Lists Quotes and One Liners

Lists are what you turn to when your not busy doing something else. As an after thought they're handy as a check list. If you save your lists they can become like a journal of sorts. Because a list tends to be within constant reach other things get put on the list. Quotes, ideas, one-liners and creative reminders litter the page with milk, cereal and toilet paper. I have volumes of lists that I've saved over the years. It's perhaps the most honest diary I've ever written. I've also saved receipts for years and have all of 2005 glued into the pages of pocket bibles. An artistic juxtaposition of extremes. Brutal trust and blind faith.

I consider writing my memoirs often and in various forms set out to do so many times over the years. I haven't stopped to look back and read much of what I've written. There's already at least a couple books that could be derived. The only book I have written I recalled after about a year of self publication and distribution. Just like much of the music I've recorded - I keep it away from people. Turns out the internet wasn't the cure all for artists but instead became a floodgate for thieves and plagiarists. [Side rant! Blogger spell check sucks anus! Google rocks, and it better, it owns the world. All hail Google the god that was mis-spelled. Oh the multiple levels of irony.]

Tell me if you can guess where this quote is from: "Very numerous examples of a like nature might be cited, clearly showing the fact, that only while under the dominion of fear do men fall a prey to superstition; that all the portents ever invested with the reverence of misguided religion are mere phantoms of dejected and fearful minds; and lastly, that prophets have most power among the people, and are most formidable to rulers, precisely at those times when the state is in most peril. I think this is sufficiently plain to all, and will therefore say no more on the subject." It was written in 1656 by Benedict De Spinoza. He was born a year after Galileo's indictment by the Spanish inquisition. You can read Spinoza's work at http://www.yesselman.com/ttpelws1.htm .

It may be true that in order to tell a short story- story tellers tell lies. But I'm not sure this is the only way or the best way. Post 1950 Hollywood archetypes are fading in favor of multi-dimensional characters. Ms. Phillips says that a whole person is a schizophrenic within the story mind. But I wonder if this is true as more people begin to demand complex characters. I understand to a degree the purpose of antagonist and protagonist in the story but I have a hard time submitting to their use. Perhaps this stems from wanting to portray people as they might become rather than what they are. Indeed a large percent of our species are drawn to simplicity and prefer a good excuse over an explanation. But we are still left with the need for an explanation least we suffer our own ignorance. Concurrently we must also survive as a symbiotic organism amongst those that insist upon archetypes. Science save us from your geometrists and essentialists.

In evolution there is a theory called dormancy. It refers to physiological changes in domesticated species and how those changes are restored when the species are set feral. Perhaps our own "artificial selective" processes of homogenizing our perspective and self domestication has created a dormancy that is only now being restored through the exercise of free thought and expression. Attaining our humanity through ferality. The return of our multi-dimensional sensory functions. Our need is not to evolve (which happens regardless) but to restore that which has been dormant.

Things are STILL not what they appear to be. Exposition is our savoir. I need another cup of coffee like I need radiation poisoning. Ahhhh death - the prize for living. Write on.