Enough thought to last for a time

I have come to a sort of working comprehension of who I am in reference to myself. This is a pleasant understanding, and one achieved by slight but significant shifts of effort and emphasis over the past few years. I am less and less concerned with what needs to be done, or that category has simply lightened for me; while that which has been or is being done seems more complete and generous. So the work people accomplish and share delights me whereas, when I was younger, I woke up mornings with a critical gaze at everything around me. But then I was raised in a meritocratic family and cultural environment.

Even then, one's notions of what merits "merit" change over time. I care for honesty now like I did when I was a kid, so perhaps I have jettisoned intervening baggage or the baggage was kicked off the train by others. Hard to know. I am capable of silence. I am capable of speech. And somehow I am capable of knowing the difference and making better choices between the two. It has not always been that way with me.

And, for another thing, I have got poetry and publishing right for me. I am convinced that the best poems make for more poets, that the fact of writing is the purpose: full stop. I have returned to writing and publishing my books through the avenue of prayer, I believe, not by praying to write (God forbid!) but because the relevant mental/spiritual states are strictly analogous if not actually overlapping. It remained only to divest myself of certain inhibiting mental states (baggage, he says) that accompanied the act of writing - the presumptions and insecurities, generally speaking - and here we are: clean and alert. Happy to do nothing today or to write volumes. It's all the same to me.

So poems are written, sometimes drawings are drawn, assembled at some point, a cover is created and a title conceived (at times I have written to the title or even drawings, first, but that is not standard practice) and the whole is published via lulu (an independent, self-publishing platform), proofed, and approved for distribution. And I am done, free and open for what may come. I am my own editor and publisher. My publicist is sadly neglected as I do no readings, send out to no magazines, and basically do nothing more than to post the latest book to Facebook. I maintained for years a delicious shame originating in the idea that I did things this way because I could not do them the other way - by the way, don't delude yourself that shame is endemic only to religion: secular forces such as ambition prompt shame as surely as the Sunday sermon and with fewer recourses to remedy. 

But shame falls away with prayer, and perhaps that is how I returned to writing "clean and alert." I am not thinking of what isn't - which is a large, large, large category - but of what is, which is personal and thought-out. I no longer think of my writing against other writing. It is an act of conscience. The task then is to carry out the act conscientiously. This, lulu allows me to do. Thanks, lulu. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Endi and Jackson. And thank you, God. The more time I spend with you the more I enjoy being with myself.

Appraisals for the Mere

I published a mere 18 blogs in 2018 - 6 here and 12 at the other place (OpenCatholic). "Mere," which is fair, but not sad-making. Blogs seem quite old-fashioned of a sudden. I mean, who bothers to write occasional essays anymore, and in the sort of hum-drum language I use? I tried reading an article over at SI (Sports Illustrated) on the NFL (National Football League) playoffs and had to give it up; so exciting was the prose that I had no idea what was being communicated, except excitement. So I'll take my 18 in '18 and go about making it 19 or more this year, but whatever I end up with will be a good deal more than if I quit, which I have never seriously considered doing.

The WOP (World of Poetry) is exciting too, or what I hear of it. I see that I write blogs, as do a few other souls, and I even write poems - again, occasionally. I enjoy not writing even more than writing; or I am fond of it, dwelling on the afterlife of furious conceit. Thank God that's over, I think, and then I go about not writing poems. It's wonderful.

I merely work, tend to my family and friends, pray, run, read. As one example of what I do that is not writing, I've just come back from drinking coffee from my wife's cup. Does it taste better from my cup? she asked. It's more satisfying, I replied.

Good writing posits one in distinctions, and so silence is good writing, too. Quiet is better than a shout in Elecro-Land U.S.A. How I enjoyed playing the pinball machines at C.B.G.B.'s, especially PP (Pink Panther). Never did I dream I would live the last half of my life in one.

But writing that is useless - and I hope we are all agreed that the good poem at least offers itself as being useless or, strictly speaking, of no practical value whatsoever - that is almost as good as silence itself. Though I am wary of writing from a position of silence. That seems a bit hypocritical: isn't actual, effective silence the best possible argument against noise? I mean if we are committed to living our ideals, etc.

And, so, I have been churning in the background somewhat. I could and perhaps even should do more - upgrading websites to Wordpress, making some decisions to streamline this and regulate that, getting the "word" out. blah. blah. blah. But no. I like things just as they are, right now. Exactly now. I don't see that I have a position or school or point of view definitive enough to evangelize or defend. I think I will leave my religion to my religion and my poetry to the poetry and let it all come out as it will. Or perhaps life is made perfect in silence. I wonder....