting a break."
"Yes sir... I'll remember, sir. Thank you again, sir."
I sound way too obsequious but apparently the big fairy is appeased with my response. He scowls, climbs behind the wheel, and a few seconds later I'm left alone again listening to the ocean beating itself to death against the shoreline and the whine of early streetlamps just waking up.
Since the SevenEleven doesn’t sell what I need I walk down to the nearest gas station and buy a half pint of rotgut whiskey. The girl behind the counter graciously puts it into a brown paper sack which I slip under the blanket so no one can see what I have when I walk out. There is three cents change left over. She is way too pretty to be doing this for long. Big tits, nice smile. Someone will come by and scoop her up, make a porn star out of her. It just won't be me is all.
"Keep the change."
Yeah... I'm a big shot.

Stepping

Hello, and thank you all for your continued support. Today I'd like to share a short story from the new collection I've been working. Without further adieu...

Stepping

It's something to do with the way I want you. There's got to be something wrong with that shit. I try to block you out. The thought. I swear I do. And alas, I always fucking fail. You're so deep inside of me. I can't get you out. There've been times when I start... digging.
Old bones I thought I buried... they have a habit of pushing up out of the ground right when I least expect it... where I never anticipate you. I thought you might save me. I really did. None of that matters any longer, or so I tell myself. Fuck it.
I remember a time among myriad others... I'm riding the #20 west to Pulaski. Madison bus. I got on at LaSalle and sat in the back. All I could think, as the bus continued past Ashland was, fuck. So many goddamned weirdoes. Look at these people. I mean, Jesus. What do they do all day? This crazy bitch, her hair - cranberry red - all tangled in that God awful weave of knots, dust, fuzz and crumbs - her fat ass micro-waving something awful in that deep, moist crack. She bent forward, chasing her bag of Cool Ranch Doritos on the muddled floor, and as she pinched it between two fat fingers painted pink at the end, a thin stretched-to-the-gills green thong bubbled up and got sucked back into the void after she sat back with a grunt.
I looked out the window at the gray dying world, and thought: who the fuck is eating that shit? Somebody. Somebody nasty. I mean - someone out there - they eat that ass. Fucking go down there and eat that shit, on purpose. I know that for a fact because she was talking to him on the phone. Yelling. She was pissed as fuck. He hadn't—done something.
How many time I gotta tell yo azz, nigga?
When I say...
What, you ask? Well, I don't know everything. If so, I wouldn't be riding the #20 west, hoping to buy smack from a bunch of uneducated street niggers, would I? Again I gaze through the glass, and past Western now, the city is starting to appear more desperate. More unreal, surreal. And then - that's when I started digging.
I keep one nail sharp. I file that fucker to a point. When I'm tweaking—when the creepers are out—I start to dig. When I'm nervous and think I might not be able to score, I start to dig. I looked at that fat black bitch—listened to her cunting voice grinding my nerves to shreds—and I started in on my wrist, just slightly, right at the spot before it meets the palm of my hand. I moved quick and firm, like I have some bitch in heat on the edge, some Arab virgin vegan whore who, deep down, fears that if she lets a Catholic prick like me get her off she'll be thrown deep into some dry sandy pit, stoned to severe injury before being set on fire in front of her grandparents and maybe that favorite uncle she blows on the side. So I fucking work it. I rip that goddamned hijab off her muzzled little raghead as I go in quick and firm. She looks at me and begs me to stop and I go faster. I hold her neck tight, squeeze, and as her muscles spasm and those dark eyes bulge—you Muslim slut—tell me you don't want this shit you fucking whore—she shakes her head like she's begging for mercy and I send her over the edge. I feel her warmth trickling down my finger and I look down to see the blood pouring from my wrist as somebody tugs the draw string and we pull over.
3400 west. Kimball stop.
I pull a glove out of my pocket to hold over my bleeding wrist and think: if we crashed into some unseen abyss, would anybody miss them? Miss me? All these people? Any of us? Hell. They're not so bad. They're probably pretty nice, most of them. I feel gentle now. Now that I've bled. Now that I bleed. I take a deep breath, let my arm hang down, and squeeze. I loosen the glove and feel that hot red shit running down sticky into the palm of my clenched fist and I smile.
Six more blocks. I pull the cord and thank the driver on my way out. He says nothing. Doesn’t even grimace. Looks dead west toward some unknown fucking destiny. Some fucking thought. Some lurid lucid dream. Some putrid addiction. Some lame fucking pussy at the end of a long day driving, perhaps. Or maybe some touchy family time. Perhaps not everyone is as deranged as I. I hope he's one who knows. Fuck what I hope, anyway.
I step off and the air is cold and sharp. Glittering. The corner of Madison and Pulaski is fucking crazy. You get off right at an empty lot cratered in filth and littered with thousands of artifacts of failure and a beat ass furniture store huffing fumes of diesel through a brown paper sack of a canopy. Everyone out here is on some fucking hustle, even the cops. Especially the fucking cops. I step off in the same suit I was wearing when I got on in the Loop. I fit in there. Now, everyone's looking at me. I'm getting eyed-up. They're ready to kill for me. To do anything I ask if I have the right stuff... that green shit. It won't take much. True entrepreneurs. The fresh client. All these niggers, trying to build some dynasty out here. You know what I'm here for, you fuckers. Who's got that name brand?
There's too many cops around. I hate cops. I start twitching. Involuntarily. Like that fucking dog... Pavlov, that perverted pussy-hating mother fucker. I start stepping. I meet eyes with a black face playing the low keys in some cut about a block farther west. The sidewalk is crumbled, the buildings lining the street vacant and defeated, windows broken like old women's teeth, doors agape. I walk slowly, and a little way down, I stop.
You five-O?"
I shake no. Imperceptibly. Little more than a jerk.
"You some snitch, nigga?"
I repeat the shake. I'm twitching again.
"Just a client. Maybe."
I say it low. No more than a whisper. A whimper, yeah, that's what it is. My throat is closing up. I feel like I've been stung by a billion bees and that venom is working its shit on me. I shift back and forth on my feet to keep the Jones at bay. But he knows.
He looks me over. He's hard. Stone fucking hard. Forty, maybe younger. They age fast out here. Standing out here he's seen some shit. More than I can dream. A human lie detector. A pusher. A killer, maybe. No one to fuck with. He has his way with women. Those who give themselves to him—they're his property. It's just the way it is.
He looks in my eyes and knows I don't give a fuck. Not about anything.
"Okay, word."
He tilts his head, wipes his nose with his sleeve, and:
"You don't wanna fuck wit dem niggas back there. They on tha' fluff. Tha' Nixon shi'. Mos' ma'fuckin' sleepwalkers come through here ain' even know differen'. Fuck wit 'em and you finna get a bad bundle. I got tha' ma'fuckin' tecata, nigga. The beast. Hit me here, and then walk behind the building. It'll be under a red brick by the fence. By the address. I'm out here, nigga. Come see me. 4157 all day. So whachu wan'?"
You know what I fucking want? I want to kill you, to be honest. I want to murder your fucking black ass. Slow and gentle. Not because it's racial or anything. It's just because I need you. That and you're just too fucking loud. Your volume. Your style. Everything. But I respect that. You don't give a fuck, either.
I slide him a bill and walk off without speaking. Worst comes to worst, it won't be there. But I know it will be. It might be short, but it'll be there. He's smart. They all are. Repeat business, that's the goal for all of us. I walk around the back in my fucking suit, and nobody fucks with me. I pick up the brick, take my shit, and place the bag in my black leather glove. That plastic burns where I fingernailed the gash. I walk east to Pulaski, cut north, and wait for the bus. The whole world knows I'm carrying. And what does it matter? Nothing. Not a fucking thing.
I get in the back of the bus and ride back to the Loop, feeling so released after dipping my finger in the bag and taking just a baby bump. An old lady sitting by me in the back, she saw me do it. She gives me that look, my mother's look. I turn my head, shamefully. But fuck, I feel good.
Twenty some minutes and I'm back to the hustle and bustle, back in the flow. Back to the game. I walk into my building. Bopping now. How's the market doing, someone asks me. Fuck the market, bitch.
"Those bulls are running loose today, baby!"
I yell, like I give a fuck. He gets all excited, pisses himself, a grown ass man, like it means anything. Your death certificate is already written, son. That money. That feeling. That power. It's all fake. I look at these little pencil-neck dweebs running around, chasing dreams over phone calls and emails. Funny how it's the same bullshit with different players. All the costumes. All the jargon. So meaningless.
I think of those boot lip mother fuckers back in the hood, the hustle, the death crowding in all around their black fucking faces and eyes of knowing, and damned if I don't feel alive. I dive into cesspools and come out clean. I'm the man they all hate yet they don't dare fuck with me. I just don’t give a fuck and they know that shit.
I walk into my private bathroom with my silver spoon and needle. I lock the door. I scoop a little mound and light my Montecristo Signature Series Lighter. A friend gave it to me, back in college. It's an epic, superb, a-quality lighter, made for one job. As the white magically melts into an impeccable, clear liquid of impossible purity and strength, I reflect on old times. Life is slipping away for me, I think. I smile as those way past reflections with old friends hold that timeless, photographic quality in one's head, and I'm glad we didn't all have smart phones back in the day to actually capture so much of what was. There is elegance in mystery.
I accrue all that remains in my silver spoon into my 24 karat, gold plated syringe, drop my pants and send that hot shot into my body in a quivering blue vein, right where the inside of my leg meets my torso. I fall back, aghast and awed. I walk out of my office, and tell my secretary to hold all calls. I'm going to busy, working on things, per se, for the next several hours. I feel it.
"In fact, Kate, why don't you go home early today? Your work has been exceptional lately."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Well, you're the boss!"
Indeed.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed Stepping please watch for the release of my book, Streets, due out shortly. You may pre-order it here.

Competing

The Author Reading Aloud

In my misguided youth I took a step outside my front door, and then I took another step. The road opened itself before my eyes like a flower unfurling itself to the morning sun. Marveling at the mystery and with each new sight competing for my favor I wandered ever on.
Many years later having no other direction I found myself traveling west; I came to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. The road was dusty; I was dirty, my hair long and unkempt. I saw a dirt road leading into the desert; I pondered on following it but being thirsty I instead made my way to a neon-lighted tavern that squatted in the dust. I’d never seen so many Indians! They were lined up three-deep at the bar. All the tables and chairs were taken so I took my drink to stand in a quiet corner where I would not have to compete for space.
The floor was dirt; it was sprinkled with sawdust; every once in a while one of the Indians would look at me and spit derisively onto the ground. I thought how much they must hate me; not just me but the sight of any white man. If I had been older and wiser I would have perhaps been filled with fear but being young and stupid I feasted on the competition.
As the night wore on the liquor took effect; I grew bolder. I bought drinks for complete strangers not out of a sense of camaraderie but rather to insinuate myself into their good graces. Soon I found myself sitting at a table full of alien-sounding people to whom I must have seemed equally odd.
I met a girl who sat there; she was very quiet but when I asked her she said her name was Angie. She wasn’t particularly striking but she had a pull that attracted me; I must have had the same affect on her. We drank and we talked and we stroked each other with our eyes; standing close while dancing each dance we inhaled one another’s breath. We reveled in our meeting one another. Our lips brushed. Later that night when a group of big Indians began making remarks about smelling a honky in the bar she said I should come with her.
So I did.
She took me on a journey way out into the desert to her home where she lived with her father and with her two sisters. I recognized the dirt road as the one I had been tempted to take before entering the tavern. I wondered how I knew. She told me how her father was the nominal chief of their tribe, the Hunkpapa Lakota. Their house was very poor, the furniture sparse and the cupboards empty.
In time I fell in love with Angie and she fell in love with me. I supported her as she supported me. We spent our days entwined together in each other; we spent our nights drinking. Since she gave me her heart I had no need to compete for it. When I gave her my heart I lost it without competition.
She told me how if anyone in the tribe in their poverty needed anything they came to her father. Since he was the chief it fell to him to provide for them. She said he sometimes gave away the very clothes hanging on the line outside to dry and how she took to hiding them by tying a clothesline out behind the storage sheds and the junk yard in back of the house.
The people loved their chief; they supported him as he supported them. He instructed many ceremonies each according to the seasons. Serving with humility he guided his people, knowing if he was to lead that he must follow. Ruling by following meant that the people didn’t feel oppressed. When he stood before the people he would not be harmed.
His name was King of a Hundred Streams. He was like the sea. He knew many of the old songs; each morning before the dawn I would hear him outdoors chanting to the sky and to the wind and to the water that ran brown and rank in a creek behind the house. Though I listened intently I couldn’t make out the words.
When I asked him what he sang about he told me the music and the ceremonies surrounding it were essentially the same. The styles of the musical pieces were different but he told me how they promoted the same feelings of love. Some songs he sang at pow wows, others at the changing of the days, still others in the different seasons. Though the occasions and forms of the songs and ceremonies differed he said how they expressed the same feeling of respect.
Since he knew the essential nature of the music and the ceremonies he continued them as he found them; in turn he said how he would pass them on intact. In the visible world there were ceremonies and music; in the invisible world were the spirits that guided them. I noticed how he often left small sacrifices for them, a bit of food or a scrap of clothing. If I was eating an apple he would always nod his chin towards the sacrifice bowl intending me to place the core there when I finished.
King of a Hundred Streams talked sadly about how no one really knew the music any longer. The young people compete in songs like monkeys, he said, with boys and girls mixed together, and no distinction between father and son, mother and daughter. Such music could never be talked about, he explained, as it was not the music handed down by the ancestors. What they like is the sound, he told me, but music and sound should never be taken as akin to each other.
Music springs from the mind while ceremonies appear in outer movements. So it is a rule to make ceremonies as brief and few as possible while giving music its full development. This rule for ceremonies leads to the forward exhibition of them where their beauty resides. This rule for music leads to the inner consideration of it where its beauty resides. If ceremonies demanding this condensation were not performed with this forward exhibition they would disappear. If music demanding this full development were not accompanied by introspection it would lead to a dissipation of the mind.
So it is that each ceremony has its proper response; for music there is introspection. Ceremonies bring pleasure while music brings about a sense of repose. The responses to ceremonies and the introspection of music spring from one and the same idea and have one and the same object.
Music arises from the modulations of sound; its embodiments are in movements of the body. These modulations and movements are the changes required by nature. They are found complete in music. King of a Hundred Streams lamented that even though people today like the sounds they produce and it brings them pleasure if the embodiments are not suitably conducted disorder arises.
In the time I spent there with Angie and the chief I learned many things. If I had stayed I might have learned of the mystery without searching so long and hard. But my wandering ways pulled me to the road early one winter. I would never see them again.
Since I do not compete I have no competition.

Description

Video of the Author Reading Aloud

When I was a child cigarettes cost just thirty five cents a pack. I remember my uncle the priest standing in the church parking lot smoking one after another while saying goodbye to his parishioners on Sunday mornings. When he came to visit our home my mother didn’t like him smoking in the house so she refused to provide him with an ashtray. Rather than going out of doors to smoke he flicked his ashes into the palm of his hand and rubbed them into his pants.
Before he left our house my uncle would always reach a coarse hand into a deep pocket to pull out some change. Sorting through the coins he would hand me a quarter and dime holding it out to me in his ashy palm. As he did so he would wink while cautioning me not to take the money and buy cigarettes with it. I always felt like winking back at him as I promised not to; when I retrieved the coins they felt dusty and smelled faintly of tobacco.
Reaching into that leathery wrinkled palm always reminded me of the moveable feast called Ash Wednesday when my uncle would make a cross on everyone’s forehead out of the ashes of last year’s Palm Sunday leaves while admonishing them to turn away from sin. I thought how he might well have used cigarette ashes instead of burning the old palm leaves and how no one would know the difference.
When I grew older I wondered why my uncle was tempting me. If his goal was to keep me from buying cigarettes it seemed odd he would always give me the exact amount required to purchase them. I wondered if his intention wasn’t to provide me with a little spending money so much as it was a test of my resolve. Perhaps he thought temptation must be present before a person knew if they were strong enough to resist it. A description of temptation might not have been enough; he sought to make it real.
Other people have goals in their lives. They have purpose. They know where their life is heading. The experience of their lives is real and concrete. They hold an image of the perfect world in their hearts as they spend their days striving towards it. To these people the description of the world is of paramount importance. Nothing else matters. By ignoring the mystery they keep to the description; by succumbing to temptation their lives are filled with desire.
The strong attack the weak. Great countries look to conquer small countries to prove their greatness. They muster armies along with myriad weapons of destruction; when the small countries have been laid to waste the learned of the great countries write down the history of these exploits. As they grow up the students revel in their learning. Thus war is repeated generation after generation.
While he lived my uncle always seemed disappointed both in me and in my actions. He expected me to live a life without sin and yet I was a sinner. In his descriptions of heaven there was no room for a person of my caliber. He made a point of informing me how much I would have to change in order to become a man of god. I wanted to tell my uncle how I had no expectations of heaven or of god but I knew I would only disappoint him all the more.
I suspect my quiet cemented his suspicions.
Having no expectations I find I am never disappointed. By following the source I forego the description of experience; by stilling desire I leave temptation behind; by acting in the moment I let go of the promise of tomorrow and the sadness of yesterday’s regrets.
By keeping to the mystery I am without substance. People enjoy pleasant music and good food and fine paintings. They smoke their cigarettes and drink too much while telling others not to follow their example. They describe the way of the world; they caution me to be aware of sin; they do not walk the way of the mystery. These are all descriptions of experience. But the mystery is without flavor; it cannot be heard; looked for, it cannot be seen. Use it and it cannot be exhausted.
So I cultivate peace and happiness; I allow the mystery to rest in my heart.

Without

The Author Reading Aloud

After my young wife died during childbirth I was left without direction or purpose. We had been a family. We were building a home together, a life. Though her parents disapproved my wife had seen something in me no one else ever noticed before.
I’d been working at a job site some thousand miles away. Though I worried about her she allayed my concerns by assuring me it would be months before she gave birth. Since we needed the money I left her there in the care of her family.
When they told me what had happened I was consumed with guilt. At their funeral I was sure everyone was looking at me knowing it was my fault my wife and my son lay dead. In every spoken word I heard her name. In every waking moment I longed for the peace sleep would bring. In every dream I saw her. She was standing in a doorway waving goodbye. When I called out she turned away as she closed the door softly.
I drank to find solace in forgetfulness. For a time I did. But I would always sober up and the memories would come rushing back. So I drank more. Though I knew she would never approve I also knew she was gone. So I drank.
I found myself lost in a strange city on a chilly autumn night. A store window showed me my reflection. I looked disheveled, hungry, and alone. A black cat sitting on an orange pumpkin grinned at me. There were dusty bottles in the store window too with dirt and junk piled in the corners as if someone was going to fix it up but then grew tired and stopped.
Standing there staring at myself I smelled something bad; it was me. I hadn’t bathed in weeks. I felt ashamed of how I had deteriorated. Looking about me the street was empty. It pleased me to be alone in such misery.
I walked on. I came to an old church with a rusty padlock on the door. A hand-written sign taped to the door said closed. It must have been closed a long time; the sign looked faded and weather-beaten. I recalled my uncle’s church as being bigger but I was young then and the whole world seemed bigger.
I walked around back to the alleyway to test the back door. It too was padlocked but a window up high was broken out. By turning a rusty metal garbage can upside down I was able to stand on it and gain entry.
The old church was darkened; a nearby streetlamp threw enough light in the window that as my eyes adjusted I could make out overturned and broken pews with trash—empty wine bottles, discarded food containers, old clothing—covering the floor. I kicked aside the garbage to turn an unbroken pew right side up as I lay out my bedroll on it. I fell into a troubled sleep.
I dreamed it was springtime and I was a boy again suffering under one of my uncle’s rages. As the crack of his words dissipated he looked at me a long time, a sad kind of look; as if he knew whatever he said would be lost upon me, as if he were gauging whether or not to waste any more of his energy. And then he thundered that I would go to hell for my sins.
Waking I could still hear his words echoing through the abandoned church where I found myself. I wondered if hell was where I was. Listening to the rats scurrying under the pew where I lay it seemed as if it might be. I remembered how I wanted to tell my uncle that once I got to hell my sins would no longer matter. It dawned on me that if I was in hell then all my sins had been absolved.
The guilt I had carried with me for so long began to evaporate as I realized the world does not reside outside of me. The world is me. Looking up through the gaping fissures in the roof of that old church at the autumn stars wheeling through the heavens I realized they did not exist on their own apart from me. Though that night of my grieving seemed never-ending I realized when the dark is long it is because I make it so.
When those who are loved pass away they are bitterly lamented. Mourning taken to its absolute depths should stop there, however. The living glory in life, not in death; the virtuous take their mourning to the extreme and then let it go in order to go on living.
The good, the clean, and the careful people of the world are thieves of virtue. Having never suffered great loss they have yet to achieve their desires so they are full of anxiety. Once their desires are achieved they are full of anxiety that they should lose them. When they are anxious they will lose the things of their desires there is little they will not do.
I left my wandering and my drunken ways. I cleaned myself up. I took a new wife and found a job someone of my nature could perform well. Together we grew a new family of laughing babies and happy times. I never forgot but I ceased to wallow in my memories; instead I learned to revel in the moment.
Now I am an old man; once again I find myself alone in the world, without family, with no purpose, and without any clear direction. Since I have the mystery to comfort me, however, I know my non-purpose and non-direction as signs of it and not of my misery.
Without leaving my mat I know the whole world. Without gazing at the sky I see the ways of heaven. The farther I travel the less I know. From a distance I appear stern. When approached I am mild-mannered. When listened to my words are firm and decided.
I see without looking. I listen without hearing. I know without learning. I work without doing.
This is the way of the mystery.

Interfering

The Author Reading Chapter 48 - Interfering

I always thought there must be a mystery in the world about which no one would tell me. The mystery wasn’t to be found in any book; I had read them all. The mystery wasn’t to be found in the universities; I had attended all the classes. The mystery wasn’t to be found on mountain tops; I had climbed them all.
I always thought people were interfering with me so that I would stop seeking for the mystery of the world that no one wanted me to know about. I imagined them outside in the dark hiding in weeds watching me through lighted windows ready to pounce upon me should I come too close to my goals. Though I pulled down the shades and stayed up all night lest they break into my abode during my sleep to steal my dreams I never saw anyone at all.
After a while I began wondering if I was wrong about the mystery in the world. I reasoned that if such a mystery existed everyone would know of it. Libraries would be filled with the knowledge. The mystery’s splendor would be written across the mountains and reflected by every ocean. Every scholar would be aware of it and teach it willingly.
I took a family and a job. In time life interfered until I forgot about any lingering trace of the mystery. Once in a great while I might hear a snatch of song that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on; once in a blue moon I might catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a fleeting image that seemed both foreign and familiar at the same time; when I looked it was gone.
I immersed myself in the world of desire; I no longer had any time to dream of the mystery. I told myself I had imagined it all. I scolded myself for letting my sense of the mystery interfere with my life for as long as it did. I knew there was no one waiting outside my windows watching me; I knew there never was anything in the world like the mystery I had chased after so intensely that I exhausted myself. What a fool I had been.
Sometimes it seems as if I’ve done it all. I no longer have the strength of my youth. Everyone wanted to make me into what they thought I should be, not what I wanted to be. When I wouldn’t be what they desired they turned on me. They always had to have more. I gave them everything asking nothing in return; that is what I got.
Sometimes I wonder what it was I wanted. It must have been something.
In the days before I knew of the mystery I went to school eager to learn all I could from the great masters. In the pursuit of learning about the world, each day I obtained new knowledge and precious ideas.
When I heard of the mystery I quit school and scorned the masters. In the pursuit of the mystery, every day I dropped a little part of my knowledge and let go of each one of my precious ideas like dropping pearls one by one in the dust.
Though I know I will never attain great virtue, by gathering up a store of small virtues I may gradually pass and repass the boundary. Still, these branches of learning that are picked up in answering and replying, in advancing and receding, leave me lacking in essential wisdom. Even in mediocre work and study there is something worthwhile; but if I stay with these pursuits for too long a time there is a danger of them proving inapplicable. Therefore I do not practice this mode of behavior.
There are those who say not to associate with people who cannot be a blessing to me. I have heard it said these people will interfere with the path I walk, leading me down dark corridors. This is different from what I have learned. I honor the talented and the virtuous yet I bear with everyone. I praise the good and pity the incompetent. Since I have no great talents or virtues are there those who refuse to associate with me? What right do I have to pick and choose who is right and who is wrong?
For one word people are often taken for being wise; for one word people are often deemed to be foolish. Therefore I take much care in what I say. Without knowing the force of words it is impossible to know people.
Pursuing the mystery means less and less is said and done until non-action blossoms into being. When nothing is said and done, nothing is left unsaid and undone.
The world is ruled by allowing things to be as they are. The world isn’t what we think it is or proclaim it to be. It cannot be ruled by interfering.
That is the way of the mystery.

Wholeness

She was diagnosed in the spring of her fortieth year. Though she had been troubled with pain for years the doctors all pooh-pashed it, gave her some pills, and sent her on her way. When the spasms of hurt became too much for her to bear she collapsed at work.
The hospital called me on a Tuesday afternoon so I left my job to rush right over. By the time I arrived the emergency room physician had done some scans. The doctor discovered a mass in my wife’s pelvis. The physician referred us to an ontology specialist who said a biopsy was in order. Two days later the cancer was confirmed. It had metastasized by the time they caught it though. They advised us that her chances for survival were nil.
She insisted on aggressive therapy. I felt it was my wife’s call to make. The children were only in their early teens. She wanted to be there for them; she desired for our family to remain whole. I guess she hadn’t reckoned on the side effects of the treatment being worse than the disease. When she died six weeks later on a cold September night I had learned hard lessons about how to insert catheters and intravenous needles and other niceties that go hand in hand with late-stage cancer. As she withered away the children watched in helpless horror by her bedside.
Sometimes even now I awaken wondering why her part of the bed is empty. Is she fixing breakfast? As I come more fully awake of course I remember. I wonder if I should have advised her not to have the radiation and the chemotherapy that so sapped her strength turning her into a living skeleton. I know she would have died either way but she went through so much suffering for nothing.
We take what authority figures like doctors and nurses say as gospel. But they aren’t the ones who will suffer when the treatment ends up killing the patient more quickly than the disease it is meant to alleviate.
When I follow the dictates of society I am ensnared by it. I am constrained in my choices. The moral choices that I make are identical to the values of society. Everything in life is an ethical activity. When I do this instead of that I do so because it is better.
The children are grown now and on their own. My wife has been in her grave for many years. These days I often travel deep into the mountains far from society; I am free to follow the mystery. When I am all alone from my vantage point I see there is more than one moral structure called society; there are many.
All these moral structures are little empires onto themselves. Each of these moral codes is fighting one another for supremacy. They are not simply conflicting rules; there is a deep underlying clash between the old and the new, the good and the evil, the haves and the have-nots.
By following these moral codes people are forced to pick and choose which ones are of value. They choose the one and neglect the rest. Their lives are never complete; they are full of desire forever grasping for that which they do not possess. Rotten wood cannot be carved; a tower of dirt will not stand. While others may rival their wisdom no one can match their stupidity.
When I follow the mystery there is fullness. Though I have nothing I am complete and whole. Since I have no desire I practice non-action. I let go of that and do not choose this. I keep these four characteristics in mind: I am humble in my conduct; I am respectful in serving others; I am kind in dealing with people; I am just in leading others.
When I rise from sleep and stumble onto the dusty mountain path I see no east and west in the sky; it is whole and clear. When I climb high on a ridge and look down upon the world below I see no north and south; the earth is whole and firm. When I see my reflection in a clear mountain lake I see no separate body and soul; I am whole and strong.
Naming these things I see no up and down in the valley of experience; it is whole and full. The clarity of the morning sky allows me to see. The firmness of the humble earth allows me to walk. The strength of my spirit prevents it from being used up. The fullness of the valley of experience prevents it from being exhausted.
Learning virtue without proper cultivation, not thoroughly discussing that which was learned, not moving towards a righteousness that I have discovered, being unable to change that which is not good, these are things which occasion me concern.
So I see that being humble like the earth is the core of nobility. I see that the low valley is the foundation of all high knowledge. I see that too much success is never an advantage. I do not draw attention to myself by showing off my wealth and chattering of my hubris.
I consider myself worthless, orphaned, and widowed, and I am free and whole.

The Beginning of Folly

I seem to remember when I was very small how my older sisters used to read me fairy tales from children’s books. They were scary stories full of wolves and bears and crocodiles and though the colorful characters all wore smiles on their faces those grins were always full of sharp and pointed teeth. Though I was frightened I couldn’t bring myself to turn away.
I learned to write my letters by tracing their geometric patterns with a finger on my thigh as my sisters read. After the reading was done and I was supposed to be sleeping I would crawl from bed to get my crayons and my coloring book to try my hand at tracing the letters for real. Though I tried again and again I remember how I could never seem to get them quite right.
I thought how the patterns of my creation should mirror the objects of my ideas. It surprised me when they did not. I thought if only I mastered those patterns then they would be true representations of the world. So I practiced all the time. But I never got them right. When I grew older I knew this as the beginning of folly.
Though we tell ourselves we are creatures of intellect and reason we live within a myth-bound world. Science has taught us that only the objective world has value. This is called the myth of independence.
One day I learned to sit quietly; the world began to slow down. The more I practiced the more the world slowed until in the stillness of my heart I came upon the memory of the mystery. How could I have forgotten?
One who remembers the mystery comes to see that objects begin with the idea of those objects; objects do not exist as independent things apart and forever separate from the observer of them. By neglecting the mystery the world is its own beginning.
When the mystery is forgotten, goodness arises. When goodness is forgotten, kindness arises. When kindness is forgotten, justice arrives. When justice is forgotten, ritual comes into being.
Ritual is the belief in these representations of experience, not in the mystery of the source. Ritual is the beginning of confusion. To know the future is to believe in the trappings of experience. This is known as the beginning of folly.
Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom connected with true virtue. I am neither proud of my wealth nor do I flatter others in my poverty. Though I find myself living a life of wealth I uphold the rules of propriety. Should I lose all my riches to become mired in poverty I hold onto my cheerfulness. This is known as sustaining the proper sequence.
When people are guided by laws they seek to avoid punishment but have no sense of shame. If people are led by virtue and learn to follow decorum they develop a sense of shame; they become good of their own accord without threat of retribution. For a person to sacrifice to a god that doesn’t feel right to them is known as flattery. To see what is right and not to do it is known as lack of courage.
These days I write the stories that others read. I call them my stories yet they are but mirrors of the mystery. If I tried to force them into being in the same way I used to work at copying those letters from the books my sisters read to me I would fail to get the stories right. Rather, these stories arise from nowhere; they are not my stories any more than is the world. They are not meant to impress the readers but to perhaps inspire them to lead a better life.
When I do a good turn I do not see the good that I do. When a fool tries to do a good turn they brag about it and so it is not good. By not-doing anything I leave nothing undone. A fool is always doing something and so much remains to be done.
It is needless to speak of things that are done; it is needless to remonstrate about things that have run their course; it is needless to blame things that are past. Why should I contemplate high offices filled with indulgent generosity, ceremonies performed without reverence, or mourning conducted without sorrow?
I dwell on what is real and not what is merely on the surface. I focus on the fruit and not on the flower. I accept one and reject the other.
The cautious seldom err.

Heaven's Net

My uncle was an acknowledged expert on what it took for a person to get into heaven; I listened to him many Sunday mornings preaching his sermons, his eyes alight and his hair ablaze in the glory of his god. Even as a child I knew his words were but foolery. He spoke them with such certainty that he had to be mistaken.
He no doubt looked at me as an expert at what it took not to get into heaven. He counseled me to walk in the certain light of his god. Instead I walk in the uncertain darkness of the mystery. He counseled me to take Jesus by the hand and forget all my troubles. I have known nothing but trouble all my days yet my heart is serene.
I loved my uncle as a man while he loved his god as his servant. My uncle’s god asked him to devote his life to teaching that which everyone already knows. The mystery asks nothing of me so I devote my life to not-teaching that which no one knows.
My uncle and I were together only a short while—less than fourteen years—before a horrid fire in his church took his life. At his funeral the priest said how angels were sent down by God to bring home the faithful folk like my uncle. I envisioned heaven’s net being cast down from on high gathering in his ardent spirit to be hauled before his god for his day of reckoning. For a long time after I prayed that day went well for my uncle.
I’m sure my mother loved her older brother as I loved mine yet I always sensed a splintered crack separating their love. When my uncle visited our home my mother returned to her little girl days eager to please him but she always seemed to be falling short. Today I recognize the same sickness in the love I felt for my older brothers.
A troubled person is drowned in water; I am drowned by my mouth. Water is always nearby yet those who know it not drown in its depths. Its nature makes it easy to play with but dangerous to approach. The mouth is loquacious and troublesome for words once uttered have scant repentance; people are easily ruined by them.
If people are taught lessons of virtue and uniformity by rules of ceremony their minds will dwell on what is good; if they are taught by laws and uniformity is enforced by punishment their minds will be thinking of how to escape. If I bind people to me by my good faith they do not turn away from me. If I show them courtesy their hearts are docile to me. I watch how others use restraints of punishment against people calling them laws. In this case people become bad and are isolated.
Words begin as threads but when spoken they become as rope binding the speaker. Therefore I do not take the lead in idle chatter. I never speak words which may be spoken but not embodied in deeds nor do I perform actions which may be done in deed but not expressed in words. In this fashion my words are carried into action without risk and my actions can be spoken of without risk.
I once met a brave and passionate man. We were traveling together on a passenger train going west to the sea. Over the course of the trip we talked of many things while watching the scenery flow past the windows. He must have come to feel comfortable in confiding his secret to me as he whispered how his wife had run off with another man; opening his coat he showed me a pistol he carried; he told me how he planned on killing them both or to die trying.
I once met a brave and calm man. We were traveling together in a truck while working as barkers in a carnival. Our talk served to pass the long hours driving down one Interstate highway after another. On the last day in each others’ company he whispered to me how his wife had run off with another man; he showed me his tears; he told me how he planned on letting them go. He said only God had the right to judge them.
I often wonder which of these two is good and which is evil? I suppose some things aren’t favored by heaven but no one knows why. Even the wise are not sure of this; so I practice disinterest and revel in not-doing.
Now I am as old as my uncle the priest on the day he perished. Unlike him I don’t talk much but of course I never did. Our natures differed in that. While he made a life of standing before his flock leading them to the nets of heaven I sit silently staring out of the backdoor screen at the hummingbirds flitting about and dancing bumble bees and lazy cats sleeping in the sunshine.
Because the highest virtue is found in disinterest I never yelp about God. When I think of heaven I think of the mystery. It doesn’t strive but it always overcomes all obstacles. It never speaks and yet it is always answered. The mystery asks for nothing yet it is supplied with all its needs. It seems to have no purpose yet its every aim is fulfilled.
It is said heaven’s net casts wide; though its meshes are coarse nothing slips through.
This is the way of heaven.

Body and Soul

When my uncle told me I would go to hell for my sins I knew he didn’t mean I would go there bodily. I knew he meant my ever-lasting soul would burn in that lake of fiery torment for all time. I wanted to tell him of the mystery but I had no words. I still don’t.
There was a time when I was the world, not a part of the world. I know this instinctively although there was also a time when the feeling was quite foreign to me. I rejected the one by embracing the many.
Now I embrace the one by rejecting the many.
I don’t remember being a baby. But over the years I have learned what it means to be a baby by watching my own children as they grew into the world. By learning to be a baby again and what it means to be a part of all this I see a mirror of me studying to be a part of it all.
There are those with whom I may learn in common but I find them unable to go along with me in principle. Perhaps we may go along together in principle but I find they are unable to become established with me on these. If we manage to become established in principle I find them unable to weigh occurring events along with me.
I was taught to look at the world objectively. I studied the world like it was something quite apart from me, like it might be nothing more than pictures in a book. I thought I could disappear from the face of the earth and look at it undistorted, like God looking down from heaven. What rubbish!
Growing up I was known as a big part of all the trouble in the world. My uncle warned me to stop doing the evil things I did. If I could have made him understand I might have told him the only way I knew to be part of the world was to be parcel to the misdeeds that were the foundations of everything. I knew such talk was blasphemous in his ears so I kept quiet and in continual trouble.
I would have told him the only way to find out about the world is to care for it, to win its love and respect. The only way to learn about the world is to believe in it and to have it believe in me. The only way to learn about the world is to immerse myself in it and to let it immerse itself in me. The only way to know the world is to suffer its pain. That makes all the difference.
A baby is one with the universe. Soon, though, a baby grows into two people. One is the world; one is the baby. One is the body; one is the soul. One is full of suffering; one is disinterested.
I am like two people: one who feels at home and the other who wants to leave. The first person doesn’t show itself to others. It will never be any count and knows it. The other person loves to show off. It revels in pride. The first person never speaks. The second person never stops speaking. The first person is the mystery. This second person I know.
I say I have a body and I have a soul. Why do I embrace the one and neglect the other? There is no telling them apart. By cleansing my soul of desire my body is without blemish. By discovering the face I wore before I was born I dream the original dream.
I hold loyalty and sincerity as first principles. Having no friends unequal to me I am unafraid to drop my faults. I dislike none; I covet nothing. Should someone refuse my words of admonition they shun that which is valuable in the manner of changing their conduct. When they are displeased with my gentle advice I can do nothing for them.
My uncle the priest worried about my soul. I wanted to tell him my soul was eternal and so it might be better to worry about this frail and mortal body. But I hadn’t the method to inform him of the mystery.
By keeping compassion in my heart I am without cunning. By understanding the shadows from which I came I see the root from which experience springs forth. By quieting my thoughts I open myself to all things. By considering the gloom behind my eyes I do nothing and yet achieve everything.
I take what I need and leave the rest. My load is light for I possess nothing. I let others take the credit so I can better lead without dominating. The wise are free from perplexities; the virtuous are free from anxieties; the bold are free from fear.
This is the way of the universe.

Achievement

The world is full of achievement. Most people spend their lives seeking to attain success, wealth, and fame. These are all great things to be sure but they are not the highest achievement.
Almost everyone lives their life alone though they are surrounded by the mass of humanity. Almost everyone has a secret they never share; they spend their life hoping no one guesses what it is. By living in pretense they deny themselves the truth of their achievement.
The truth is that all their wealth and success are built upon a foundation of folly and futility. It may comfort them to hold these things dear but when death comes a-calling they will be willing to pay any price to have just one more day of life, nay, another hour, even a minute more. All those high and mighty achievements pale beside that one little thing that sneaks in through the back door when no one is looking.
I never tell anyone that I know their secret. They think I don’t see how weak they are and how confused. I let them pretend they are big and strong; I let them imagine I am soft and feeble. If they think I am as mixed up as they are then they will leave me alone. If I smile just right they believe I am as unhappy as they are.
One summer many years ago while crossing from Tennessee into Arkansas over the wide Mississippi in a place which had no bridge I marveled at the expertise of the ferryman. I asked him if such a skill could be learned. It can, he replied. Good swimmers learn quickly but a diver who has never seen a boat manages it at once. I thought perhaps he had misunderstood my question as he hadn’t answered me directly so I asked him what he meant.
He said good swimmers since they forget the water and its dangers acquire the skill of sailing the boat quickly. As to those who are able to dive and having never seen a boat, they manage it at once. They look at the watery gulf as a hillside and the ups and downs of the boat as a ride in the country. Such happenings have occurred to them a multitude of times so they do not affect their minds. Wherever they go they feel at ease.
I’ve been told I was a troublemaker as a child. My parents would send me to church so that I might there find salvation but instead of turning left at the fork in the road and achieving my goal I would somehow end up turning right to spend my Sunday mornings smoking cigarettes I bought with the money I’d been given for the collection plate while playing pool with the other miscreants at the pool hall.
Of course word trickled back to my folks from my uncle the priest who missed my shining face sitting in the familiar pew. The following Sunday I would be driven by my scowling father and my mournful mother in the family automobile to the church steps with stern words of warning from my folks. But again, instead of turning left into the church I somehow got sidetracked into turning right invariably finding my way back to that smoky old pool room.
My uncle came to our house one dire Saturday. He sat me down to talk to me, words of doom and how disaster would follow me the rest of my days lest I repent. He always said I would go to hell for my sins. But I figured when I got there my sins would no longer matter. I wanted to explain that to him but I knew he would never listen. So instead of learning to speak I learned not-speaking.
I talk very little even when spoken to. I learned from my uncle that those who talk much know little. He always spoke of what he knew. Of what I know I cannot speak.
By taking the world of troubles on his shoulders my uncle could never rest easy. The great problems of humanity weighted him down with baggage he couldn’t seem to shed. By masking my knowledge I simplify my problems.
I once observed a contest of skill between several groups of pool players. In the first contest the prize was but a shiny ribbon worth very little. I noticed how the players were able to put forth all their skill. The second contest was for a large trophy with the winner’s name emblazoned upon it for all to see. I witnessed how the players shot timorously. The final contest was for a golden medal. I noted how the players shot as if they were blind.
So I shield my senses from bright objects of desire and temper the need to possess them. I am at one with the choking dust, with the swirling water, with the temptation of fire, with the high hard sky, and with the wind that speaks my name. This is called original union.
I am unconcerned with friends and with enemies. Though I walk alone I am surrounded with virtue. I am unconcerned with good and harm, with honor and disgrace. Though I am full of dishonor and hold my disgrace as a natural part of myself I am as innocent as a newly born baby.
This is called the highest achievement.

The Executioner

I’ve worked many jobs never becoming proficient at any of them. In time the ax would always fall. While living in the north woods and unable to find any other work I hired on to cut trees and clear brush on hillsides in Canada.
I needed the job but I hadn’t reckoned on the sacrifice it demanded of me, of my family. I naïvely believed I could leave my young wife safely behind while I made like Paul Bunyan and cut down tall trees in a land far from home.
I made a bit of money but when I got back home there was no one to share it with. While I was away the executioner had paid a visit claiming a prize too horrible for my mind to consider.
Our world is built on a foundation of mythology. In our superior times and our wondrous age we overlook that even the names we use to denote the passing of the days are remnants of the old gods who once ruled our desires and terrorized our nights; we forego the customs but we still perform the rituals.
The old gods demanded sacrifice. At first simple prayers were enough to pacify them if accompanied by a gift of grain or a spot of wine. In time those sacrifices became more complex with a whole class of priests sprouting up to act as official executioners, splitting open the chests of willing victims offering up to the gods the blood of still-beating hearts torn from the torso of the sacrificed.
The ritual of sacrifice became connected to the good resulting from it and on a par with natural law and moral behavior. In time the ritual of sacrifice came to mean religious merit so the performance of certain virtuous conduct would automatically lead to a better existence: to a secure life, wealth, and family. Ritual became the bonds which held a society together. When the priest came to be viewed as the executioner magic disappeared from the world.
When magic disappeared virtue and righteousness followed. By establishing their way as the only way, by becoming overpowering and overawing, the executioner pursued people even to their deaths. Yet life is what most people desire; death is what they dread. By shunning the execution I welcome the season of my death even as I relish this flavor of life.
Her ghost comes to me often even now, decades after her death. Our son stands with her. They are holding hands while standing in a green field dotted with summer flowers; he died a newborn but in my dreams he is a handsome man fully grown who in his looks takes more after his mother, although I see he has my eyes. I desire to linger there with them however I realize my place is here in the world; it gladdens my heart to know they wait.
Knowing their spirits watch over me I act respectfully even when I am deep in the mountains many miles and days away from other human beings. By being reverent and sincere I maintain harmony with the world. By offering my desires as a sacrifice I enrich the heaven of memories that flow at times unforeseen.
I had no money to buy a casket in which to bury them. Though I tried borrowing no one would loan me even so much as a dollar so I built a coffin myself out of scraps of lumber stacked in the attic of our garage. It was exacting work, the kind I had never before attempted; since I hated the doing it required all my skill. Each cut was an epiphany; as each nail sank into the uncaring lumber I felt a scream form deep within my soul. The salt from my eyes stained the wood. Though I tried to wipe away the tracks of my tears I am confident their marks yet remain.
As my young wife and our unborn son lay sleeping the slumber of death in that horrid plywood coffin I remember how I thought of my brother, of how he and his lover gave up their baby for adoption rather than marrying and raising a family together. They said how they weren’t ready to give up the life they had to raise a child. I wondered why some are blessed and yet turn away the proffered gift while others yearn for that same blessing and yet are denied.
Still, to offer oneself up for sacrifice is not to be taken lightly. When people identify with the son of heaven and not with heaven itself they fall back to the ways of the jungle whereby everyone approve of their own views and disapprove of the ways of others. Mutual disapproval arises resulting in the disorder of the world.
I thought of my uncle who being a priest had sacrificed any happiness he might have found in the warm arms of a woman and the shining eyes of a child. I questioned if the ache of my loss was equal to the wondrous feelings I experienced during the short time together with my family; upon reflection I knew I would have never forsaken the wonder of the love I felt for my wife and child even while knowing it would end as it did.
By returning to the mystery I witness once again the magic that creates the world. Though I will always carry the guilt by understanding the sacrifice as ritual I am absolved of my sins. By recognizing the executioner I leave him to his own devices as I hold close to the center. By using my death as a guide I forego the fear and revel in life.
In times past I understand the executioner dressed in a black cloak in reference to thoughts dark and unseen; he was shunned by others except during the ritual. Over the years customs have changed but the executioner is still avoided six days a week; instead of dressing all in black he now wears a white collar; the only time people come to see him is on the day of the Lord when fear drives them to his house of sinners and the cross holding a god of unrepentant pain.
However fine the viands may be if a person does not partake of them they will never know the taste; however perfect the lesson may be if a person does not learn it they will never know its goodness. When I learn I come to understand the paucity of my knowing; when I teach I realize the difficulty in learning. After I know my deficiencies I am able to examine myself; after I know the difficulties I am able to better stimulate my efforts. Teaching is half of the learning.
Most teachers today speak of how rapidly their students are advancing paying little regard to what they acquire. Their lessons lack sincerity; neither do they put forth all their effort into teaching them. What they inculcate is contrary to what is right and their students are disappointed in what they find. They may seem to finish their work but how quickly they give up their lessons.
The executioner knows all too well that prohibition from evil after it has manifested meets with opposition; instruction given after the time for it has passed is done with toil and difficulty; the teaching of lessons indiscriminately and without suitability produces disorder. Understanding the nature of proper instruction makes for both a good teacher and an excellent executioner.
So it is I know that even today there is always an official executioner. If I try to take the place of the teacher it would be like trying to cut plywood like a master plumber. If I try building a coffin like a master plumber I will only hurt my hand.
I know someday death will reach out to tap me on my shoulder but I am untroubled. By being a reflection of the mystery I hold both life and death dear in my heart yet neither find anywhere to enter. The mystery comes before the first breath of life and it remains when death has stolen the last gasp away.
Who in the world does not fear death? Those who are not afraid to die do not fear death; in fact they welcome it. For those who do not fear death it is no use in threatening them with the executioner. But for those who fear death, if breaking the law means they will be executed, who will dare break the law?