One Day Off, But Back To Writing With Some Backyard Philosophy

I took the day off yesterday - I didn't intend to. So, as part of getting back into the writing - some free writing.

Writing Style

I had my Great Uncle over in the morning, and we talked about family past, present and future - as well as other things. It was good having Uncle Ram up here with my first cup of coffee. We talked about his nephew's book and writing style.

He mentioned that he liked the books - for example, he talked about 'A House for Mr. Biswas', which I haven't read. He said he related to that book, because 'he grew up next to that house'. I wish I had thought to ask him if he meant figuratively or literally, but what he did say was that it was like reading about the neighborhood he grew up in. Trinidad and Tobago as he remembered it.

Some people have said that Naipaul is hard on East Indians. I have even read some blogger call him a 'traitor' - but from what I gather, he just holds up a mirror on what he has seen with amazing, startling, and disturbing clarity. It's disturbing, perhaps, because most people don't want to think that their ancestors weren't saints. I don't have that problem... It's the screwballs in a family tree that have the most to teach, I think, and denying the past is self denial - and self denial is probably the worst. It lends itself to an inflated sense of self in a world full of pins.

So I tossed that thought at Uncle Ram, and clocking around 80+ years, he validated that and said that the world was full of pins and the older one grows, the truer the shape. I boggle to think that I will grow to his age, or what shape I'll be in.

V.S. Naipaul is an honest writer. I think that's the best compliment that could be paid to him. He writes fiction that resounds of Gonzo journalism. The only way you can describe some things is if you've seen them and thought about them within a context. Framing that context is not the job of Naipaul in his books... it's something that perspective gives. Juxtapositioning perspective is something that I've only really started doing when I consider his work.

Too bad he isn't around here to tell both Uncle Ram and I that we're full of crap. :-)

Attempts To Write

I just couldn't get into rhythm after Uncle Ram left. Even free writing became choked, and as I thought of the act of choking, my attention turned to the yard. I sat on the back step, and listened to the rattle of the peepal leaves as the wind threw them against each other. Another cup of coffee, and the weeds started showing themselves in the art of the backyard - out of place brush strokes in the vision of a backyard that I fully intend to abandon, but... there is a joy in working toward the vision, so I continue.

Weeds. Interesting things, weeds. We uproot them when we want to remove them, shake the dirt from their roots so that they starve, and toss them in a heap (or bag them and toss them away). But they keep coming back; they persist, they will even grow in loops (see picture on right) to continue living. Their reward is to live a life of human disdain because they persist, because they defy, because they detract from what we would like to see. They kill the things we love not out of hatred, but survival.

How strange is it that while we will cheer for the underdog, we will curse that which we see as unattractive, or serving no purpose - and we will do that only because we consider it unattractive and we have not yet found a purpose. Some 'young' man who cut the grass in the yard during my absence last year rid the back of the fever grass because he thought it was a weed. He didn't know it was Cymbopogon citratus, that it makes a nice tea when you're sick... I don't know if it has therapeutic value, some say it does - but it doesn't hurt. And it has very dense roots that can hold ground in an amazing way - and the smell is very nice.

I wonder how many 'weeds' we pull without knowing it. The blogosphere often reminds me of that... how people are often attracted to 'pretty' ideas that are impractical - like flowers... and I wonder if the societal value of flowers is linked to anything of worth? The flower attracts birds and bees not just for it's benefit, but so that the plant can reproduce... put humans cut off the flowers and hand them to each other so that the flower attracts it's own suicide, yet propagates the species so that people can sell more.

An interesting thought to explore.

You can learn a lot in your backyard or anywhere else you go, depending on what you take with you. When a fool looks into anything, being a fool is a reward I suppose. When you look for the value in things, you find it too.

Why do people bag their grass and throw it away instead of saving it in a pile? Then they go out and buy fertilizer. I suppose that this is the difference between public domain, open content, and the Sonny Bono Act.

What a strange world you folks live in. I'm glad I'm just a tourist. People like throwing useful things away. Thus, you get proprietary software. Some people like open source. If people who use open source throw away their trimmings, well, there goes a perfect theory destroyed by fact. Again.

You see, I have this feeling that the world would be a better place if there were less people with the capacity to save it. A person with an 'ism' or 'acy' background may say that this reeks of an 'ism' or 'acy', and others might think that this is simply stupid. Yet, if one person can save the world, then everyone should be able to take care of their own backyard - and if everyone did take care of their own backyard, there would be no need to save the world and that one person would get bored and leave the planet. There's some accidental contextual humor there about space tourism, but it was purely accidental.

Heading back inside, I whisk my fingers over the mouse, check my bank account, and still no difference. I check email, and someone says that they are busy paying everyone from last year. Err. So, hey, if you knew you had a lot to do, why were you out until at least January 9th? And what, are things printed on used toilet paper? Wanna bet that someone got paid?

There are a few process weeds to pull there, I think. I now know why Six Sigma exists: To enforce common sense and a sense of responsibility on people who have more excuses than accountability. I'm sorry, maybe their parents should have hit them with the Dr. Spock book and knocked some of his words into them. This is why you'll never hear about Ockham's Razor and the raising of children. I'm not saying beat the snot out of children, what I'm saying is that a light touch now can spare all of us having to come down with hieroglyphs written on lodestone to knock them around with.

My father would have been more explicit about the lodestone, and would have omitted the hieroglyphics. Looking back, I remember him accompanying less than gentle touches with a simple word - 'Think!'. Looking back on how horribly hard that was, I can only imagine how hard it must be for adults who have never encountered a thought. It's all about balance.

Like weeds.

If you have a steep hill that can erode if you pull/cut ALL of the weeds at once, you manage the weeds and plant what you want in between. As time progresses, as it always does, things happen. I suppose that the first step for most people would be identifying the steep hill.

Enough philosophy. Back to work... I'm glad that I'm just a tourist on this planet.